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> Build mixed income public housing, Singapore style. I work for a Singapore company, and the issues my coworkers complain about are that houses are leased for
by itake 2y ago
> Build mixed income public housing, Singapore style.
I work for a Singapore company, and the issues my coworkers complain about are that houses are leased for 99 years, have a 6-8 year waiting list, and are very expensive.
This makes it difficult to live near your office because you can't easily move. Many coworkers have 1.5-hour commutes one way via MRT.
None have shared this with me, but a huge amount of your assets are poured into an apartment that is a lease with an expiration date. In the USA, you can rely on home equity in your retirement, but if your lease is ending in 20 years, it's not valuable.
- wenc 2y agoI wonder if relying on home equity as an appreciating asset the cause of a lot of our problems in the US? A 99 year lease is a kind of estate duty that restarts the opportunity clock each generation. This way the kids will inherit less and really have to work to create their own wealth. The only thing they are able to inherit is early life preparation like education. I’m sure there are other advantages parents pass down to their kids but by imposing limits, social mobility is preserved.
- itake 2y agoMany people are terrible at saving. This is a problem for society, because a bunch of unhoused older people will cause big problems. societal tools that force people to save (Social Security, mortgages, opt out 401k) are great for addressing this issue.
- wenc 2y agoRight, and Singapore has the CPF system which entails mandatory contributions from employee and employer. This is supposed to be preventative of poverty in older age. So the 99 year lease isn’t an issue in practice. We have social security in the US which isn’t quite the same. Not sure if the public will ever accept CPF type systems — might feel too paternalistic to Americans.
- lttlrck 2y agoMaking 401K mandatory? With a minimum percentage? Yeah I wonder how that would go but if it meant you could opt-out of Social Security maybe it could work.
- itake 2y agoThey changed the law for 2025 so that new 401k by default are 3%. You can opt out tho
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- itake 2y agoMy issue with the 99 year lease, is it’s harder to pass down wealth to your kids, as there would be no home to give.. Maybe as a society, less generational wealth is a good thing.
- mullingitover 2y agoI think inherited wealth is downright cancerous to society. Ideally, we want to promote the most talented people into the positions where they have the most power and can wield it wisely. With inherited wealth, we instead give huge advantages to, not the talented, but the lucky, and we end up with incompetent leadership who are able to simply buy power with an inconsequential fraction of their wealth. When power is bought and not earned, you end up with people who do idiotic things with power. Eventually the society rots from within and is toppled by more efficient groups.