371–380 of 488 posts
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So you think healthy living will prevent you from needing medical care until you are 65 ?
For the chronic stuff, yes. For acute accidents, who knows! With carnivore: I'm off almost all meds, my mobility and flexibility are amazing these days (I am sitting on the floor right now with crossed legs).
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I have never in my 30 year career paid more than $10K a year for health care across 10 jobs and that’s including working at Amazon with their shitty benefit package
In my 15 year career, I have never paid less than $10k per year for just me and my wife for health insurance. And I basically try to pick the most sensible and affordable option, not luxury plans.
And if you want data instead of anecdotes
https://www.business.com/articles/health-insurance-costs-thi...
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The CPF sounds pretty clever. It covers a major individual cost and need (retirement, medical, housing) instead of just throwing it into a tax. It makes the government money. This sounds like a win win kind of policy.
To me it sounds like a tax structured in a strange way so it doesn't obviously read as a tax. It's essentially a forced loan to the government at subpar rates. The "tax" is the delta between what the government pays out for the bonds vs what a bond of equivalent risk in the free market would have paid. The magnitude of the investment also probably makes it impractical for anyone but the very wealthy to retire before…
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You can retire whenever you want. The government decides when to start funding it. As for why - the same reason why they get to decide what side of the road you drive on and what laws you follow. They rule the patch of land you were born on, and if you don't like it you can either participate in the system (assuming it's a democracy) or leave.
This boils down to a "Might makes right" claim. It doesn't answer the question why. Only how.
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Listening to political speeches from Singapore are so refreshing compared to the juvenile garbage that we have to endure in the US from US politicians.
That’s true across much of the world. It’s also true past vs present. Listen to US politicians even as recently as the 1980s vs now. Our political class today is justifiably a pathetic laughing stock.
The comparison of today vs then is frankly shocking.
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I worked with a guy from sg. He gave me tips for when I went to visit. He hooked me up with a family member that showed me the backend a bit. The country effectively runs on a slave class. You must drive a new vehicle under 5 years old, and the license just to buy a car was $90,000 or so. This means an entire class of people that will be taking the bus to do your laundry and clean your house for the rest of their liv…
> The country effectively runs on a slave class. I really wish people would not throw this word around so casually, it is disrespectful to the many millions of people over the course of human history (and today!) who were forced under threat of violence or death to labour without remuneration. Of course Singapore's migrant worker system is open to criticism, but every single one of those workers can resign tomorrow a…
> The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass initially declared "now I am my own master", upon taking a paying job. However, later in life he concluded to the contrary, saying "experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other"
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In my 15 year career, I have never paid less than $10k per year for just me and my wife for health insurance. And I basically try to pick the most sensible and affordable option, not luxury plans.
In the last 15 years I’ve worked for: General Electric when it was still a F10 company and more recently Amazon along with a 60 person startup where the family plan was $150 a month. (2018-2020) and two mid size companies in between and now I work for a mid size 1000+ person consulting company And if you want data instead of anecdotes https://www.business.com/articles/health-insurance-costs-thi...
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I reentered the US from Windsor a few months ago and the Nexus line was backed up but could just sail through the regular line once they inched enough past the tunnel.
Sure, all bets are off as of January 2025. In the past, it wasn't a big deal.
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> while commuting each day to a developed country Must be a fully automated border or something? That kind of commute would be unthinkable between e.g. Canada and the USA for most folks
Woodlands is the busiest immigration checkpoint on the planet and it's only 1 of 2 crossings. It's fairly seamless for regulars apart from Friday afternoons when it gets clogged up by escaping Singaporeans keen for the weekend and the quality/value offered by their poorer neighbour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlands_Checkpoint
It appears to be the world's second busiest checkpoint now though if you count the Macau to China checkpoint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_checkpoint#Busiest_chec...
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I agree with you that the migrant workers are effectively a serf class. However, I think it's fine that the SG government severely discourages owning a car. It's a small island with lots of people, there would be gridlock if everyone wanted their own car. The public transportation system is amazing and works well.
> I agree with you that the migrant workers are effectively a serf class. Sounds like the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics? Or 'out of sight, out of mind'?