13th November 2008. The bankrupt NSW Government ( Morally and Financially ) this week imposed the Countries first congestion tax, doubled parking levies, and increased the price of vehicle insurance. Their draconian transport demerit system ensures that 110 drivers a day lose their licence for traffic and parking offences to the extent that 23 percent of businesses in NSW report that they have had staff lose their licence.
Frantic workers reliant on their vehicle see their livelihoods go down the drain for minor traffic and speeding offences.
The cynical aspect of this situation is that the cash scrapped government found funds for 200 new speeding cameras.
A protest group has been organized – call cliff on 0412508860
3rd October 2008.
CEO – Chief embezzlement officer
BULL MARKET – a random market movement causing investors to mistake themselves for financial geniuses
FINANCIAL PLANNER – A person whose phone has been cut off
STANDARD AND POOR – An investors life in a nutshell
18th September 2008. Not many posts this month, as gobsmacked, I witness – one of our state parliamentarians admitting to dancing in his underwear in our parliament – greedy financial cretins causing meltdown in the world financial system – some other cretins continually trying to spam this site….. I could be led to believe that the human race is indeed a failed experiment, if it were not for the wonderful everyday people I meet – full of generosity, good spirit and compassion.
26th August 2008. A school in Townsville has instructed playground supervisors to stop school children doing cartwheels in the playground less they hurt themselves, resulting in the school being sued.
‘Namby Pampy State, offspring of Nannystate’
15th August 2008. Governments of all persuasions within Australia seem keen to ‘pave paradise and put up a parking lot’ , no more so, than our own state government with its new developer friendly heritage law changes. They would be well advised to take notice of a CSIRO estimate that the energy embodied in the countries existing building stock is equivalent to 10 years total energy consumption, and that every new hill you dig up for new bricks , is going to cost dearly in energy consumption.
Demolishing buildings should be a last resort
30th July 2008. So in a few days a lot of people are going to get themselves in a lather about whether someone taller,shorter,bigger, smaller, stronger, weaker, more doped up, genetically modified, can get under,over,at,on,into, a wall, ribbon, goal, hoop, mat, pool,faster,slower,better,more elegantly than someone else, so a multitude of commercial interests can enrichen themselves.
‘If winning isnt everything why doesnt everyone go for the bronze’
21st July 2008. Section 165.55 of the Tax Act.
“For the purposes of making a declaration under this subdivision, the Commissioner may treat a particular event that actually happened as not having happened, and treat a particular event that did not actually happen as having happened and if appropriate treat the event as; having happened at a particular time and having involved particular action by a particular entity; and treat a particular event that actually happened as having happened at a time different from the time it actually happened; or having involved particular action by a particular entity(whether or not the event actually involved any action by that entity
17th July 2008. Extracts from a letter to the London Times
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. He will be remembered for having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn’t always fair; and maybe it was my fault.
Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).
Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.
Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.
Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim.”
4th July 2008. So anybody that has driven through the Yallourn Valley in Victoria with smarting eyes from the brown coal power stations, will indeed wonder at the Victorian Governments decision to build a new brown coal power station. Dont be alarmed – with much aplomb the Victorian Government has announced that new ( so far unproven technology ) will allow the emissions to be reduced to that of a black coal power station – WOW !
‘Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.’
1st July 2008. So in the spirit of global warming our earstwhile NSW police and Main Roads Authority have deemed that an electric powered bicycle of 200 Watts power ( 2 lightglobes ) is a road vehicle and has to be registered
Sigh ….................................!
20th June 2008. Listening on the radio yesterday to the founder of our excellent 1980’s neighbourhood watch scheme. He indicated that this scheme cut the crime rate by 50% at the time. In the 90’s for reasons unknown, nefarious or otherwise, this scheme was allowed to die by the State Government At the same time the excellent ‘Safety House’ scheme was also killed off.
In view of some of the many disturbing things happening in the community , think its about time somebody acted to reintroduce these excellent concepts.
’ Society prepares the crime, the criminal commits it’
18th June 2008. The country has severe drought, the world is in a banking crisis,recessions are around the corner in a number of countries, war pestilence and famine, which of these grave topics have our media been concentrating on – none. During the last two weeks the story dominating the front page has been the reporting on two politicians getting into an argument with a restaurant waiter.Have to reserve one of my favourite words for this – pathetic !!
‘No news is good news. No journalists is even better’
11th June 2008. After sitting in a doctors surgery for one and a half hours after the scheduled appointment time with my sick mother , I feel prompted to give this profession a blast. What in fact makes them think their time is more valuable than their patients. Attending the sick – I think not, avarice I could believe. My technique to deal with this is to invoice the Doctor at my hourly charge out rate for the time wasted in his surgery waiting room. Try it, certainly makes you feel better
;The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease’
3rd June 2008. An interesting article on the current danger to the banking system caused by the unrestricted growth of credit . Author Martin Hutchinson Exploding Innovations
The current bank CDS credit system is a system whereby a bank who can’t pay gets another bank who can’t pay to guarantee that it can pay.
