I think your reflexive disagreement is a testimony to the point of the article. And the fact that you didn't immediately notice what was the authors view vs what they were relaying, may be testimony to the author's good writing.
I found it to be an unexpectedly evocative piece, a kind of poetic prose style that I don't see very often in journalism, let alone tech journalism.
Each word seemed carefully chosen to make the reader almost fell like they were there, witnessing, understanding.
So, I can imagine the author being a little pleased that you reacted to that passage with a sudden skepticism. Seems like a very successful case of 'show, don't tell'.
> But you don’t understand. There won’t be any science if he is taxed because then he will leave and take all the money with him.
It's sad how many people truly believe this. Intelligent people, including tech workers, many of which have mistakenly convinced themselves they're not part of the working class.
Singapore is one of the last countries one will be a 'serf' in.
The parent contributor has conveniently left out the fact that the 37% of CPF contributions is split 20-17 in terms of employee-employer contributions[1], and has a ceiling of S$8000[2], so if one earns more than that, every additional dollar goes entirely to them, which is also taxed at globally low income tax rates[3]. One can put all one's post-tax money into any stocks/bonds/funds, and there is also no capital gains tax[4].
>The parent contributor has conveniently left out the fact that the 37% of CPF contributions is split 20-17 in terms of employee-employer contributions[1]
This point is a shell game, because the employer's share is still effectively being taken from the employee. It's equivalent of "tariffs are paid by foreigners!" that's trotted out for supporting tariffs.
I almost feel like the employee/employer distinction is actually worse than tariff fakery because at least tariffs are somewhat confusing to the average person, so you almost see why they get fooled.
But I feel like no-one would be fooled if you changed an e to an r on payslips (employee contribution to employer) - it's just obviously the same.
Yes. Bluntly put, the government maximizes residence of high net worth individuals, and a 37% forced purchase of low interest bonds would be outrageous to them.
You mean the US, right? Especially with the part 2?
I know this may sound like a shock because you are privileged but 7% yoy return on capital is NOT the norm for the rest of the world. Just look at any other index not called the S&P or the Dow. Look up US exceptionalism.
The US policy for retirement savings shackles the younger generation with a ticking time bomb. Forcing your own citizens to save money for themselves is a lot better than forcing your own citizens to pay for others. Which one is more morally cruel?
HK has a similar forced savings, but that ROI is like 1 or 2% and the options to invest are paltry.
Some perspective is necessary. Yes it’s not great but compared to the rest of the world it’s stellar.
> I know this may sound like a shock because you are privileged but 7% yoy return on capital is NOT the norm for the rest of the world. Just look at any other index not called the S&P or the Dow. Look up US exceptionalism.
I have sympathy for your general position, but this particular one is a bit silly: I live outside the US (in Singapore, in fact), and I can invest in US equity just fine.
I can’t speak for Singaporeans and every government has their detractors but the Singaporeans I’ve known loved their system and hated the western systems they were exposed to. They would laugh if you tried to describe their life as serfdom when compared to a life in the U.S. or Europe.
I'll be blunt and say most Singaporeans have a very poor idea of how these policies work. Another major one - virtually all Singaporeans believe they own their houses, and it is a point of pride and financial security. Most houses are on 99 year leases, but the idea that is deeply lodged is that this is longer than you can live so this is inconsequential. While this is true if they only cared about living in it, houses have huge financial/investment value to Singaporeans. Despite the iron mathematical law that these houses must depreciate their lease value, most Singaporeans believe house prices will continue to rise based on historical trends. The math just doesn't work out.
99 year leases make complete sense. Much of the value of a 'house' in an urban area like Singapore is actually in the land, and the value is being created by the community on a day-to-day basis. It makes no sense for that value to be captured for all future time by a single owner, that just encourages pointless speculation and makes it harder to allocate real estate towards its highest and most valuable use.
> It makes no sense for that value to be captured for all future time by a single owner, that just encourages pointless speculation and makes it harder to allocate real estate towards its highest and most valuable use.
How do 99 year leases fix the problem? Do people actually get kicked out at 99 years, or does the government renew it for a nominal fee?
The overwhelming majority of homes in Singapore are HDB flats built by the government. These are torn down and new, taller buildings fitting more people built in their place. It's called the Selective En-Block Redevelopment Scheme, or SERS[1]. People sell their flats to the government and are given new flats in other neighbourhoods, while their old homes are torn down and new ones rebuilt. So, yes, in some way, they are 'kicked out'.
If the lease gets renewed at market value then there's no point in speculating about what that land might be worth in the farther future. It's a key difference from a system where all of the future value must be captured at once by a single owner.
Doesn't that just turn into a property tax of 1% per year, without a massive tax bill every 99 years? 99 years is long enough that there's going to be at least 2 owners, which means all sorts of strategizing required on how to plan for the renewal of the lease.
> virtually all Singaporeans believe they own their houses, and it is a point of pride and financial security. Most houses are on 99 year leases
It's not as if the US fairs any better. Here you never own your home, you have to pay property taxes your whole life (basically rent) or it will be taken from you. Eminent domain means that they can take your property from you at any time even if you've kept paying them.
Singapore has a home ownership rate of ~90% vs 65% in the US and prices are so unaffordable that on average people buying their first starter homes in the US are in their 40s! Most Americans, if they're lucky will get maybe get 30 years of their life in a home they own while they are still young and healthy enough to enjoy it.
