Member-only story
I recently had the opportunity to attend an Informal Policy Dialogue for Grassroots Leaders with my Grassroots Adviser.
While the issues raised at the dialogue were about GST and healthcare, the discussion, by necessity, expanded to issues like the impact of the War in Ukraine, Sino-US relations, the price of oil, supply chain, CPF interest rates, and home ownership.
Singapore, like any other country, is a system of systems with each system interacting dynamically internally and with the other systems. A small tweak in any one element of any of the systems will have ripple effects throughout the entire system which may unbalance it and bring about unintended consequences.
A case in point being raising the interest rates paid for our CPF deposits. While this will appear to benefit Singaporeans, it will affect the next generation of homeowners who will have to pay higher HDB home loan rates. Current homeowners, who are using their CPF to pay their mortgage, will also be impacted as they will have to repay more to the CPF when they resell.
My takeaway from the dialogue is that policymaking is complex and, at its essence, is about balancing trade-offs. I urge my friends to be wary of "simple solutions" as, in a complex system of systems, there are no simple solutions.