Nice work if you can get it
23rd May 2008. Seems to be a lot of talk lately about how China and India’s increased oil consumption is pushing up the price. The graph below of todays consumption figures is a salutory reminder of the identity of the real culprit.
‘If inflation continues to soar, you’re going to have to work like a dog just to live like one’
15th may 2008. Well our new federal government bought in its first budget, and while I applaud many of the proactive rather than reactive measures, the decision to means test the government grant of $8000 for the fitment of domestic solar panels defies imagination. The initial concept of this subsidy was to help reduce global warming, the actual result of this recent measure, as witnessed by millions of dollars of cancelled orders for solar panels, is quite the reverse.
’ A mind is like a parachute, it functions only when open’
20th April 2008. So now we have thousands of soldiers and security people from all over the globe, guarding a gas burner – wierd !
18th April 2008. A few days ago all the state environmental ministers and the federal environmental minister, Peter Garret, met to discuss the phase out of plastic shopping bags. Any logical person would think that there where only three alternatives – get rid of the damn things altogether , the best solution, or maybe charge shoppers for their use, or reward them for use of environmentally friendly bags, perhaps lessor solutions but all the above having great community support —What did they do -- ‘sweet F A’.
Maybe Garret should go back to singing – from memory even that wasnt too hot.
14th April 2008. Employers would be able to read their staff’s emails under proposed new national security laws being considered by the Federal Government.
7th April 2008. There have been millions of words written about the latest financial meltdown, so I will not bore you excessively with too many more. It seems to me, however, that many of the latest Australian problems have been due to directors buying shares in their own company on margin calls.
Our Securities monitoring organizations will chase Joe Ordinary to the end of the earth for insider trading over a comment on an obscure website, but turn a blind eye to these directors actively trading their own company shares by the millions.
I guess though I am naive to think the sharemarket has anything to do with investing, or that the current problems had anything to do with a severe lack of ethics amongst superannuation fund managers, share repositories,margin lenders, bankers and stockbroking firms.
And as usual Banks are keen to privatise their profits and nationalise their losses
‘Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy you the kind of misery you prefer’
26th March 2008 Bit of a gloomy picture lately as the banking system implodes and all the pundits discover their crystal ball is just a bubble,just like the markets they are trying to predict , and It looks like, once again, taxpayers and homeowners, are going to be footing the bill for the ‘greed is good’ years of the grey suit brigade.
Locally here in Sydney an all pervasive gloom settles over me at the thought of another 3 years of a most incompetent state government ,in which, it appears that all the good men have been replaced by apparatchiks whose ability falls far short of their portfolio requirements. If there was a reasonable opposition I wouldn’t be so gloomy , but the current mob is infiltrated with the religious looney right, and is so involved with playing faction games they are worse than useless.
The good news – the sun is out on one of those crisp days that signal the coming of autumn.
6th March 2008. It makes me increasingly sad every time I try and buy a newspaper at a newsagent in this state, to line up behind a long line of mostly pensioners buying lotto, scratch tickets, and lottery tickets, peddled by the dream merchants and endorsed by the state. The glossy signs behind the counter are very full of words like ‘win’, ‘fortune’, and ‘luck’, but nary a sign of ‘lose’, ‘next to no chance’,or ‘ever been had’.
‘Luck never gives it only lends’
1st March 2008. The nature of political donations to politicians is unfolding in our daily newspapers with the enquiry into a massive scandal involving developers, local councillors and state parliamentarians. Our State Premier Morris Iemma has made a token gesture to limit donations, but come on Morris – we all know this cancer on democracy will only be eradicated by the drastic surgery of outlawing donations completely.
‘Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them’
14th february 2008, Now after being bombarded continuously by our media on the US election saga, and I’m not even a US citizen, I figure it gives me the right to make a comment.
A recent trip into the US revealed a country that to me appeared just tired – tired infrastructure and crumbling cities, and people at the poor end of town sucked dry by the military adventures and voodoo economics of the appalling Bush presidencies.
The US is a country in need of rebirth and its certainly not going to be given that chance with a president over 60 from the establishment.
Its Obama that gets my vote (if I was a voter)
“you need a president who is at least fluent in one language”
27th January 2008. Financial innovation and an enthusiasm for risk taking generate rapid increases in credit, which drives up asset prices thereby justifying still more credit expansion and yet higher asset prices. Asset prices reach unsustainable levels, panic selling, credit freeze, insolvency , recession.
20th January 2008. A few days ago Israel anounced the construction in the next 18 months of 500000 elecrtrical outlets for vehicles in combination with the production of electric cars in collaboration with some major car companies.
In Denmark 30 to 40 percent of the population ride bikes to work (without helmets) on biketracks that alienate quite small proportions of the total roadspace
Despite numerous junkets by our state politicians on ‘study tours’, our appalling Roads and Transport Authority still has not been given the message to take measures to reduce our dependence on the petroleum powered automobile
1ST Jan 2008 . Well I was thinking that 2008 might be a sparse comment year, but the news that the retiring South Korean president has pardoned 70 odd business and political criminals including the ex president of Daewoo who was down for 10 years has reinvigorated my belief that cronyism, nepotism and most of the other “isms” are still thriving and that 2008 will not be short of reportable material
ALL THE BEST
8th December 2007. Well in this last post of 2007 I will bite my tongue and not talk about politics or finance. Instead, perhaps, as the year draws to close, its time to acknowledge that the ‘nannystate’ is partly a child of those sections of the community living a reality free existence, who demand that the state look after them from cradle to grave.
