Only the healthy live past 85

Would this statement be true? I think generally this should be the case. Those that have a lot of medical problems will highly likely to knock off earlier, in their 60s or 70s. And these people will use up their Medisave faster. There will be a few exceptions of course. For those healthy oldies, could they live on the huge sum of $30 left in their Medisave at 85? By this age, I don't think they would want to waste on expensive medical operations to prolong their lives further. Even those in their 70s may not want to do so. If they have live past 70 healthily, they should be allowed to used their Medisave as a replacement for annuity. What the fuck is the $30k for if they cannot use it while living? To be buried with them? Would any MP bring this suggestion up in Parliament, that the oldies, once past 75, be allowed to dip into their Medisave and not let their hardearned money go to waste? In fact, with a little modifications, the Medisave is a ready alternative waiting to be used as a substitute for annuity. Why the need to build another huge sum of money to be set aside? Putting so much money aside is a luxury that the poor cannot afford. Only people who have millions of dollars can do that and think that the poor also must be coerced to do the same.

Cull the CEOs

Gan Kim Yong is cracking his brains to find out more ways to make organisations employ more older workers. One area to look at is the CEOs. There are still many CEOs that are anti oldies. They will get rid of oldies at the earliest opportunities. You could hear some making remarks that the old farts should not be around or giving instructions to HR to retire them at the first opportunity. Definitely no more hiring of old farts. What the ministry and trade union can do is to open a channel for people to send in their complaints of such violation. Let the whistle blowers blow their whistles. I think that is another way to contain the problem. Cull the CEOs that are the source of this employment problem.

Best suggestion from Lily Neo

The govt is going to fund the extra 1% given to CPF account holders from the interest CPF is earning. How long have CPF been earning this extra interest that it can now pay the people 1% more? And how much interest has CPF been getting all these years relative to how much it is paying to the CPF account holders? Does anyone know? With the good performance of Temasek and GIC, Lily Neo's suggestion of pegging CPF interest to them at -2% is one of the best suggestion so far. And given the track records of these two agencies, did I hear 18% return?, -2% still gives a return of 16%. Swell! But let' not be too ambitious, make it -4% to give the agencies some incentives to make the money work harder but with a guaranteed return of 4%. Now that will be cool.

A chicken and egg story

The kpkb in the internet was not in vain. Ok, maybe the govt did not listen to cyberspace whiners. But the govt is listening and will take note of the unhappiness raised by the public through all the channels available. We will see more in dept study of the annuity plan before it is being push out to the people. But changes there will be to revamp the CPF withdrawal plans. The new scheme plus the bonus for deferred withdrawal will cost the govt $1.2 billion each, or $2.4 billion in total if I heard it correctly. The govt appears to be very generous in this area. But someone has to foot the cost, all $2.4 billion. There is no free lunch. We would have to wait for Eng Hen to explain how he is going to pay for this proposal. Before the chicken are out we need to know who is going to lay the eggs. I think we all know the answer.

Role of Internet in the Odex Saga

Can the internet claim some credit for the change of tune in the Odex saga? I think in this case, the internet played a great role in putting a lot of adverse publicity on how Odex went about demanding compensation from the children. Definitely much more than what the main stream media had done. We are now seeing the table being turned and the parents and children breathing a little easier. But of course the court decision was a big help. Otherwise the service providers will be happily providing Odex the names of the downloaders. And for that they need to thank PacNet for standing up to Odex and saying NO. It is a lesson that Sheeples must learn. They must know their rights and what is theirs, eg the CPF money, and say NO when needed. Or else they will be trampled by every organisation with threats of legal actions.