Once at the forefront of my life, it's now on the back of my workshop door: Canberra Computer Accounting Systems' car door signage with which I drove my nile-blue Toyota Camry through Canberra's streets for more than ten years.
It all started in 1985, my very own annus horribilis: I had returned from my last assignment overseas and, in anticipation of continuing the work for my former Saudi boss from home, settled in tropical Townsville.
The work never came - well, not until two years later when his brothers Ali and Abdulhameed offered me my own office in the Banque Des Echanges Internationaux's building on Avenue Kléber in Paris but by that time I had grown tired of the fickleness of Arabs and declined the offer.
With few other job prospects in Townsville, I hastily relocated to Sydney where I eventually took up the impressive-sounding job of "Internal Consultant" with Wormald International which required me to be 'on the road' - or rather 'in the air' as Wormald's operations were spread all over the world - for nine months of the year. After the first rush of adrenalin had passed, I remembered that I had just given up a far more highly-paid overseas job with far greater perks in order to live a 'normal' domesticated life.
I promptly resigned and moved to Canberra where I had taken my first tentative steps as a young migrant twenty years earlier. There I wrote computer software in the PICK language for a large mailorder business for the first twelve months - read more here. Personal computers were slowly making their presence felt, and I began to specialise in PC-based computerised accounting systems, selling and installing off-the-shelf ATTACHÉ, SYBIZ, NewViews, and other packages, and also writing custom-built solutions in TAS, under my registered business name Canberra Computer Accounting Systems.
It was strictly a one-man business, just me and a telephone answering service. Those invisible girls at the answering service did a wonderful job for me as their ever-changing voices made my clients think they were dealing with a large computer software house. Only a few knew that I was working out of the spare bedroom in my house (later TWO spare bedrooms, with the wall knocked out between them).
Those were the days when an IBM computer with just 20MB of harddisk space retailed for around $8,000, when a monochrome monitor (you had a choice of green or amber display) cost some $700, and individual accounting software modules such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, or Inventory Control sold for close to a thousand dollars - EACH! Dot-matrix printers (remember dot-matrix printers?) sold for almost a thousand dollars and connecting several computers together with the help of LANtastic or NOVELL (those were the days before MS WINDOWS!) took hours and hours, if not days, and meant thousands of dollars in profit!
And there was very little competition as my combined expertise in accounting software, computer hardware, and networking plus a degree in accountancy wasn't matched by anybody. It took several years before accounting firms realised that there was a buck to be made by setting up their own PC consultancies.
Of course, all good things must come to an end: hardware and software prices kept dropping and with it my margins. I mean, who was going to stump up hundreds of dollars for installation and training after having bought a small-business accounting package such as 'Mind Your Own Business (MYOB)' for just $95 ?
And then came WINDOWS! Suddenly everybody was a computer expert and Canberra Computer Accounting Systems was no more! But it was fun while it lasted. Thanks for the memories!
I had to renew my driver's licence and was asked if I would like to be an organ donor. I asked, "Who would want them?"
When given the option of renewing for 1 year, 3 years, or 5 years, I took a calculated risk and opted for a 5-year licence. I hope I haven't been too overly confident!
P.S. Licences I have known:
... and right now she wants me to get the vegie garden ready for the spring crop which means making the 2.8 x 2.8m square rabbit- and bird-proof.
A walk-in enclosure is too much work. Instead, I have divided the area into four equal-sized squares and will build a wire-netted cage of 1.3 x 1.3m for each of the squares. Three cages will be just high enough (perhaps 60cm) for ground-hugging crops, while the fourth will be 1 metre high to accommodate staked tomatoes and beans. When each square is planted, a cage is placed over it until it's time to harvest.
Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go. I just hope I won't hit my green thumb with the hammer!
The Samoans, amongst whom he lived for the last four years of his life, called him Tusitala, a writer of tales: Robert Louis Stevenson.
I found this book while rambling through this morning's Moruya Country Markets. Its author, Gavin Bell, retraces the voyage of Stevenson's Casco and his arrival in what is now Western Samoa which became Stevenson's island home, thereby fulfilling his own prophecy:
'Few men who come to the islands leave them; they grow grey where they alighted; the palm shades and the trade winds fan them till they die, perhaps cherishing to the last the fancy of a visit home, which is rarely made, more rarely enjoyed, and yet more rarely repeated.'
I lived and worked in Samoa in 1978 and Gavin Bell's description of Apia, its capital, brings back lots of memories:
'Apia is a colourful little town, bustling with good-natured crowds in a setting which evokes its history of traders and adventurers and squabbling colonial powers. The predominant building materials are still wood and iron, which with their tendency to rot and rust in the tropics give the place an agreeably run-down look. Its costume of once elegant colonial structures has become threadbare; in places it is coming apart at the seams, and haphazard attempts to patch it up make it all the more charming.'
Now that I have reached the age where regrets take the place of my dreams, I wonder whether I should have let the palm shades and the trade winds fan me for a little longer ...
These misty mornings at "Riverbend" are sheer magic! I need these quiet, pensive moments: just me and my thoughts and a hot cup of tea.
