2006-05-13 05:59:00

Current mood: apathetic
there really seems to be more babies around these days. Is it because of the baby bonus nonsense? are singaporean so myopic that a cash bribe of a mere $1,500 per child will suffice to entice young marrieds to bring forth new life?

here’s the low down on the baby bonus nonsense according to the blurb from
“Children Development Co-Savings (Baby Bonus) Scheme

Singaporeans do want more children. They agree that three would be ideal, according to a Government survey. But the lack of time, energy and money are cited as reasons for not having the dream family size. The Baby Bonus Scheme, first introduced in April 2001, has been enhanced to support parents’ decision to have more children by helping to lighten the financial costs of raising children.

The scheme now also benefits the first and fourth child born on or after 1 August 2004. The first child will receive a cash gift, while the second to fourth child will receive both a cash gift and a co-savings matching contribution from the Government.”

Here’s my point… you give $1,500 cash to the 1st and 2nd children and $6,000 cash to the 3rd and 4th. Big fat hairy deal. Where does the cash go? Paying the hospital bills? Why? Coz the bloody hospitals know it… so what do they do? They crank up the bills. They bloody charge you for all sorts of nonsense. But that’s not my biggest beef. My biggest beef is the stupid “Co-Savings in Children Development Account” crap. From the second child onwards, the Government matches your contribution dollar for dollar up to $6,000 for the 2nd kid and up to $12,000 for the 3rd and 4th kids. So if I stick in $6,000 and/or $12,000, it’ll be matched by the Government to give amounts of $12,000 and $24,000 respectively. Wow. Not bad. Right. Here’s my philosophy on Money… the Man always wins… the House always wins… you get the idea. Let’s lay this out:

A) POSB Only

The account can only be started in POSBank. I’m wondering WHY POSBank and only POSBank? Is it because they merged with DBS and everyone’s going to DBS anyways? What’s up with the whole sch-bang deal anyways? I maintain it’s a means by which to fill up the coffers of POSBank¹. Which not only saw a steady decline in the 50’s but saw another decline after the merger in the early 90’s. Who says? I bloody say so. Massage the numbers all you want, it’s obvious that POSBank targets the heartlanders with their “quantity not quality” syle of management/marketing. What POSBank needs desperately is a serious INFUSION of moola. Just like they did in the early 80’s, with the silly squirrel saver campaign². What do banks do with that all that deposit money? Well doesn’t it all then boil down to the history of money?³. They invest it and lend it to other buggers. Who’s the ultimate winner? Duh! So here’s the problem, the Emperor rules the country with an iron fist designed to look and feel like a feather boa, and so there’s literally zero competition. Every bank gives you the same low down, effed up rate of a miserable 0.125%. That’s 0.00125.

For every $1,000 I stick in POSB, I get a whopping $1.25. Per annum no less. WTF.

B) Approved Institutions

Now this money can’t be used by anyone but “approved institutions.” That’s like saying, “why don’t you suck up to me, bribe me legally, pay my fees, get my approval for your ‘educational’ activities and I’ll put you in my ‘approved’ list.” Sheesh. Now let’s say this money isn’t all used, where does it go? Can you say “EduSave?” Good. Now follow that train of thought, what if EduSave isn’t completely used up? Can you say, “CPF?” Why would our children need a shit load of money in CPF starting at such a young age? Coz of the LIBERALISATION of cpf? What the heck is going on? The money we’re sticking in is simply being rolled over and over and over, back in to guess who? The Government. Brilliant. And this is on top of the CPF that we contribute. If CPF is so darned good, why do we need to start working towards the Minimum Sum at birth?? WTF?!

Now imagine this… every married couple has an average of 3 kids which might possibly mean they stick in about $18,000 in total. Say there are a miserable 1million couples… that’s a $18,000,000,000. Let’s say the bank/edusave/cpf invests this insane amount of money at a meagre 10% return per annum…. for 20 years no less. Can you go, “!!!”? Fuck. Even if you match 18,000, spread that over 20 years and it’s still about 1,000 a year… now what’s 1,000 divided by 18,000? 0.055…? FIVE FUCKING PERCENT? Tsk.

And the Winner is…. *DING* DING*

What did I say? Who da man? Who yo’ daddy? The Man. The Man. The MAN. Ah but wait. There is a caveat to this “rule.” The Rich. If I was rich enough to drop in the stinking $6,000 and/or $12,000, 1 month after the birth of my children, who cares? What’s $6,000? What’s $12,000? One slug?⁶.

