In Hard Truth why PAP wins and wins I wrote about goodies for oldies from the PAP govt as its way of of bribing making sure that the vast majority of the Pioneer and Merdeka Generations continue voting for the PAP. As far as I’m concerned, we got the money for this and more, a lot more. Think of the buget surpluses: How we fund our SWFs
But if the cybernuts are right that our reserves have been lost, implying that the income from our reserves that goes into the Budget is fake $, then we are in trouble.
After all over the last 10 years, Singapore’s net investment returns (NIR) contribution (NIRC) to the Budget has more than doubled from S$7 billion in FY2009 to an estimated S$15.9 billion in FY2018.
Waz this NIRC and NIR BS?
NIRC consists of 50 per cent of the Net Investment Returns (NIR) on the net assets invested by GIC, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Temasek Holdings and 50 per cent of the Net Investment Income (NII) derived from past reserves from the remaining assets.
In other words, we spend 50 per cent of the estimated gains from investment, and put the remaining 50 per cent back into the reserves to preserve its growth for future use.
Associate Professor Randolph Tan is Director of the Centre for Applied Research at the Singapore University of Social Services, and a Nominated Member of Parliament.
The money finally runs out because of too many bribes goodies for voters to keep them voting for the PAP. So if there’s really no money because the reserves are squandered as alleged by Phillip Ang (CPF class action: Phillip Ang’s “reply’ to fellow cybernut) and other cybernuts, then S’pore under the PAP will become like UK and Venezuela.
In the UK
‘Everything is just stretched to its limit’
“There are more people requiring services,” says Simon. “We’re an ageing population and there are more children in schools. It’s alright them saying they’re putting more money in, but per individual it doesn’t equate.”
Like many locals, the men are worried about Scarborough Hospital, which is part of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. It is facing a reorganisation and locals fear departments could be closed in their town.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45968036
And in Venezuela
From schoolteacher to cleaner
Maria Eugenia Carrillo was enthusiastic about the system of free schooling introduced by Hugo Chávez in the early 2000s. But increasing pressure by her bosses to include political content in lessons bothered her. And then there was the poverty.
“I saw my children sick and hungry, their parents looking for food among the rubbish and diseases like measles running rampant through the school,” she says.
“When parents came to pick up their children they stopped asking ‘what did you learn today?’ and asked instead: ‘What did you eat today?'”
Image caption “I always dreamed of living and dying in Venezuela.”
The 52-year-old teacher says that the political pressure caused her so much stress that her fibromyalgia became more acute – until she decided she had to leave Venezuela, flying to Madrid in October 2017.
Without official papers, she has no chance of working as a teacher, and is cleaning homes for cash.
“I always dreamed of living and dying in Venezuela,” she says. “I even had a beach house until a Chavista [a supporter of Venezuela’s government] took a shine to it and moved in. I couldn’t do anything. I was paralysed by the fear of being arrested.”
And
The irony of Spain and Venezuela’s reversal in fortunes is not lost on Cándido Soengas, who escaped poverty and dictatorship in 1950s Spain by crossing the Atlantic.
Now, he has been forced to return to Spain, as living conditions unravelled in the Venezuelan capital.
“I never expected to come back,” 87-year-old Mr Soengas says in the garden of his Madrid retirement home, reminiscing on the life he and his late wife made for themselves in Caracas.
“I was happy in Venezuela. There were always people about to lend me a hand and when I brought my children up, we wanted for nothing.”
“They were good times.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45640307
“They were good times,” hopefully I won’t say this 25 yrs from now when I’m his age.
The ** explained that the spike in inflation here is caused by some one-off stats adjustment of data base. So not really comparable to other countries. But try telling that to cybernuts like Oxygen or Phillip Ang.
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 