Ramblings of a 30something

You shrink, yes you do!

Adam — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:27:50 +0000

You can never ignore the wisdom of a seven year old. Take for instance my son Ethan who spent the day yesterday with one of his mates from school who has an older sister. I asked Ethan how old he thought his friends sister was because I thought that she would be at least 13 years old, to which Ethan responded; “Nah, Kyle’s sister isn’t a teenager because she is shorter than her mum and dad.” I asked Ethan what this has to do with anything, his response was; “You know dad, adults shrink when they get older so teenagers are always bigger than their parents.” Simple. To the point. I cannot refute his logic!

Contradictions

Adam — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:39:12 +0000

Life is full of contradiction and when you travel a lot you get to see a whole lot more of it.

Take for example my trip to the airport the other day. I caught a taxi call “Black and White Taxis”. The taxi was completely yellow. Then I caught a taxi to my hotel and it happened to be called “Silver Top”, it was yellow with a green top.

I arrived at my hotel and was the informed by the smiling receptionist that I had been upgraded to a “Studio Apartment”, turns out the only rooms on offer at the hotel were studios in the first place. It could mean that they had intended not to give me a room in the first place?

Regardless of all this I think that I will start a new segment on contradictions because if you don’t laugh and shake your head you will cry…

In the olden days…

Adam — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:22:20 +0000

My wife and kids final moved to Brisbane the other day after I had moved here first a few weeks prior. On our way home after a trip to the local shopping centre, my eldest son Ethan was talking about some new lego he had purchased in Perth just prior to his trip to Brisbane. He went on for some time about all the features of the Lego and how great it was etc. The little brat then stopped mid sentence and pipped “Dad, in the olden days did you have Lego?” Here I was thinking that I was cool and with it! I am still left wondering what age constitutes olden days because I am sure to raise it with him when he has kids of his own.

If we know its bad then why do we do it?

Adam — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:13:54 +0000

I was on my way into work today and because I was stuck in traffic. There wasn’t anything else to do other than have a look around when I spotted this guy.

He was probably in his late 20′s and over weight sitting at the bus stop which was fairly busy with commuters waiting on the next service. He was positioned at the end of the bench with his back to everyone and in his one hand he gripped an empty packet from a bakery. In his other hand he held another packet and was ravenously making short work of a big mince pie.

As I watched him eat his pie, I noticed that he kept on looking around to see if anyone was watching, almost like he was afraid of being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. As I did this I wondered to myself why he would eat such a thing filled with fat and sodium at 8 am when he obviously knew it wasn’t good for him. A suppose it is each to there own.

Ruddyy Great Idea!!

Adam — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:16:29 +0000

Well a $200 Billion AUD deficit isn’t going to be good enough for this Australian Labour Government. They have already changed the original ceiling from $75 Billion AUD, and now our Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, is talking about a possible $300 Billion AUD blow out under the guise of buffering our economy from a major recession caused by the Global Financial Crisis. What a load a bullocks! We had surplus after surplus through the last Government and at no point has the great stimulus done a dot to stimulate anything! Rudd may be riding the great popularity train, but that’s all he is good at! It’s time for some real economic management.

How to pick up…

Adam — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:06:39 +0000

My wife got dressed the other morning and it was a bit of mayhem, however she managed to get herself ready, me ready and our three young boys and she did this while looking drop dead gorgeous! Anyway we went out and I should point out that we were on our way to church. We took the boys to Sunday School, went to church, got the boys from Sunday School and then went home. Nothing out of the ordinary happened…

Anyway my wife was heading towards our bedroom once we got home and has the following conversation with one of our sons:

Seth: “Mum what’s that funny picture on your bum?”

June: “What are you talking about Seth?”

Seth: “It looks like writing on your bum.”

June: “ADAM GET IN HERE NOW!!! Come and look at what I did”

I come into the room to see what’s happening and am presented with the following message across my wife’s bum which I can see through her dress: FOLLOW ME->->->! It explained straight away the detachment of young me that sat behind us at Church. My wife has decided to leave her Bonds panties for more appropriate clothing from here on in, but I have to admit it is good advertising!

Where has all the money gone?

Adam — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:24:30 +0000

Well if you believe what the economists are saying, 80% of the $8.7 Billion (AUD) handed out in December ’08 by Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan have gone to the banks either in the form of debt reduction or savings. Which is kind of funny because I don’t think that this would have had the desired effect of creating the 70,000 the Government believed that it would let alone saving 1 single job!

This fact has been further highlighted by our biggest fall in retail sales in 9 years of 2% in February. So we are deep into our second round of stimulus by the Rudd Labour Government. Surely even Rudd would be looking at these statistics coming out and wondering if maybe a little more bi-partisan support would have been warranted in respect to what our stimulus package should have looked like?

