And part of the balance will eventually go to CPF Life, which does not even have a guaranteed minimum monthly payout.

I suppose the run on CPF can only occur if everyone starts giving up the Singapore citizenship.

singapore does not rely on debt for funding purposes.

you see the IRs… not much government funding. mainly private investment.

the biggest government debt is CPF… and terms of repayment are dictated by big brother.. so….

Frankly speaking, I have not been tracking what is the current state of affairs of our foreign reserves. Certainly not those managed by Temasek and GIC. Also, Temasek has in the past couple of months tapped into the bond markets a few times.

We are pretty much on our own as we do not have a rich oil brother to bail us out if things fail.

One thing that has always been going for us is that we have been in a safe and strategic location.

After reading your article and watching the video, I see a number of glaring similarities between Dubai and S’pore.

Both are small states, have virtually no natural resources, have uber-ambitious plans (viz to make themselves global cosmopolitan cities, a financial hub of the region, a tourist hub, an airport hub, an expanding airline etc). Also, both states are overly reliant on “foreign talent”, have property prices sky-rocketing etc etc etc.

The main difference I see is that Dubai has been thriving on borrowed money, while sg has less int’l borowing and a huge foreign reserve. [Pls correct me if I am wrong here.]

With this possible difference in mind, do you feel that sg is also going down a slippery slope, though not as severely as in Dubai? Tks.