I
read with amusment and contempt at the latest announcement of PM
Lee’s decision to give $9000 to every male Singaporean who have
completed his National Service liabilities as a distorted and
twisted means of appeasing the local population in a feeble attempt
to placate the locals and assuring them that Singaporeans’ interest
are still “first” in the eyes of the PAP.
Insincerity of the Monetary Compensation
Perhaps the glaring and most obvious slap into the face of every
male Singaporean is the fact that the $9000 monetary compensation
for the 2.5 years that every male wastes in his National Service
liability is that it comes in the form of CPF “money” and not cash.
As much as the PAP would like us to think of our CPF money as our
own money, the reality of the situation speaks otherwise. While
there may be current seniors who were lucky enough to escape the
recent spat of changes of ever more restrictive options of
withdrawing CPF, a realistic analysis of the past behavior of PAP
and their management of CPF will lead almost anyone under the age
of 40 to conclude that he is probably unlikely to ever see his CPF
retirement savings in his lifetime. With schemes like raising the
Minimum Sum, raising the Retirement Age and most recently the
reduced payout from CPF LIFE, as a mid-20s male citizen I am fairly
confident that the only way that I will ever see my CPF money is
when both my feet are in the coffin (an analogy that implies that
the CPF money can only be withdrawn upon death or at a very old
age). Thus, this token sum of $9000 CPF “money” that the PAP has
offered is probably as useful as the “hell notes” that the Chinese
burn as an offering to their ancestors. Quite simply, it is
useless.
Inadequacy of Monetary Offer
Another slap into the face of every male Singaporean is the fact
that TWO AND A HALF YEARS of the prime
of our lives is only worth a pathetic $9000. In other words, the
PAP has deemed that each male citizen is worth $3600/yr to $4500/yr
(depending on whether you served 2.5 or 2.0 years of NS). In
comparison, it makes every male citizen (in terms of monetary
value) as valuable as the domestic maid you may have employed in
your house. In fact, if one were to do a more accurate calculation
and factor in the additional 10+ years of reservist liabilities,
one will soon realize that (in terms of monetary
value) maids have more value than male citizens in
this country. Perhaps this was the point that PAP is
trying to make – the lives of the male citizens in this country are
less valuable than a maid, and probably approaching the value of a
slave.
How Much is a NSMan Really Worth?
The
following section attempts to calculate how much monetary
compensation the PAP owes every male Singaporean. We shall use the
most simple model to benchmark the lifetime earnings of a male
Singaporean to that of a foreign “talent”. This models assumes the
current age of 40 for the hypothetical person, 2 years of NS
liability for the Singaporean, and 4 years of tertiary education
for both the local and the foreigner, a starting salary of
$30,000/yr, and an annual increment of 6.0%. With reference to the
“Difference in Culumative Salary” column which denotes how much
more a foreigner can earn in comparison to a local, the table below
quite convincingly shows that a male citizen, age 40 as of this
year should be entitled to claim around $150,000 based on the
differential lifetime earning power when compared to a foreigner
who has no such NS liability. In addition, to a first
approximation, the table may be also used to derive the monetary
entitlement for the compensation of National Service liability of
any male from the age of 23 to 40 by looking up the respective
value at the last column. When compared to the lowest value
entitled for a 23 year old, which is $30,000, it does not take a
genius to figure out that the $9000 monetary compensation from the
PAP (even assuming it was paid out in cash) in a gross
underestimate of how much the current government owes its male
citizens.
Does the PAP really owe every NSMan up to
$150,000?
The numbers from the table above may be shocking, but mathematics
does not lie. To a first approximation, the PAP owes
every male citizen from age 23 to 40 a sum ranging from $30,000 to
$150,000. However, perhaps the more disturbing fact is
that the figure is an approximation and the real value
is likely to be higher. In this short study, we have
failed to consider factors such as the preferential employment of
foreigners over the locals and the higher retrenchment,
unemployment and underemployment rates of locals. Moreover, we have
also failed to account for investment returns from one’s savings
which generate a geometric return over time, and given that a
foreigner has a 2 year headstart compared to a local, this
difference will accumulate to a non-trivial sum by age 40. Thus, it
is the author’s honest assessment that the assumption of both the
local and foreigner having the same annual increment of 6.0% is
most likely incorrect and not realistic. In reality, a local will
experience a lower annual increment value (or perhaps even an
annual “decrement” value due to retrenchment/underemployment) over
his working lifetime. Nevertheless, the short study provided here
does provide a decently accurate estimation of
the lower limit figure of how much the
PAP owes its male citizens.
Garrett Goh
* Garrett Goh is a recent graduate from the National University
of Singapore. To a first approximation, he calculates that the PAP
owes him $65,000 in compensation for the 2.5 years he wasted in
National Slavery Service.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/08/31/pm-lee’s-9000-“carrot”-to-nsmen-is-an-insult-to-all-male-singaporeans/
