Author: CheckW

This area was a very run down part of town where most seniors tend to be living alone. It has a long history dating back to the 1960s where some of the first public housing blocks were built. Even after multiple renovations of the public areas over the years, one can still tell that it was a poorer part of town as the residents were mainly old folks and shops here were generally selling only basic necessities and cheap food.

While walking, we saw an old woman who was walking very slowly on crutches while trying to pull a trolly behind her. She was in a dangerous position in the middle of the road and looked to be having difficulties in her steps. I looked to my older son and suggested that we should help her.

As we approached her, we asked if we could help and inquired on where she was going. She told us that she was looking for a taxi but the main road was more than 50 meters away. We then helped her move slowly to a safer pedestrian walkway beside the road and told her that we will hail a cab for her and then get the car to drive over to her current position instead. We managed to get the cab and put her into it. The driver asked where she was going and we discovered that here destination was just a few streets away. Makes sense as she hardly could have walked her way there in her condition. I pressed some cash into her hands just to make sure that everything will be alright before we closed the car door.

Thinking back later, I started to have doubts about the whole situation. While well intended, did we do something wrong instead? The area is well known for seniors living alone whom might have disabilities and possibly even mental conditions. When I spoke to her, her eyes looked back at me with the blank look, as if she was not there with us. She mentioned a specific address (block number) of the street she wanted to go but when I checked later on google maps, I could not find that block.

Could she be having demetia and had just started wandering around her home? Could we have caused her to become lost by sending her further away from her home before her care giver could find her? Our initiate best intentions may have caused a problem if this was the case. Sadly, I will never know what was the eventual outcome. Hopefully, the driver can help her and if she was still confused, to bring her back to the original location again.

So should we have helped her or mind our own business? I really don’t know now…

My first 5 days went better than I thought. Met a lot of new colleagues and dived straight into the things I need to do. Have work piling up to my eyeballs now. Also need to take 6 external professional exams in the next few months to obtain my certification, followed by many more hours of internal e-learning courses to complete. Also, there are a lot of projects lined up for next year that I need to prioritize. An overseas business trip has been planned for early Dec where I will need to socialize with other colleagues asap in another major center of operation.

Given that we are approaching year-end, I guess that I will have some breathing space, but I should also make use of this time to really try to do as much as I can to bring myself up to speed. Hours at work really flies pass now and there is really no quiet time to do the things I have been doing for the previous 6 months during my break. Have to really deep dive into the rat race now but I am very excited as I have joined a very dynamic team with goals which I believe I can achieve, given my previous work experiences.

So good to get back into the work environment again. Will try to continue to blog regularly but the frequency will be much reduced going forward.

Based on total votes counted, Clinton had 200k more votes than Trump. But in the swing states that mattered, the Republicans managed to edge out with a majority as slim as 2%. Even after all the sexist assault charges, 40% of women still voted for him. What was most surprising was that the Hispanic votes did not materialize for Clinton in Florida after Trump’s attacks on Mexico.

Seems like Trump will be more USA-centric and America First going forward. We in Asia will be at the losing end as a whole. China and Japan are already trying to rapidly extend their circle of influence not only for Asian countries but also towards the rest of the world. Russia is also not far behind as Trump’s USA is expected to pull back from its global responsibilities. It’s every country for itself now.

It will be a few more weeks of guessing before we get a clearer idea of where Trump’s strategy is heading since he was very vague on concrete plans during the campaign. On the other forceful ideas that he pushed for (Mexican wall, extreme vetting, 35% tax on companies moving production out of USA), I suspect that most of them will die a natural political death, either being too impractical to implement or that it may not have enough political willpower to continue. Given that he practically tore apart the GOP and that most of the Republican elites disowned him, it is difficult to figure out at this point if he will have the full support of his own party to rubber stamp all his initiatives in the Senate and House.

This current surreal feeling is reminding me of the new TV show “Designated Survivor” where Kiefer Sutherland accidentally became the president when a bomb destroyed everyone on Capitol Hill. Why do I feel that the show is to close for comfort in mimicking real life now???

