A FISCA member sent the brochure of the NTUC Wealth Solitaire Plan for my analysis.
The financial adviser recommended that he take a loan from a bank for 70% of the single premium to buy this policy. He only needed to put out 30%. The interest rate on the loan is currently about 1% per annum. You can view the brochure of this plan and my analysis at:
Friday, July 24, 2020
WOTC - Submit transactions to government websites
Wisdom of the Crowd: 76% of the respondents have submitted transactions to government websites and found the process to be difficult.
WOTC - Government websites
Wisdom of the Crowd: 91% of the respondents said that the government websites should be improved to be more user friendly.
Wisdom of the Crowd - New Issues
2. Should the govt provide jobs for elderly people who have inadequate savings?
Vote in
https://tklcloud.com/Crowd2/vote.aspx
How to revive the tourism industry
I share with you an old army joke. The officer led a platoon. They arrived at a river. They had a long pole that could be thrown across the river, but they do not have any lifting equipment for the job.
How did the platoon commander solve the problem? He said - sergeant, get the men to bring the pole across the river!
That's right. This is how the army solve the problem. Just give the order to someone lower down to do it.
Minister Chan, who is in charge of trade and industry, adopted a similar solution to revive the ravaged tourism industry.
He told the private sector - You have to innovate and transform your business to cope with the new business climate!
Well, minister Chan was Chief of Army in his previous career. He has brought the SAF skills into the government.
Problem solved. Well done.
Hello, TKL is being sarcastic. Geddit?
Thursday, July 23, 2020
A pervasive level of insanity
The level of insanity is quite pervasive in Singapore.
Many ministers are insane. The civil servants also get the same disease.
Why do I say this?
I search Google for the number of visitors into Singapore every day, during the pandemic and the border closing.
Do you want to know what I get?
Just follow this link (obtained through Google).
I clicked through a few levels of links and got lost.
Now I became insane.
The world country is getting insane.
Why can't they just present a simple table to show the number of visitors into Singapore every day? Why do they have to present the data in this troublesome and confusing way?
The insanity start at the very top. It has now infected a large segment of the population.
https://tklcloud.com/Feedback/feedback2.aspx?id=3288
Are imported cases worrisome?
You may read in the MOH report that there were 5 imported cases a day. This may seem a high number, compared to the infected cases that are detected in the community (i.e. outside the worker dormitories) every day.
Do not be misled into thinking that the visitors have a high rate of infection, compared to the local population.
Currently, about 1,000 people arrive into Singapore every day. Every arriving person is tested. The imported cases therefore represent 0.5% of the arrivals.
If we carry out a random test of the people in Singapore, we are likely to find more than 0.5% infected.
If the rate of infection among the incoming visitors is lower than the local population, the current practice of closing the border seemed to be illogical.
It is also harmful to the tourist trade, the economy and the business sentiment.
I hope that the people in the ministerial task force pay attention to this point. Maybe, it is a bad decision to close the border and cause so much harm to the economic and to the livelihood of hundred of thousand people who are badly affected.
It is also a waste of the 95 billion that has been spent on relief measures on the circuit breaker.
What do you say?
https://tklcloud.com/Feedback/feedback2.aspx?id=3287
Do not be misled into thinking that the visitors have a high rate of infection, compared to the local population.
Currently, about 1,000 people arrive into Singapore every day. Every arriving person is tested. The imported cases therefore represent 0.5% of the arrivals.
If we carry out a random test of the people in Singapore, we are likely to find more than 0.5% infected.
If the rate of infection among the incoming visitors is lower than the local population, the current practice of closing the border seemed to be illogical.
It is also harmful to the tourist trade, the economy and the business sentiment.
I hope that the people in the ministerial task force pay attention to this point. Maybe, it is a bad decision to close the border and cause so much harm to the economic and to the livelihood of hundred of thousand people who are badly affected.
It is also a waste of the 95 billion that has been spent on relief measures on the circuit breaker.
What do you say?
https://tklcloud.com/Feedback/feedback2.aspx?id=3287
How to deal with inadequate CPF savings
The government is worried that citizens do not have enough CPF savings to meet their old age needs.
They deal with this problem as follows:
a) Ensure that a large proportion of CPF contributions are set aside for old age in the special account
b) Restrict the withdrawal of the CPF savings
c) Introduced rules to require the CPF savings to be withdrawn in monthly sums over a lifetime, i.e. the CPF Life scheme
They are worried that the citizens will have insufficient savings and have to rely on the state for welfare.
In spite of the restrictions, a certain percentage of the citizens will end up in this scenario. In most cases, they did not have adequate savings during their working life. This could be due to low earnings or an extended period of unemployment.
WOTC - Call general election during pandemic
Wisdom of the Crowd: 78% of the respondents disagree with the decision of the government to call the general election during the pandemic.
https://tklcloud.com/Crowd2/chart.aspx?ID=2024
WOTC - Lee HY involvement in GE2020
Wisdom of the Crowd: 44% of the respondents said that Lee HY will help the PSP to win some seats. 38% said that he has given credibility to the party by his involvement.
Start with allowing early withdrawal of CPF savings
Minister Tharman said that unemployment insurance may be considered, if the economic situation gets worse.
I doubt that the government can come to the stage of implement unemployment insurance. It will never happen.
I suggest that they should allow withdrawal from the CPF savings. If a person is unemployed for more than 3 months, he (or she) should be allowed to withdraw from the CPF account a monthly sum of 70% of the average monthly salary earned during the past year.
This will deplete the CPF savings but it will be a problem that can be addressed in the future, several decades down the road. It is better to solve the current problem, and not worry too much about the distant future.
