The tragedy of being old and lazy

It is a tragedy to become old and lazy in paradise. When one is old is already bad. Old and lazy!...tsk. tsk. In the past, being old, one can look forward to a well earned retirement. Today, one cannot afford to grow old and retire. One needs to work till death. And if one is old and lazy some more, no one is going to help you. Wake up lazy Singaporeans. But for those who cannot grow old, then it is a different story. They can continue to dismiss the old Singaporeans, especially the old and lazy ones, as useless rubbish. Can anyone recommend me on how to stay young forever?

America tightening the ropes on credit card robbery

The Fed is proposing to limit the excessive late fees imposed by credit card companies on their card holders. An example of the change is that 'a person cannot be made to pay more than the sum he is owing for late fees. So if one is owing $20, the card company cannot charge the bugger for $60 as late fee. Holycow, I thought this is only a decent thing to do. You mean they have been allowing such robbery to go on for so long and just work up to it? And there are several other commonsensical changes to limit the credit card companies from robbing their cardholders, like suka suka imposing higher interest rate, or the number of days that the payment was late before penalty can be imposed. But regulators complained that the Fed forget to lower the absurdly high interest rate of 2% monthly, which is quite similar to what loan sharks are charging. But I think the Fed's hands are tied. The bankers and credit card companies need the huge interest and profits to pay themselves billions in bonuses, and this must come from somewhere. Talking about robbers, I was robbed by a local bank of several hundred dollars in a dormant account which I had forgotten because of the $2 monthly fee charge for anything less than $1,500 left in the account. Some people are reviving this complain, that people's bank must also take care of the small people. But the message is that if you cannot have $1,500 in your account, please don't 'kar chow' the big banks. They got no time for small people. And since we are the admirers and blind followers of the American system and anything American is good, would the credit card changes in America be followed here?

The great market forces at work in Sengkang

The Sengkang executive condo site was awarded to the top bidder at $315 psf. And the likely selling price will be over $650 psf. So no one should complain about the high sale price. It is all determined in an open and fairly bidded exercise. And the price final price will be determined by the highest bidder. Oops, no, by market forces. No one shall be blamed for the surging prices for public flats even if the developer bid it to $1000 psf. It is just market forces. Demand and supply. What kind of demand is there on limited land available? Last year, there were 59,500 new PRs and 19,900 new citizens. How are these numbers to be translated into demand for housing? Beats me. Very difficult to compute or guess. Even the professionals would not know.

Are the grievances real?

There seems to be a lot of criticisms against the govt policies, and people felt that they are disadvantaged. How true are these? Are they just noises from a small unhappy minorities or are they genuine? Read the main media everything seems so rosy and good. Everyone seems to be very happy making their millions, buying expensive cars, going for holidays, and still jamming up at property launches. I think the PAP has nothing to fear. Grousing and kpkb by small groups of unhappy people will not be enough to swing the votes against them. They will still ride to power with comfortable majority.

New immigrants for Civil Defence

40 years ago, when I walked the streets of London, I could pick up a newspaper and threw 2 shillings into a box and walked away. No one was there to guard the money. Today, I don't think we can leave newspapers on our streets and expect people to drop money into it and the money still remains there for the rightful owner at the end of the day. We are affluent and may not think too much of a couple of dollars. Would any newspaper vendor dare to do this? Would anyone dare to ask foreign workers to look after their homes when they are away on holiday? There could be some exceptions and pre conditions. I would not. I would not even invite them to my home to familiarise themselves with what is inside my home, with extremely rare exceptions of course. If we can farm the guarding of our homes and country to foreigners, we don't need citizen soldiers. I cannot imagine if security guard agencies are still hiring ex convicts or people with criminal records to be guards.