Please, Sir, can I retire?

Minister Mr Lim announced that the retirement age may be raised.

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It was 62. They announced that we should work till we are 65. It will be implemented in 2012.

The date of implementation is more than a year from now, and they could not wait to raise the age of retirement yet another time, to 68.

Now, Mr Lim, if my jobscope is like yours, and drawing the kind of salary that you do, I would be really happy to push my retirement age back.

In fact, I would be reluctant to retire at all. I would be able to emulate our beloved father of the nation and say,"I don't intend to retire." Or better still,"Retirement? What's that?"

The reason given for the raise in retirement age is absolutely valid:
We need to work longer as our life span increases and we need to accumulate more for our old age.

For the kind of money we are making, we would probably have to work till we are 80 even.

People who suggest that we should work past 60 should really become teachers for once.

Let's see you hold onto this job till 60.

For an average Singaporean, his job does not go past $5k per month. The person who suggested raising retirement probably cannot understand why we don't want to work for as long as we can. More relevant questions would be: would our employers pay us as much as our younger counterparts when we are in our 60s? Would we be able to cope with the demands of the job in our old age? Would our employers even want us in our old age?

Or do we have to work at (in all due respect) McDonald's as cleaners to earn our meagre keeps so that we can continue to live miserably?

Such ridiculous suggestions made by people who live in the ivory tower are akin to asking people to eat bird's nest for lunch when they don't have rice to eat.