http://www.straitstimes.com/PrimeNew...ry_661602.html
Mah speaks up on...
# How Singaporeans can monetise their homes, which are their biggest assets:
You've got at least three or four options. One, move into your children's flat and rent out your old one. A five-room flat can easily fetch you $1,000-plus to $2,000. And that's income every month.
If you don't want to do that, rent out one room for $500. You can rent out two rooms for $1,000 a month and still stay where you are.
If you don't want to do that, sell your flat and buy a smaller flat and keep the money: $200-, $300-, $400-whatever thousand dollars you'll have. Take the money for your retirement.
If you don't want to do that, you can go for the leasebuyback scheme. This applies at the moment only to three-room flats and below.
The Government buys back a part of your remaining lease. So you stay where you are and you get an additional monthly payment of about $500 a month. Plus, if you want to rent out another room, you can still do so. Another $500. So you get $1,000 a month and stay where you are.
That's what I mean by monetising.
But of course, if somebody comes to me and says: 'Look, I don't want to do all that. I want to stay in my five-room flat', what can I do?
I have no answer to that, because if that's the proposition, then I think that's not answering the question. I don't have an answer to that.
# Renting instead of home ownership:
I think there's a big disadvantage. It doesn't give anybody any hedge against inflation; it doesn't give anybody a chance to enjoy the fruits of our growth. And rentals are just consumption. You can't use your Central Provident Fund to rent.
We have very good examples of rentals. In Hong Kong, they have rental housing, cheap rental housing, small, and people rent for years and years. At the end of the day, they get nothing out of it.
# Responding to the Workers' Party but not to other opposition parties:
They just come up with ideas which we think are wrong; we just have to debunk them. (They're) doing something which is going to have repercussions on the assets, the savings of so many people.
Then, we ask them where is the money coming from, (and they reply
Oh, from the reserves. Every opposition party is scrambling for which one can outbid the other to get the reserves.
# What his children have taught him about online media:
They tell me that you must not be passive-aggressive. They say, you must not be sarcastic.
You cannot unfriend people on Facebook. It's very rude.
And, no caps. Apparently I cannot type with caps. Because it's very rude, you see.