As I sit here on a sweeping bend of the timeless Clyde River, the soothing tranquility of the river matched by the silence of the surrounding forest, I quaff my Chateau Cardboard, gaze into the sunset, and ponder the woes of the world. And I come to the comforting conclusion that there is nothing new under the sun.
Record financial results including Underlying EBITDA up 51% to US$37.1 billion, Underlying EBIT up 62% to US$32.0 billion and Attributable profit (excluding exceptional items) up 74% to US$21.7 billion.
Strong margins and returns illustrated by increase in Underlying EBIT margin to 47% and Underlying return on capital to 39%.
Record production across four commodities and ten operations.
Record operating cash flow of US$30.1 billion and gearing of 9% confirms capacity to comfortably fund the Group’s US$15.1 billion acquisition of Petrohawk Energy Corporation and extensive organic growth program.
Completion of expanded US$10 billion capital management program highlights commitment to maintain an appropriate capital structure through all points of the economic cycle.
22% rebasing of final dividend for full year dividend payout of 101 US cents per share.
Read full results.
While share and commodity markets gyrate from optimism to pessimism and back, BHP has no such longer-term qualms. BHP has a ‘through-cycles’ approach to investment. In 2008 and 2009 when all its rivals were carving into their spending, BHP invested $US20 billion. By continuing to pour capital into expanding its operations during the worst of the GFC, BHP leveraged its ability to capitalise on the return to more normal settings.
The nature of much of its investment, and the fact that a significant slab of it occurred during the immediate aftermath of the GFC before cost pressures really flared, means it remains at the lower end of the cost curve.
If China and India continue to sail along at high single-digit growth rates, BHP will continue to deliver dazzling profit and growth numbers because the rising floor of costs under the sector will ensure commodity prices have to remain high.
If, however, China were to slow and prices were to fall back, a lot of new production and potential production from BHP's competitors would quickly become sub-economic or worse, remove the higher-cost supply from the market.
Either way, BHP is in a winning position.
JULIA Gillard's hold on power is under more pressure in the wake of further allegations against MP Craig Thomson. Mr Thomson faces claims he breached electoral laws in spending nearly $40,000 on his 2007 election campaign using his union credit card. As pressure intensifies for Mr Thomson to give a detailed explanation to Parliament, The Advertiser also can reveal he embarked on a $30,000 personal spending spree using his union credit card on Qantas flights for his former wife, swank hotels, expensive restaurant meals and electronic and other retail goods. Court documents show the MP, who is fighting allegations he misused a union credit card to pay for prostitutes, racked up $2050 on sporting memorabilia. He also spent $1893 on whitegoods at Bing Lee and The Good Guys, $175 on Margaret River wine and $354 at Strandbags while heading up the Health Services Union. Mr Thomson's resignation could trigger the demise of the Gillard Government, |
Thilo Sarrazin (born 12 February 1945) is a German politician (SPD) and former member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank (until 30 September 2010).
In his 2010 book Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Does Away With Itself" or "Germany Abolishes Itself"), the most popular but also widely criticised book on politics by a German-language author in a decade, he denounces the failure of Germany's post-war immigration policy, sparking a nation-wide controversy about the costs and benefits of the ideology of multiculturalism.
Sarrazin advocates a restrictive immigration policy (with the exception of the highly skilled) and the reduction of state welfare benefits. There were severe reactions to his statements on economic and immigration policy in Berlin, which were published in September 2009 in Lettre International, a German cultural quarterly. In it he described many Arab and Turkish immigrants as unwilling to integrate. He said, among other things:
"Integration requires effort from those that are to be integrated. I will not show respect for anyone that is not making that effort. I do not have to acknowledge anyone who lives by welfare, denies the legitimacy of the very state that provides that welfare, refuses to care for the education of his children and constantly produces new little headscarf-girls. This holds true for 70 percent of the Turkish and 90 percent of the Arab population in Berlin."
He has also said regarding Islam, “No other religion in Europe makes so many demands. No immigrant group other than Muslims is so strongly connected with claims on the welfare state and crime. No group emphasizes their differences so strongly in public, especially through women’s clothing. In no other religion is the transition to violence, dictatorship and terrorism so fluid.”
Furthermore, he calculates that their population growth may well overwhelm the German population within a couple of generations at the current rate, and that their intelligence is lower as well. Sarrazin explains that his book deals with three issues. First Germany’s native born population is in decline, he said. Each generation is smaller than the one before. Second, the brightest people are having the fewest babies. And third, Germany was attracting the wrong kinds of immigrants. Instead of attracting qualified, professional people, Germany was taking in migrants from countries where educational levels were low and people had difficulty integrating into German society.
No kebabs for Sarrazin, it seems! I want to know more and have ordered the book.
From The Wall Street Journal of 17 July 2011:
Carbon cap and trade is dead in America, the Chicago emissions trading exchange has folded, and European nations keep fudging on their Kyoto Protocol promises. But Al Gore's great green hope still has a champion: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who announced last week that her government will impose a cap-and-tax regime.
Her Labor Party-led coalition wants 500 of the country's "biggest polluters" to buy carbon permits issued by the government, starting next year. Canberra would then create new bureaucracies to re-allocate that money to interest groups and selected businesses, to the tune of billions of dollars annually.
