Forever young

A good looking hunk walked out of a joint with a nubile young girl in his arm. His hair were dressed like Elvis Presley. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. But he sure looked good. They went back to the hotel nearby. They were hardly a minute in the room when the girl ran out screaming, 'Taupok Man, Taupok Man.' The hunk was lying on his bed, shirt off. He breathed a sigh of resignation. What to expect from a man of 85? It was not cheap to pull the skin for the whole body. Again another scream from next door and a duck ran out screaming, 'Taupok Aunty, Taupok Aunty.' The hunk shouted, 'Are you alright Mum?' 'He didn't like my body skin!'

The brutal tooth

ST's editorial today highlighted the plight of the marginals, those whose wages are 'barely at subsistence level.' To these groups of workers, about 300,000 of them, the editorial has realistically put it, 'that more cash in hand for living expenses makes more sense than having a little money placed in the CPF.' Their problem is immediate. They don't even have enough to eat or pass the day. You want to force them to cut a piece of their flesh to keep for tomorrow? Savings is a privilege and a luxury that they don't have. And they are not so dull as not being able to think that saving is good for them. Helping them is not just words. It is hard cash that they need, now and also in the future. Disregarding the judgemental part, that some of them deserve to be in that pathetic state of life because they were lazy, reckless and irresponsible, these are the people at the bottom of the barrel, the scavengers of society. They do not have enough to put aside. Want to do anything for them?

A new amazing tooth

I woke up this morning to face a new tooth. It is splashed across the front page of the ST that $2.8 billion a year over the last 5 years 'to fund grants and top ups that benefitted all Singaporeans, especially the lower income.' And a typical lower income household received $136,000 worth of basic grants, which helped to build up their retirement savings! Now why am I feeling so poor. Maybe I don't qualify for the $136k of grant. That would make those who qualified richer than me, for I don't have $136k! Am I feeling shortchanged? And all those lower income households must be beaming a wide smile or they are secretly happy but not telling. And with so much money going to them, especially 'to build up their retirement savings' why is it that they did not have enough for retirement? Where is the money? Oh, sorry, this is a dangerous question to ask. Erase this question. Let me ask another question. If so much money have been spent for the benefit of the people, and the people could not feel it, could not appreciate it, then something is drastically wrong. It may be the method, the spread, or not publicising it enough in the media. The PR part is failing. I think a more simpler and effective way to make the people feel the generosity and the weight of the subsidies is to put the money directly into their pockets. Then they can feel the bulge, touch the money and smell the money. The people will kneel down and pray to the govt like god. Unfortunately so much money have been spent on them in a way that the people don't even know. It is a big wasted effort, and a big waste of money spent. You ungrateful people! But can't blame them. They are simple minded people that can't think and didn't know what is happening. They don't even know that they have received so much money.

Fascist thinking comes under the spot light

Thomas Koshy wrote a letter to ST highlighting the risk of a well meaning govt deciding to take away more money from the CPF because it thinks it is good for the people. If we do not question this and address it now, we will lose our CPF money in no time. We must stop this brazen thinking of deciding how to use our CPF money against our will. It is our money. It is not just a CPF fund.

Singapore needs more reserves

This is the view of Goh Khee Kuan who wrote to ST forum. In his view he felt that the current reserves will not be enough especially when the Artic ice melts. We need billions to built dykes to keep out the water. And more, if no ships come a calling, we need more reserves to develop new infrastructure and new businesses. He forgets to add what if a meteor strikes the island. We need to built a defence shield against the meteor strike. In the same kind of thinking, the CPF savings by the members are not enough. What happen if they are struck by life threatening illnesses and need to be hospitalised? The bills will come in hundreds of thousands. And the artic ice will mean that their lower floor flats may not be liveable. And inflation risk! They probably need to set aside something like a million each for year 2050. We need to plan for the future and save even more.