Next post in 2008 – all the best !
22nd November 2007. With the federal election in a couple of days this is the last political comment for awhile – I, like most other Australians, have had enough of the posturing of the proponents of this imperfect system. As you make your way to the polling booth consider that if you want to exercise your democratic right and assign your preferences to Senate candidates , rather than accept the party preferences, (many of them a backroom deal to which you have no access), you will have to fill out 79 boxes and if you make a mistake in the process it will void your vote. – designed to entrench the party system -yes!, better ways to do it yes !, the Dutch fill out two boxes , one for the candidate, one for the party.
‘Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner’.
15th November 2007. Berkley City Council in SanFrancisco are planning to pay all upfront costs to fit solar panels to all houses in its jurisdiction. The cost will be amortised on property bills over 20 years. It is estimated the additional yearly cost on the council rates will be offset by household yearly electricity cost savings.
10th November 2007 . So now our road condition advisory signs are exhorting us to dob in people parking unauthorized in disability parking zones – Dob in a suspicious person, displayed on TV ads and bus shelters, dob in a tax cheat, dob in a water cheat, dob ….
These bureaucrats who seem to lack the wit to think beyond their narrow agenda should read some history
‘Bureaucracy – the rule of no one – has become the modern form of despotism’
2nd November 2007. One of the most popular books in Italy at the moment is ‘La Casta’ – an investigation into the political cast that is sucking the country dry with benefits and privileges to a political elite.
Coming up to this current Federal election in three weeks here , with the obscene expenditures witnessed as our political caste try to get themselves elected or relelected, and the extravagant pay rises and benefits they have voted themselves, I could be convinced that we are heading down the same track in the unseemly rush to power and a pocketful of gold cards
‘People start parades – politicians just get out in front and pretend they are leading’
14th October 2007. Jobs – how long have we been listening to this tired mantra from politicians to justify many of their actions. Anne Blythe the new premier of Queensland, is proposing to introduce legislation this week to overturn a recent court ruling requiring Xstrata to take measures against greenhouse gas emission on a new coal project. Her reason the court ruling was a legal technicality, (Funny how often States are willing to bludgeon their citizens on ‘Legal technicalities’).
This massive indication of lack of priorities is ostensibly to save 190 jobs , and stuff the atmosphere so to speak !
’ Just remember that politicians are like nappies – they should be changed often , and for the same reason’
11 October 2007. There are major issues in life , but sometimes its the small things that get to you – Will that cretin that is responsible for sticking ever larger advertising labels on apples . Please desist….
27th September 2007. Although this author tries to be as apolitical as possible, he is going to give a big plug to the entry of Dr Karl S. Kruszelnicki as a candidate for the senate in the coming federal election. In my view his canditure meets the following essential elements. He is an independent, a technocrat, and his education extends beyond that of a party hack, trade union official, or lawyer. His reason for entering – ‘he was sick of screaming at the TV’.
26th September 2007. Yes its true – The NSW Government is going to spend $460 million dollars on warning signs for school zones in this state. Seems to work out at something like $115,000 dollars per site. I wouldn’t really mind except the sheer stupidity of the location of many of these zones is breathtaking, positioned on six lane highways , with dividing fences that prevent children crossing and pedestrian overpasses to enable safe crossing. About time this overkill at our expense was brought to a grinding halt.
Yes this is a bee in my bonnet !!
24th September 2007. If, 50,000 surveillance cameras in Sydney, snipers on the roof tops during the recent APEC meeting, walls across our city,censorship on the internet, ability for the government to monitor peoples location by their mobile phone for 3 months without warrant, signs in our bus stops exhorting us to spy on fellow Australians, is for FREEDOM, have I been reading the wrong dictionary.
18th September 2007 . In our state ( NSW) with the greatest number of poker machines and gambling outlets in the world, our caring sharing State government has now additionally licenced hotels to run Keno ( a numbers game ). At the same time one of our league’s clubs, a bastion of poker machines has declared that it will probaly take all poker machines out of its club as statistics indicate that 50% of poker machine and gambling revenue comes from government pensions , or those that can least afford to gamble.
5th September 2007. I have a friend, who as a service to his local church, offered to put the selected hymns each Sunday onto a visual projector, displayed at the front, so that those with less than good eyesight could sing along. He has recently been told that for every hymn he puts onto the projector he has to fill out a form to send to some copywrite bureaucracy. Feel free to cast your eyes to the heavens as I was inclined to do !!
29th August 2007. Dont like to harp on financials all the time, just that its that time of year. Well surprise, a recent survey has shown that last year , that on average managed funds did not perform as well as the All ordinaries index, and that hedge funds with their exotic manouvers performed worse than equity funds. This essentially means that if you had gone out and just bought top 20 stocks you would probably be better off than investing in the fund industry, and would not have contributed to some fund managers retirement scheme.