The news has caused a public uproar—not least because Ms. Gillard ran and won last year on an explicit promise not to pursue such policies. She ousted her predecessor in a backroom coup after his popularity tanked because of climate-change boosterism and promises to raise taxes. But Ms. Gillard's Green coalition partners hold the balance of power in parliament and pushed hard for cap and trade. The PM caved and has now been labeled "Juliar" in the popular press.
The Gillard government estimates its plan will increase electricity costs by 10% and gasoline by 9%—increases it calls "modest." That's easy for politicians to say. In a nationwide poll taken after the announcement, 60% of voters opposed the tax and 68% said they'd be financially worse off because of it. Ms. Gillard's popularity has plumbed new lows.
The plan is economically damaging enough that even the normally timid business lobby—many of whose members originally supported climate-change legislation—is speaking up. Opposition leader Tony Abbott slammed the plan as "socialism masquerading as environmentalism," and he has a point. The government plans to use some of the carbon tax receipts to triple the income threshold before the income tax hits. In other words, this is in part a scheme to redistribute income from energy users to Labor voters. It is an odd kind of tax reform that narrows the tax base.
All of this for negligible environmental benefits. Australia emits 1.5% of the world's greenhouse gases. Even if the country cut its emissions to zero, the move would do little to reduce global emissions. Australia's per-capita emissions are high compared to other developed nations because it's a sparsely populated continent blessed with an abundance of natural resources. Aussies have developed profitable, world-class natural resource and energy businesses that have lifted incomes at home and helped supply developing countries like China and India. This is bad?
It is if you believe in the theology that loathes carbon fuels and wants government to allocate the means of power production. In a speech Thursday, Ms. Gillard vowed to press forward with cap and tax and said that her convictions are "very deeply held." We'll see if her government can survive them.
In the meantime, Germany’s Chancellor has reached the limit of her country’s generosity. Where will the next bailout come from when German voters are at breaking point about being asked to foot the bill for the rest of Europe? As one German taxpayer put it - and you’ll have to imagine the accent:
Of course, this is my totally unbiased personal opinion.
Charles Ferguson's documentary, INSIDE JOB, explores the reasons and the effects of the 2008 world-wide financial downturn, starting with an examination of the problem in microcosm - in the small country of Iceland, which was a model community until the banks were de-regulated.
Like others before him, Ferguson claims the beginning of the problem was in the 80s when President Ronald Reagan deregulated the American banking industry, but he goes on to demonstrate that executive greed and dishonesty have been rampant in recent years.
Ferguson's really well made documentary makes at least some of the puzzle clearer. There are graphs and charts and graphics and numbers galore, but the bottom line is that the poor old punter has been taken for a ride by greedy corporate business tycoons who have been hand-in-glove with government departments.
It's a horror movie, in a way, one designed to make you angry and want to do something about it.
The frightening thing is that the same people who were advising Bush and Clinton are now advising Obama and the bonuses keep on getting bigger and millions and millions of lives have been decimated, destroyed by these people and they are just making as many billions of dollars for themselves as they used to.
I think this is a film for our time. Everybody ought to see it and get angry.
If you spoil a child with excessive gifts and pampering, what will happen when you stop?
That’s right, it will have a tantrum… screaming and demanding more of the same – “I don’t want economic austerity, I want a lolly and a new train set.”
As a parent you’ve got two options: cave in and keep spoiling the brat. Or put up with the tantrum until the child realises things have to change.
Those that argue governments should keep on spending are really saying they want to keep spoiling the child. The result?
A generation of brats who believe they’re entitled to something they haven’t earned or don’t want to pay for – “I don’t want economic austerity, I want free healthcare and welfare payments.”
I bet none of those youngsters shown in those disturbing newsreels have ever worked. As a friend in London emailed me:
"When I saw all those rioters on Tottenham High Street, I knew I had to find somewhere safe to hide so I went into The Job Centre".
... until mid-afternoon today, 9th August 2011, when BHP reached a low of $34.81 from which it recovered to close at $37.05.
What a drop from its high of $49.81 on 11th April 2011!
It will be a long climb back up again, and perhaps we won't see it back in the high $40s until the end of the year. The announcement of another share buy-back would certainly help.
Elsewhere, things are going from bad to worse. If this global crisis continues at the present rate, by the end of this year only two banks will be left operational ..... the Blood Bank and the Sperm Bank! And before you know it, these two will merge, and the whole place will be full of bloody wankers.
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien war der Anfang und auch das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.
This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.
He reserves the right to revise his views at any time. He might even indulge in the freedom of contradicting himself. He has done so in the past and will most certainly do so in the future. He is not persuading you or anyone else to believe anything that is reported on or linked to from this site, but encourages you to use all available resources to form your own opinions about important things that affect all our lives and to express them in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everything on this website, including any material that third parties may consider to be their copyright, has been used on the basis of “fair dealing” for the purposes of research and study, and criticism and review. Any party who feels that their copyright has been infringed should contact me with details of the copyright material and proof of their ownership and I will remove it.
And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.