Show us a discontinued food or product you wish would return.
Submitted by Shawn.
Which popular slang expression drives you nuts?
"Touch Base". It's such a meaningless inclusion into everyday business speech.
An absolutely excellent review and summation of Robert Manne's book "Dear Mr Rudd", byGeorge Megalogenis
While not actually canning the book, Megalogenis takes issue with it's premise. That being a fretful plea by the intellectual Left for reassurance that the bad old days of Right dominance are over, and that they - the Left - will now assume the position of Prime Ministerial lapdog advisers, as the Windshuttles and Hendersons did during the Howard years before them.
I'm a great fan of Megalogenis. He is one of very, very few rational journalists in the country who don't wear their ideological heart on their sleeve. He calls any given situation as he sees it, and is generally spot on with his analysis. His review of the pathetic bleating of Robert Manne in his latest tome is just such analysis. I think in his whole review, Megalogenis sums up the general thrust of the arcane culture war, Left -v- Right zeitgeist thusly,
"it must be said that the chest-beaters on the Left and Right of our national discourse are surprisingly naive in the ways of politics. They think governments run nations when, in fact, they manage them as best they can. They mistake the limits of power for cowardice and think the exercise of policy reform is an exact science."
Never have I read a more pointed and focussed summation of the foolishness embodied in the ideological tit-for-tat we seem to read daily in what passes for informed and unbiased newspaper reporting. This man, George Megalogenis, deserves an award of his own, in my view.
If you were independently wealthy, where in the world would you live?
Submitted by Eileen.
For a mere US$2m, plus a likely equivalent sum to build a decent home, install solar and wind power generation, and a small desal plant, there's White Island. (the second link will provide a Google Earth KMZ file). Looks wonderful, isolated and within reach of an airport if needs be. Naturally, I'd have my twin open pilots licence, and be flying myself into and out of my island escape in my new Antilles Goose. At US$1.3m for the radial engined version, and US$2.3m for the thirstier, albeit more powerful turbo-props, I think I'd rather stay traditional and opt for the radials.
All that, peace and serenity for less than US$6m?!! Bargain! It's good to have dreams, isn't it?It's undoubted logic that Labor would always have preferred, nay, pre-determined to follow it's own path on the information superhighway.
This path was confirmed yesterday with Stephen Conroy's announcement of the Conroy call costs Labor politically | The Australian">termination of OPEL's contract to provide internet connectivity to remote & regional Australia. It's difficult to understand, however, where the political difficulty comes into play, as proposed by Jennifer Hewett of the Oz. Look at the issue from purely political terms. Why would a Labor government want to adopt or even grudgingly accede to any arrangement put into place by it's political foes? Where's the political sense in that? Additionally, as many an industry pundit has already postulated, wireless connectivity was always doubtful on the terms of the OPEL contract. Hardwired, or hard-'fibred' in this case - infrastructure is always the preferred path. Tangible, repairable and above all else, more efficient, fibre optic to-the-node is always to be preferred over wireless, regardless of the power of the transmission signal.
The Labor plan provides more avenues for smaller providers to make supply niches for themselves in their local areas. The OPEL submission was never intended to be that flexible, with the joint venture retaining control all along the way. Additionally, it's still an unknown as to just how wireless would be propagated in order to meet the desired 90% coverage, which has been the convenient 'out' for Conroy's department. I know of a small provider in Stanthorpe which has been pushing for and experimenting with wireless broadband transmission services for more than two years now. Just over two years, and still their principle service area remains well within a 20 kilometre radius of Stanthorpe, despite astute repeater positioning. Even within that core area, pockets of null signal still eventuate.
Personally, I believe that even optic fibre-to-the-node won't be the cat's pyjamas, especially in remote and regional Australia. It's a hell of a long way between nodes in a lot of places. Wireless will still have a place in the grand scheme, as will satellite and common old copper wire ADSL2. Australia's copper wire infrastructure is old and far too much like topsy, having been built onto and renovated over many decades. The addition of fibre optics from secondary backbones to regional hubs, thence to neighbourhood nodes is only likely to add another layer of complexity to an already complex system. Will it be faster? Probably. Depending on where you are, how far from the hub your nearest node is, what connection the hub has to the backbone and the condition of your copper wire phone line from the node to your router. I'm willing to bet that Telstra - the ongoing owner of the copper wire network - still won't guarantee speeds in excess of 2400 baud.