A walking/talking contradiction from Down Under…

Adam — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:30:08 +0000

…from a land where koalas hop and kangaroos sit in trees all day our National Treasure, Kevin Rudd, had a grand tour of the New York Stock Exchange. This man is the epitome of a modern day leader and I believe his talents are lost on the humble land of Australia. After all if you listen to President Obama and his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, from the great United States of America, this great man Kevin Rudd is the embodiment of economic reform to help wrest Australia from the perils of a world recession. My feeling, and that of many Australian’s, is if Rudd is so good maybe some other country will take him and our great treasurer Wayne Swan?

I do get the feeling however that Rudd is struggling to remember who he is or what he actually stands for. Not too long ago he wrote an essay de-crying “extreme capitalism” and then yesterday he is telling the G20 leaders that we need to restore the drivers of economic growth with the corner stone being free trade! Confused? Don’t worry so am I, but then I have been in a state of confusion since he was elected as our leader over 18 months ago. I am still struggling to understand how anyone could have voted for him in the first place, but I suppose you can put it down to democracy.

What a load of tripe dished up by 60 Minutes

Adam — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:01:18 +0000

Last night I happened to watch the interview on 60 Minutes of Sue Morphet, the CEO of Pacific Brands. For the sceptic in all of us, I would believe anyone if they told me 60 Minutes received a retainer as part of an overall publicity drive by Pacific Brands. The interview technique of Ellen Fanning was pathetic.

If you believe Ms Morphet, it is the Australian Public’s fault that Pacific Brands has had to shed 1,800 jobs, and to back the argument up we had Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman agree with her assessment. Ms Morphet had an astounding insight into the Australian retail culture with the following remark: “Long, long gone are the days where, actually, Australians are prepared to pay more for Australian-made goods and the only way that we’ll pay for Australian-made goods is if they’re giving us something that buying elsewhere or cheaper isn’t giving us.” Give me a break, my house is full of the some 300 brands that Pacific Brands manufactures, as are most Australian homes.

The issue with Pacific Brands is that the top management took their eyes off the ball for far too long in the days of plenty, then when we had the world economic crisis and the brakes were put on the economy, they realised the dire predicament they were in. Now we have 1,800 people added to the jobless queue in Australia.

Let us cut out all the tripe that was spoon fed to us last night by Ms Morphet from the ever eager prompts of Ellen Fanning: the reason that PB are in strife is the $800 Million debt they are struggling to service. In addition to this the top executives have unjustified large salaries and perks. The Australian public paid out $15 Million in assistance through our Government to find out that the company approved over $7 Million in executive bonuses. Ms Morphet was deceptive on her entitlement when asked what she received she said: “Oh, around about a million dollars.” In actual fact it was more than $1.86 Million. If you are like me, I think I would notice an extra lazy $800,000 lying around; maybe it’s not like that for the super rich?

Employers have a moral obligation not only to shareholders, but to their employees. The current economic environment that we are operating in, is allowing companies to wrap their “tough” decisions around constraints based on the current operating environment. I don’t deny the fact that for the greater good of thousands more workers, you sometimes have to make a less performing area redundant. What I question in this case is a culture of greed, and a desire to protect those at the top. Just like individuals where what you sow is what you reap, so too is the principle relevant to business. I think that it is time that our leaders in business and government remember that accountability and truth are worth more than slick words and empty promises.

Contempt = Double Dissolution

Adam — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:15:55 +0000

It amazes me that it has only taken the Australian Labour Party less than 18 months to run our budget into a massive deficit of over $150 Billion (AUD). It’s a good thing then that they had the world economic crisis to blame for the situation. Haven said that, when you look at the first stimulus package at the end of 2008 when they handed out over $10 Billion (AUD) to the public on the pretense that it would create jobs (70,000 to be exact), its not surprising then in its latest round of hand outs, that the Government is quick to say that this time round there will be no job creation but rather job protection. Tell that to the extra Australian’s standing in unemployment lines this time round, I am sure they would be happy to hear that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan have our futures in their capable hands. Rudd would like to believe that he is the Holy Trinity re indoctrinated , and we the Australian public are here to buy all the sop he dishes up. I don’t think so.

Then you look at policy making and debating. Although Labour do not have the numbers in the Senate, they treat the Liberals, Greens and Independents with complete disregard and contempt. Last night the Alcopops Tax was thrown out, and it looks like the Fair Work Bill has every chance of not being passed either. Labour believe that they have a mandate to change the working environment, given their victory last election. If this was the case then they would have won the numbers in the Senate to vote their policy through. Successive Labour Governments have been slow to learn, you don’t need to look further than our current deficit, so I will put it in plain Australian English: KEEP ON TREATING THE SENATE LIKE CHILDREN AND YOU WILL HAVE A DOUBLE DISSOLUTION VOTE BEFORE THE END OF 2009!