Trump’s victory speech looks conciliatory and he calls for everyone to help rebuild the country, that politics is “nasty stuff”. A very different picture from the past 15 months of the brutal campaign. Would he unite the country or make it more divisive? Would he have a team staffed with just his own people or only the most competent ones, regardless of party? The first 100 days will tell. Reality TV for real now. The Americans want change, they will get change. In what form, only time will tell. It’s America first now, the rest of the world can wait.

Reminds me of the Gore/Bush 2000 fight. The rest of the world saw Gore as a more capable candidate but he lost. Bush went on to wage wars after 9/11 and it cumulate with the 2008 GFC crisis which swept Obama to power.

Twitter stock price will probably be only one of the few that will show a positive rise tonight.

I have technically more than crossed my life journey’s halfway mark. My parents are still very healthy at 82/87 this year. Average life expectancy in my country is 82 now, versus 75 in 1990. People in my age group are more aware about health issues now and do generally take better care of ourselves. Baring any unforeseen situations plus new medical advancements, I could possibly live till at least 100.

This brings up another set of issues. Can our retirement funds last? Latest studies say that you need at least $1 million to retire. Assuming that you spend just 5% of this amount (50k/year) and given that interest rates are almost non-existent, your funds will run out in 20 years. This is just for basic living requirements and it does not include emergency medical needs which tend to increase in probability of happening as we age.

While the government is more aware that the number of seniors will increase dramatically and the population pyramid will invert in the future, they have started to introduce retirement planning schemes like CPF Life, SRS and health insurance coverage to help us prepare for old age.

An individual also has a responsibility to build up his own next egg, to look for more streams of passive income to supplement his expenses. These may be in the form of stock dividends, bond interest payments or rental income. Ideally, we should also aim to be free of any housing loans by the time we retire.

Family wise, I have also reminded my kids that we will financially support them till they graduate with a degree in hand. After that, they are expected to be independent. It would also be nice if they can help foot some of the household living expenses by then (assuming that they are still living with us), as we will be nearing retirement age then. We do not want to be a funancial burden to them and neither should they be on us after they start working.

The journey into the 2nd half of our lives will also be long. We need to be proactively planning it early and not assume that everything will take care of itself.

Firstly, the US presidential elections. Given the many twists and turns in this “exciting” campaign so far, Clinton should win. Trump’s team had a small boost last Friday but his whining is starting to look stale. His exit strategy will be to blame everyone but himself. Will the GOP do a self-reflection of itself after this and try to be a stronger and better party? Not likely as there are still too many populist politicians in their midst. Trumpism still has some mileage to go. Trump will use this extremism surge to his business advantage while keeping everyone guessing of his intentions into the next elections in 2020. He wouldn’t want to run to be the new leader of RNC anytime soon – too much work and too little financial rewards.

The US Fed will hike interest rates in Dec. Economic numbers are improving and the last hike was a year ago in Dec 2015. It is expected that rate hikes going forward will be slow and steady. Since the GFC in 2008, we have had slow growth for 8 years. An aggressive rate hike strategy is not in the interest of the Fed.

Given that America is the only country that had hike rates and will do so next month, the US dollar will strengthen further against most currencies. This in turn will lead to a weak equity market environment, where revenue numbers have been shrinking across the board. This will be a good opportunity to pick up stocks that has a good track record of stable dividends (eg. REITs, Blue Chips) and can weather a few more years of a low interest rate environment.

Markets may be more volatile into year end. It is mainly due to most banks withdrawing from market making functions and trying to prepare for more Basel 3 capital restrictions. We will see Lehman like moments in the coming months and it is likely that they will be European banks. CS and DB are still struggling big time, can you imagine what the 2nd and 3rd tier ones are going through? China seems to have stabilised and its well formulated plans to spur growth internally via urbanisation is gaining momentum.

I see more of the same slow growth into Q1 of 2017. Developed countries will still have more of the same while Asia is slowing building up a sustainable base for long term growth.China and Japan are actively courting India, ASEAN and Indochina, helping to kick start many multi-billion infrastructure projects that will also benefit their countries’ MNCs.