The solutions oozing out for the aged

The solutions oozing out for the aged Boon Heng has come up with his first gem after his 6 days tour of Japan. Don't withdraw too early to extend the fun or fund. 3 more years before the minimum sum can be withdrawn. And this comes with many benefits. Senior workers will now have the opportunity to work till 65 or 70, and protected by legislation. Their savings will grow, and earn another 3 more years of interest. And they will not squander away their money too early. In a nutshell, their future is safe and sound. I am wondering, why, if they could work so many years more, which means they will have more income than outcome, at least until 65 or 70, depending on when they stop working, these years should be net surpluses. Why should the minimum then be increased further when their non economic lifespan is now shorter? Should the need for the minimum sum be lessen instead of increasing? Or they need to live on gold during their golden years? I know that they burn gold papers.

yes, we are progressing

An article posted by an overseas Singaporean in Sammyboy Five years ago, if someone were to suggest to me that Singaporeans should always come first, whether with regard to housing, healthcare or education, I would have agreed readily. But as you can tell from my recent posts, I have become more skeptical about these "Put Singaporeans First" instincts. Back in the 1980s, faced with competitive pressures from Japan, there was also a 'Buy America' campaign. Today, 'Buy America' is probably targeted at cheap Chinese imports. But to those of us who are beginning to understand how inter-connected the world is, such efforts are looking increasingly futile, and are in fact detrimental to the people they are supposed to benefit. It became somewhat of a joke when it latter transpired that many made in America products in fact had foreign components. Looking beyond goods and services, globalisation has also resulted in greater movement of people from their countries of birth. Immigration and emigration are on the rise everywhere. I mentioned before that 1 in 10 British nationals actually live overseas even as Britain experiences large scale immigration. Singapore, being a global city-state, is not immune to these forces. I dare say that on the whole, we have benefitted greatly from it. We have many non-citizens (permanent residents, permit holders) working here for large parts of their lives. Many are becoming as Singaporean as you or I. Similarly, there are many Singaporeans working, studying, living overseas for an extended period of time. I am a Singaporean, but I do receive some British welfare benefits because I am studying here. With the influx of non-locally born students or working professionals to Singapore, competitive pressure inevitably arises - as is reflected in rising rents, house prices, transport congestion or university places. Faced with competitive pressure, the natural instinct is to adopt a 'Put Singaporeans First' mentality. There are also those in Britain demanding that welfare for foreigners be cut, and that British citizens should come first. Why should we worry about putting citizens before every one else? Firstly, it has become increasingly difficult to meaningfully categorise people into citizens and non-citizens based on the passports they hold, and conduct redistribution policies that way. For example, many permanent residents have lived in and contributed to Singapore for decades. Many have Singaporean spouses and Singaporean children. Secondly, even if we give the Singaporean priority to everything, healthcare, university education and what not, he or she could easily emigrate to another country after consuming all the benefits (ah big beautiful house and nice lifestyle in Australia). Being open and free means that citizens can easily pack up and leave. The fact that one has to be a Singaporean citizen at the point of consuming taxpayer-funded benefits does not guarantee that it will be taxpayers' money well-spent. Who is a taxpayer? Foreigners who work here pay taxes too, GST if not income taxes. Though it has become a cliche to say that the world has become more open and borders more porous, we still have not really accepted this at the emotional level. Many of you will no doubt disagree with me on this and believe that we citizens should always come first. But I hope to convince you at least that old comfortable assumptions we have will not always hold today. I fully agree with what he said. He is not only a Singaporean with talent, but also have breathed in fresh foreign air. So he can be a bit airy but the talent he showed in his arguments is a gem. We should do away with citizenship and embrace globalisation. This will be a first that we can claim and welcome everyone here as equals to all Singaporeans without distinction. We are progressing, very well towards the day when we can discard the name Singapore and call ourselves international citizens.

Concern over greying

Siew Kum Hong was concerned about the future of the greying population. He forgot that Lim Boon Heng is now looking at the problem full time. There should not be any problem when Boon Heng comes up with his solutions. Kum Hong's concern is that the greying population, especially the rich and able, will find a better and cheaper place to live. They are disenchanted with the life for the aged here. What could they do when the cost of being old is so expensive? And Boon Wan has also worked very hard, together with the CPF, to make sure that the old have money to keep themselves alive, and to feed the hospitals. The best solution actually is for them to take out all their CPF savings and move to a cheaper country to live. How can they afford such an expensive Singapore when they could live in easy comfort say in Sri Lanka or Malaysia? There are many options available out there. There is no need to think so hard of what to do with them. The solution is very simple actually. No need to exercise the brain juice of expensive brains.

World best civil service

The Accenture reports put the Singapore Civil Service as the best in the world. No surprises here. How else could the country run so well and for so long. The civil service is the backbone of the country's development, but often their role was underplayed. There were gripes about some inefficiencies here and there. What's so surprising and difficult to understand about this? Only God will think that he is perfect and cannot tolerate a little complaints. All earthlings are imperfect and will have slips or imperfections here and there that will draw flakes now and then. No matter how good is a system, there must be flaws, big or small. This is the realities of life. Despite all the imperfections, we indeed have a really good civil service.

Selling of core national assets

I greeted the news of the selling of our power stations with jittery. The big motherhood statements like liberation, another version of privatisation, are used to justify the move. It will definitely not affect the consumers. What an assurance. Can any vouch that this will not happen? In the past, all the privatisations were sold as the panacea for efficiency and cost reduction. What happened? Only the reverse. But the selling of the country's core assets is a different kettle of fish. Many disturbing questions come to my mind. Do we need the money? What are we going to do with the money? Buy sick foreign companies at a premium since no one is going to sell good and healthy companies except us? Or is the technology of the power station going to be obsolete that it is better to sell them now? The questions of national security is well answered and taken care of. And the consumer's and nation's interests are guaranteed to be protected. All thought through. The sale will only have benefits. Benefits to who? When all the concerns are addressed and confidently predicted that they will not become a problem, what can that we cannot sell? And it was also reported that the changes will not alter prices. For how long? We will see and monitor this again in a year or two down the road.