Last I heard Singapore only had about 1,000 homeless. Whatever they're doing with housing could probably be improved on, but they seem to be doing a lot better than we are.
Property taxes also apply in Singapore and I believe in practice eminent domain is rarely exercised. But the home ownership rate is the thing I feel the most I should correct. It is very heavily pushed that Singaporeans own their homes. But legally they are renters. By a proper definition, probably something like 90% of Singaporeans are renters, not home owners.
I think Singaporeans have a decent idea, and given their quality of lives, they have no problems with the trade-offs. If they do, they leave. And many go back, because the trade-offs in the West are even worse.
> Despite the iron mathematical law that these houses must depreciate their lease value
SERS means that houses slated to be torn down are resold back to the government at near-market rates excluding the effect of the 99-year leasehold.
In Singapore, the government owns everything, even ostensibly 'freehold' land. If they want to run an MRT line under your house, and they need to tear your house down to get to it, they will force you to sell your house and your land to them. Has happened before, will absolutely happen again. It's an island city-state smaller than London. There is literally no space anywhere else.
> If they want to run an MRT line under your house, and they need to tear your house down to get to it, they will force you to sell your house and your land to them.
Eminent domain exists in the U.S. and other developed countries too. The point of it is largely to prevent any single owner from "holding up" a non-trivial project like an MRT line.
I think whether houses should be sold on a 99 year lease vs property is a large and separate question. The vast misunderstanding of it still remains - the idea that a house is owned, not rented. Selective properties might be bought back. But the fundamental invariant of this whole situation is that all 99 year leases will worth 0 eventually. Any rise in prices now only increases the eventual depreciation. And add on that massive loans are taken out on depreciating assets, so it's not an investment, it's a liability. And the significant majority of Singaporeans bears this liability on their books.
That's not how it works. The flats aren't valued for their space in the sky; they are valued for the land they are attached to, and their proximity and connections to other communities and infrastructure. I've already said that flats slated for SERS are bought back by the government at market rates well in advance of their leases expiring.
> The vast misunderstanding of it still remains - the idea that a house is owned, not rented.
What you seem to greatly misunderstand is that land in Singapore is at an extreme premium, the likes of which is hitherto unseen anywhere else. With this context in hand, the idea of traditional 'home ownership' is fundamentally flawed in the first place, because unlike much larger countries, there isn't a large suburban or rural zone in which a new city can just be sprouted up. 750 square kilometres is all you have, and if you have to recycle existing land to maximise its use, so be it, and if it means 99-year leases, then that is the cost.
Given average human lifespans, the Western concept of a 'freehold' doesn't really make that much sense anyway, unless you want monarchies, oligarchies, or corporate dynasties monopolising prime land and settling into an even more predatory outright rental economy, which is already seen in most large cities elsewhere.
People don’t believe me when I tell them that there’s a large portion of even the American population that will happily accept the simplicity and safety of serfdom.
Unless we scale back our lives significantly, and are fine with a lot less stuff and vacations and devices and modernized living (houses and transit today are vastly more complex systems than a few decades ago), there simply is no way to let a large number of people live like rich people.
I grew up in East Germany, and while it was a total failure, they got at least one idea correct in the workers paradise: We need to work. (Never mind the implementation, I already said it was a total failure, okay? It's about problem recognition, not about the quality of the solution.)
And you know what? I'm actually like my grandfather, who without any need whatsoever continued to work well past retirement, privately, painting a house here, doing some paint shop there, designing and installing a sun dial somewhere. He only got off the scaffolding on a house's paint job a week before he died.
I too would hate to just laze around. I LOVE doing useful stuff. I worked and made money many times as a child already, and it was always fun!
What stopped the fun was the coming of The West (which I too went to the streets for and wanted, still, "side effects may apply"). While I studied CS I took a job in a chocolate factory, not because I needed the money, but because that's what I always did and was used to. Being in the production of stuff is actually FUN! Except then came some western management idiot to make it clear fun is over. I had just setup a machine to work as efficiently and as well as possible (because that's fun!), so now I had to wait a few minutes for it to finish. Just a few minutes, no time to start something else. So I briefly sat next to it and waited for it to finish. In comes the management idiot, immediately jumping on me, why am I lazing around??? That's not what they pay me for!
Just an anecdote, and of course it is much better in knowledge jobs, but that, and the fact that the money accumulates towards the top is what I think is a HUGE problem in today's capitalism. No wonder they have to make live as miserable as possible for the working majority, because there is no fun. The managers and owners think we don't want to work, and treat us accordingly. But it is THEM who are responsible for much of that.
Fair comment. Possibly, I'm being overly self-critical in that assertion.
AAP/AIP are designed to work as a conscience sidecar to Antropic/OpenAI/Gemini. They do the thinking; we're not hooked into their internal process.
So... at each thinking turn, an agent can think "I need to break the rules now" and we can't stop that. What we can do is see that, though in real time, check it against declared values and intended behavior, and inject a message into the runtime thinking stream:
[BOUNDARY VIOLATION] - What you're about to do is in violation of <value>. Suggest <new action>.
Our experience is that this is extremely effective in correcting agents back onto the right path, but it is NOT A GUARANTEE.
Live trace feed from our journalist - will show you what I'm talking about:
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