Bright Red Fish . . . a deep pool of talent

We may trade with them but we don’t have to like the Chinese Government.

A little tribute to this symbol of resistance and why we are lucky to live where we do.

Alan writes: I think we have to draw the line at tweeting..

Alan writes: As one who found years after a financial planner swore hand on heart he took no trailing commissions on investments he recommended that he was, I have avoided this industry.

At the time, my partner and I were winding up our company super plan. My instinct was to roll it all into the industry super fund which was part of my employment but he was scathing about industry funds and came up with a complicated set of investment options which broke up our money into four separate funds, all retail of course.

Over the years these funds underperformed my industry super. Often the difference was as much as 8 per cent. Meanwhile, the trailing commissions were trickling back to the adviser to whom I paid a fee for his advice. The aversion to the industry funds was of course their low fees and a refusal to play the trailing commission game.

The whole experience has stuck in my craw  and I  have no sympathy for the investment advisers  who bleat about regulation of their industry. The GFC has shown example after example of advisers putting clients into dodgy plays. While the advisers got their commissions their clients are now broke. So if you are going to one of these people get a statutory declaration that they don’t take trailing commissions before you do anything.

A recent story in the Sydney Morning Herald shows that maybe they are getting the message that they are on the nose.

Alan writes: The Rudd Government’s decision to raise the retirement age is regarded as a sick joke being played on older workers in Australia. The employment rate of older workers is dropping and they are the first targeted in any downturn or corporate restructure and they find it difficult to gain new employment  For many, raising the retirement age just means being on the dole two years longer. Ross Gittins on The Sydney Morning Herald had a good view of the problem and the post below from Ava Hubble sets out the grim truth for over 55s seeking work.

• Ross Gittins
• May 27, 2009

Illustration: Kerry Leishman.

Work ’til you drop. John Howard talked about it, now Kevin Rudd has done it. If you’re appalled by the decision to raise the age pension age to 67, my advice is to get used to it. There’s more to come because a lot of factors are pushing in that direction.

Governments throughout the developed world are edging up the pension age. The United States, Germany, Iceland, Norway and Denmark are moving their retirement age to 67, if they’re not there already. Britain is moving its pension age to 68.

Are they all doing it to save the taxpayer money? Of course. [Read more →]

On Crikey Ava Hubble writes: As mentioned yesterday, Australians are going to have to wait two years longer, until they are 67, to qualify for the aged pension. Meanwhile, in spite of evidence of increasing longevity and claims that 60 is the new 40, age discrimination continues in the workplace.

Yesterday recruitment expert, Toby Marshall of Abacus, again confirmed that even though the economic meltdown has been attributed to the reckless risk-taking of inexperienced young financiers, there is still no call for older, arguably wiser heads. [Read more →]

Alan Kennedy writes: Watching the Rudd Government cave-in to squeals from unions and business about its employee share plan made me think how hard it is going to be to wean Australians off middle class welfare.

The handout mentality built up over the Howard years has created a nation of whingers.  In the budget lead-up I saw a couple who have three children by taxpayer-funded IVF complaining that they can’t have a fourth because they will have to pay for it.

I saw another bloke on $200 large a year complaining about the  private health levy being means tested.

Now the share plan which, judging by the squeals, probably hit its target. Sad to see it being cut back, it remains a rort

Below is a column from Paul Krugman of The New York Times about the  state of California which has been sunk by middle class selfishness. People in California want the Government to pay for everything but don’t want their taxes used to do so. It’s a timely lesson in what happens when a society thinks the Government owes it a living.

Paul Krugman

The recession has hit the Golden State hard. The housing bubble was bigger there than almost anywhere else, and the bust has been bigger too. California’s unemployment rate, at 11 percent, is the fifth-highest in the nation. And the state’s revenues have suffered accordingly.

[Read more →]

The original 1959 Pink Cadillac, 100 yards of metal and  gorgeous bad taste and below , the beautiful  Alfa Romeo Villa D’Este

Alan Kennedy writes . . . For many years I wrote about cars for magazines from Wheels to The Bulletin and later for daily newspapers. It was money for jam. I have loved cars for as long as I can remember. And I can remember it all, every car my parents owned, and those belonging to the neighbours … The flashy 1959 Chevy Bel Air, owned by Mr Lamaro, the Italian wholesale greengrocer next door. The other neighbours’ FJ Holden, one of the first to be bought in our suburb.

They were an odd mob, two spinsters and a bachelor brother with a slightly seedy Edwardian air about them, who used to spy on us from their backyard. [Read more →]

This is from one of America’s best-loved columnists  Dave Barry on the dreaded colonoscopy…
I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.  A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a colour diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .  Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.  I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn’t really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, ‘HE’S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!’ [Read more →]

Here’s a report  we can file under the bleeding obvious……

By Joe Strupp

Published: October 30, 2008 10:22 AM ET
NEW YORK (From our October print edition) When Randy Hammer became president and publisher of the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times last October, the first sounds he heard from readers were not words of welcome. They demanded to know why the paper had moved local news up front, national and international news far back, and why the editorial pages had been relocated from the A section to the back of business. “It came across loud and clear that they did not like an all-local A section,” he says of the changes implemented six months before he arrived. “People hated it.”

Within three months, those changes flew out the window. “I was nervous about moving the paper back to the way it was, but it was the greatest day of my journalistic career,” he notes. “It was incredibly positive.”

Hammer is not alone. Some papers are finding that recent efforts to overhaul their daily print product with full redesigns, more “lite” news, cutbacks in story length, pages, and newshole, and even changes to the size or design of the paper’s flag often elicit a backlash. With the mad rush to stem sliding print circulation and to take advantage of the Web’s potential - often with the hope of drawing in younger readers and non-subscribers - newspapers are making some of the most dramatic alterations ever to their print editions. Some dailies look more like their Web counterparts than the print versions of just a few years ago. Read the rest here