Fibre to the node technology may be more expensive than wireless right now, but over time, will be the far better, and more economic model. Better for business, better for the provider industry and better in the main for the consumer. Australia is such a vast and vacant country that no such technology can hope to be all things to all people, but at least by laying out an infrastructure solution, the basis for further improvement in the future will be there. As for the political cost Jennifer Hewett thinks will arise? In many ways, damned if they do and damned if they don't on the OPEL contract. Common sense says do your own thing in politics. Why give your foe any opportunity to crow? Pride goeth before a fall, perhaps? In the grand scheme, is it really going to matter? Australia gets a better communications system. It'll cost more and take a little longer but we all recognise that one gets what one pays for. Better to pay the locals and have comeback, rather than pay a joint venture contractor and have to chase them after the fact.
As ill advised as it may have been for me, I watched Four Corners last evening.
As what may be termed by many as a 'bank johnnie' because that's where I gained my start in finance, I could only nod in agreement with all the expose` had to say on the issue of steadily increasing consumer debt in Australia. In particular, Kim White, the former NAB personal banker. It's a nice euphemism for pawn broker, don't you think? "Give us your home and we'll give you the money" In truth, as White stated in as subtle a manner as he could without attracting legal suits, that's what lending to the consumer demographic is all about today. Speaking as someone who has been on the inside of major institutions at the selling end, I can fully understand when White stated that he'd known of suicides because of sales performance pressures. Sales targets are set without reference to those at the coal face who have the best knowledge of local conditions. Sales targets are set by faceless bean-counters in the institution's economics and marketing areas. They also have targets, but their targets aren't measurable. Their jobs are safe. It's those in the firing line, those at the fore-front of the public interface, those who have to do the 'sell job' to Joe Public whose jobs are on the line. As White stated quite clearly, if you don't meet the sales targets, you're 'performance managed' out. Being 'performance managed' means you're under the gun to achieve, or yer out on yer ear, buddy! These are the caring, sharing financial institutions we're told they are. Make no mistakes. There is no caring and no sharing when it comes down to sales results.
Then there's the credit cultures endemic to all financial institutions in this country. As one spokesperson noted, it's akin to a race to the bottom in regards to prudentiality. Surely, most institutions will assess at 1.5% to 2.00% over the current ruling cash rate, however, as 4 Corners detailed, we've incurred 3% rises in the last eighteen months. We're not through yet, either. There's at least one more tranche of US sub-prime debt to be rolled and whether you believe it or not, what happens there, happens here as well. We're currently looking at 9.50% (effective) rates on standard variable and while I doubt many people are actually locked into variable rates ( a non-sequitur if even there was one), there will be those so duped by the propaganda from their institution that they'll be loathe to explore the options available in fixed rates. Therein lies another issue. That of the relevant institutions not being honest, or ethical in their dealings with customers so besieged by the interest rate daemon.
Prudentiality stems from much, much more than simple adherence to assessment rate margins dictated by policy. Policy exists only for the legal protection of the institution concerned. It behoves every single loans approval officer to look further, think deeper and consider longer the circumstances of the applicants before them. Of course, here we have the other impactor. That of the broker/referrer complaining to the team leader of what ever institution's credit team that they're being unfairly treated. Who's word counts for more on such an argument? Why, the provider of the business, naturally. Again, it's down to the sales culture of the institution concerned. These days, lenders live or die in market share terms by the credo of the broker/referrer. In my mind this is surely a recipe for disaster, given that it's recognised universally that brokers live by their wits and will tell the approving authority whatever is required to achieve an approval. The borrower is a third, fourth and often last consideration. More often, not a consideration at all. It's the commission which counts.
This is the system we've built for ourselves. This is the system, which to all intents and purposes, we're happy with. Certainly, it's not one-size-fits-all and there are the easy marks out there like the couple which Four Corners depicted rather graphically last night. As a lender, I'm afraid I have little sympathy for such people, however, I also have no kind feelings towards the financial institutions which quite actively go about placing them in such a position. Financial services in this country are in need of a severe shake-up and a move away from 'market forces' control if the average consumer is to be in any way protected from predatory practices. These practices exist as an every-day occurrence. It's not at all unusual to hear during a morning staff meeting about the sales targets required in order for staff to be 'recognised'.
There is currently legislation in train which will outlaw predatory lending practices by brokers, but I'm left aghast by the fact that such legislation places next to no pressure on the institutions themselves to marshall the resources from which they gain their business. The buck stops with the broker, and there-in, my friends, will continue to lie the problem. While lenders tacitly agree to accept the fodder fed to them by brokers, immune from prosecution under law, the consumer credit problems of this country will not go away any time soon.
