The morning session's last speaker was Mr. Donald Low who is an Associate Dean and Senior Fellow at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Mr. Low's training is in Behavioural Economics and something he said confirmed a suspicion of mine which is, left to their own devices, most people will not save for their retirement. When it comes to saving for retirement, there has to be a degree of compulsion as a vast majority will give in to present day wants and prefer immediate gratification.
Mr. Low also said that people overestimate their own abilities and are often overly optimistic. He feels that lump sum withdrawals increase the risk of monetary loss and that an annuity payment like the CPF Life is better.
He said many things about the genesis of the CPF and the huge political loss of 1984 and why raising of the withdrawal age (from age 55) ......