If one day, when the comes come home, the PAP government decides to implement unemployment insurance, it will be great. But let us start with allowing the withdrawal of CPF savings.
Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Wisdom of the Crowd - New Issues
2. Does CECA bring in some benefits to Singapore?
Vote in
https://tklcloud.com/Crowd2/vote.aspx
Wisdom of the Crowd survey results
Here are the results of the surveys carried out in The Wisdom of the Crowd recently.
You can view the result for any selected survey. You may be interested to see the results of some of the surveys which relate to current issues and happenings.
You can also search for a survey by entering a key word, e.g. PAP
WOTC - Check for defects
Wisdom of the Crowd: 59% of the respondents said that they would check for defects in a new flat on their own. 40% said that they would pay $300 to get a surveyor to check for defects.
WOTC - Safe Entry
Wisdom of the Crowd: 41% of the respondents said that the Safe Entry exercise is a waste of time. 27% said that we should have Safe Entry at key points and not all over the place.
Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Wisdom of the Crowd - New Issues
1. Is it fair for the PAP to ask WP to give alternative policies?
2. Is the new infection in Hong Kong serious?
Vote in
https://tklcloud.com/Crowd2/vote.aspx
Respect the science
I prefer to take off the mask when I go for a walk in the hot sun and there is nobody around. I put on the mask when there are many people around.
Someone said that I should "respect the science" and put up the mask all the time, to avoid getting or spreading the coronavirus infection.
Why is this person so arrogant? Does he think that he is qualified to make a scientific pronouncement?
http://tklcloud.com/Feedback/feedback2.aspx?id=3280
Someone said that I should "respect the science" and put up the mask all the time, to avoid getting or spreading the coronavirus infection.
Why is this person so arrogant? Does he think that he is qualified to make a scientific pronouncement?
http://tklcloud.com/Feedback/feedback2.aspx?id=3280
WOTC - How will voters react to the circuit breaker
Wisdom of the Crowd: 81% of the respondents said that the voters will be react negatively towards the government over the circuit breaker - for wasting $90 billion of reserves and damaging their livelihoods. 19% said that they will react positively.
WOTC - After relaxation of circuit breaker
Wisdom of the Crowd: 28% of the respondents said that life will get back to normal within 6 months after lifting the circuit breaker. 46% think that it will take at least a year. 28% said that many businesses have already closed and will not resume.
Overall the circuit breaker has been harmful to the economy and people's livelihood.
Outdated form made available to the public
I obtained a form from the Internet to recruit an unemployed PMET under the Career Support Program (CSP) of the government. It was quite troublesome to locate this form because there were links all over the place to point to different pieces of information.
I send the form to the applicant to complete it. After that, I had to complete the form by typing over the particulars of the employer, i.e. TKL & Associates.
I submitted the form to Workforce Singapore, which administers the scheme.
Guess what happened?
I received a prompt reply, telling me that I had used the wrong form. The officer enclosed an updated form.
I now have to go through the troublesome process of getting the applicant to complete the form again and, after that, to type over with the company details.
Fortunately, I have access to an online tool to type over the PDF. Otherwise, it can be quite troublesome to print out the form, write in the details, and scan it back.
Why do they need me to sign the form when I am already submitting it after logging into the website with my SingPass?
It looks like WSG is still relying on manual signature.
I want to share this experience, so that the people in charge in WSG and other government agencies realize that their current method of putting the forms "all over the place" in their website has its flaws, namely that the public may inadvertently retrieve the outdated form and not realize it.
WSG should have a better way to present the latest forms for the public to access. I am building a prototype website to show how it can be done.
I send the form to the applicant to complete it. After that, I had to complete the form by typing over the particulars of the employer, i.e. TKL & Associates.
I submitted the form to Workforce Singapore, which administers the scheme.
Guess what happened?
I received a prompt reply, telling me that I had used the wrong form. The officer enclosed an updated form.
I now have to go through the troublesome process of getting the applicant to complete the form again and, after that, to type over with the company details.
Fortunately, I have access to an online tool to type over the PDF. Otherwise, it can be quite troublesome to print out the form, write in the details, and scan it back.
Why do they need me to sign the form when I am already submitting it after logging into the website with my SingPass?
It looks like WSG is still relying on manual signature.
I want to share this experience, so that the people in charge in WSG and other government agencies realize that their current method of putting the forms "all over the place" in their website has its flaws, namely that the public may inadvertently retrieve the outdated form and not realize it.
WSG should have a better way to present the latest forms for the public to access. I am building a prototype website to show how it can be done.
Monday, July 20, 2020
A bad approach to close borders
I do not agree with the approach to close the borders to prevent the spread of the corona virus.
I wish to explain my reason.
Keep the town councils intact following the election of MPs
It is very costly and wasteful to change the structure of the town council when there is a change of party that heads the council.
The PAP govt should stop this nonsense and wastage.
The town council should remain fixed. Any change in the elected MPs should be represented in the board of the town council.
The constituencies under each town council should not change.
The daily operations should remain under full time managers. There should be no need to change the people running the operations, until their term expires and another management contract is evaluated.
We should also not change signboards and other printed materials.
The wasted money comes from the tax payers.
Do you agree?
Sunday, July 19, 2020
Give stronger, visible support
Many people have sent private messages to tell me that they like the views that I post in my Facebook page.
They said that my views reflect my genuine concern for the future and welfare of Singaporeans.
I thank them for sending these private messages of support.
But I like to ask them to show their support in more visible ways, including the following:
a) Like my posts
b) Share my posts
c) Vote "Agree" in the #HearMeOut posts.
They should also help to shout down the negative views from the opposing camps!
I need to get strong visible support from more people. OK or not?
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