The moral dilemma of educating Mr. Shitcoin

 

I’ve finally found an interesting puzzle for readers to solve. 

Mr. Shitcoin is a friend of a friend, and his case study is very interesting and challenges the boundaries of what we mostly know about financial education and the morality of financial knowledge. According to a friend, Mr. Shitcoin was an ex-uniformed services personnel who is so gormless, well after age 55 he actually forgot or was wilfully blind to the idea that that he had money left in his CPF. 

So I started having a theoretical discussion with my friend and discovered two unresolvable dilemmas. 

( NB: As neither me or my friend is at age 55, we are still not clear administratively what happens when CPF knows that someone reaches that age. Nevertheless, I think it is still fun to think about these two moral issues. )

A) Whether Mr. Shitcoin should buy a high-end sports bike to reward himself.

The first point of friendly disagreement is whether Mr. Shitcoin should buy a high-end competitive bike to reward himself as a mid-life crisis reward. In our discussion, we agreed that Mr. Shitcoin is a nice agreeable fellow who lacks conscientiousness. 

My friend, who is more knowledgeable about bikes,  argued that this is a mid-life crisis so Mr Shitcoin should not buy a bike. High end bikes might also be faster and present a bigger danger to him. 

I argued otherwise.

I reasoned that a bike as a dream reward is nowhere near a European car, a divorce,  or, worse, a law degree which cost me $500,000 in opportunity costs. I reasoned that Shitcoin needs to buy a bike to get it out of his system so that he will feel that his life in public service was worthwhile. I explained that I cannot change my own position because my mid-life crisis was way more extravagant and my JD cost me $500,000 and I would replay the process of studying law all over again even if i knew that it would result in no career after that. I just need to get it out of the system much like a trip round the world.

B) Whether Mr. Shitcoin needs to know about pledging home equity to draw more money from his CPF 

Before I continue, none of us knows whether CPF would automatically allow the drawing of the maximum amount accounting for the home equity pledge when you reach 55 years of age. So I am unclear as to whether I need to explicitly pledge my property to withdraw an extra $90k from my CPF account. In my case, I hope to put ERS or $270k+into my CPF-RA, so this is not even an issue for me.

My friend reasoned that it is better not to inform Mr. Shitcoin of this option because he can’t handle his money on his own and this knowledge may destroy him as he will proceed to distribute his CPF to needy friends and relatives.

I took the opposing position that it’s our god given right to destroy ourselves with our own money and that this is not a loophole like the CPF Shielding hack. Home earners like Shitcoin earned the right to withdraw what is rightfully theirs so it is morally wrong to keep Mr Shitcoin in the dark. 

What do you readers think ? I think my friend has a point as equally valid as mine but we both agreed that he was Neutral Good and I am Lawful Evil in outlook hence the disagreement. 

Apologies to folks who thought this were a cryptocurrency post.