The Rich

The Rich might also go, “meh… what’s a slug or 2?” right? Right. Absolutely. But the Rich didn’t become rich by biting the hand that feeds. Who’d go, “you’re giving me money? Seriously? No thanks!” Fuck. They’d probably go, “Sure thanks for the money, I really need it to feed my family. *rolls eyes*” Then they’d take another $20,000 they had, stick it in a nice foreign bank⁷ that pays a shit load more interest for a regular savings account. then there’re the fixed deposit sort of accounts. Choices aplenty! Of course then they’d take another $20,000 and stick in derivatives or something. No risk, no return!

Jooles you DUMBASS

What? I digressed? Not really. Sorta. Maybe. Kinda. Are there more kids? I think so. I’m pretty sure there are coz Singaporeans, especially of the heartlander inclination, will only see the small stuff, not the cold light of day. Whee! We get $3,000 for having sex and having a child. Myopic indeed.

Notes

1: See history of POSBank according to Wikipedia.org. “The Post Office Savings Bank was established on 1 January 1877 in the General Post Office Building, in Raffles Place by the British Government. The bank had a relatively glorious past; by 1951, the bank had its 100 000th depositor, and followed a slow decline after the reaching its peak in 1955.

The bank became part of the Postal Department prior to independence, and it was only after independence when the then Minister for Finance, Goh Keng Swee, who rediscovered the potential of the bank to develop the infrastructure of the infant citystate.

In 1972, the Post Office Savings Bank, or commonly referred as the POSB or POSBank by then, was made a Statutory Board under the Ministry of Communications. Prior to the consolidation, the Post Office Savings Bank Act of 1971 was passed to govern the structure and operational efficiency of the bank. In 1974, POSBank was transferred to become part of the Ministry of Finance; Credit POSB Pte Ltd was established in the same year to provide custom-tailored loans relating to HDB housing ownership.

By 1976, POSBank had one million depositors, while deposits crossed the S$1 billion mark. In 1980, it introduced the Passcard, and set-up the Principal Branch. In 1981, its first Cash-On-Line ATM machine opened at the Newton Branch. In 1983, its headquarters were shifted to the new 8-storey complex, the POSBank Centre at Bras Basah Road. In 1984, the current account facility was introduced, and by 1986, deposits crossed the S$10 billion mark.

The Post Office Savings Bank was renamed as POSBank as of March 1990, and subsequently fully acquired by DBS Bank on 16 November 1998, at the same time, ceased to exist as a statutory board under the Ministry of Finance. POSBank still operates one the highest number of bank branches in Singapore, especially in the suburban neighbourhoods, and operates the highest number of ATM outlets throughout Singapore. The integration of both banks allowed customers of either bank to share the facilities; DBS Bank depositors may use the Cash Deposit Machine installed islandwide in POSBank branches, likewise for POSBank depositors.”

2: Yes I remember the stupid campaign. I still see in my mind’s eye the damned squirrel (which I can’t find an image of… did they bloody get so embarrased with it that they destroyed all evidences of it?)

3: You gotta make money grow; So sometime in history when shells⁴ were the currency of the day, there was this guy — let’s call him BenQue⁵. So BenQue goes to shell-rich CrabMan and says, “Yo, dude. Give me all your shells and I’ll give you 1 shell for every 10 shells you give me. I promise to keep it safe for you and I promise that you’ll get your 10 extra shells for your every shell when Cancer next appears in the heavens. (So there we have the basic idea of interest.) So CrabMan goes, “WTH, why not. What have I got to lose?” and proceeds to give BenQue 1,000 shells.

BenQue then goes to Swamp (dweller) Loser and says, “Hey dude… I like you, and I think you could do better than living in a dump like this. What say I give you 300 shells and you can move on up the bank away from all this muck and slime, and concentrate on being dry WHILST still managing your slug-farming activites. You can farm more slugs, sell more slugs because you have to spend less time draining the family bedroom of slime, whenever the tide comes in. You could probably sell 5 times more slugs than you normally sell. In return when the Twins — Gemini appear in the sky you give me 2 shells for every shell I give you? How’s that? If you sell your slugs at 1 shell each, instead of making the 10 shells a day, you’d might be able to earn 50 shells a day! Now is that a bargain or what? So Swamp Loser says,”hey… now that’s not a bad idea… the stupid non swamp dweller doesn’t know the business as well as i do… I could probably sell 10times more slugs! And I’d still come up tops!”

So here we have it. Ultimately who wins?

4:No really. Let’s just assume shells were a form of currency. You know the like, usually from animals of class crustacea and their friends of the exoskeletal nature.

5: BenQue… BenQ… Ben-Q… Ban-Q… Banque… BANK?? It’s not as direct as naming a building YENOM, but it’s the same cheena-fied idea. (YENOM… MONEY?? Duh.)

6: See Note 3 on the Swamp (dweller) loser and his Slugs

7: in say, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, or any where else for that matter.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 11:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.