Month: March 2011

2012? Peace Brother!


I was just reading an article about how businesses are having it tough. Payment terms have apparently deteriorated and receipts or payments not made on time have caused considerably more businesses to go belly-up.

It’s a sort of catch-22 situation that regulators have to contend with. On the one hand the new Basel capital regime for banks should see banks become better backed and therefore, stronger. On the other hand, this latest Basel model is causing banks to hold back credit and is choking business cashflows.

Admittedly cashflows should be generated via revenue receipts but with interest rates up and property equity value down, reduced consumer spending is impacting revenue. Basel III (or is it IV now?) is holding back much needed credit which would have bridged such cashflow gaps.

Earlier I was reading something a mate sent through a day before. Titled “The New War” it had a horrible story about how Muslims are fighting each other in the middle east and Ahmadenijad wanted a nuclear bomb not just to decimate Israel but also its non-Shia Muslim neighbours. The context was a Sunni-Shia enmity which has run for hundreds of years.

Apparently the target was Saudi Arabia and the House of Saud royal family. If the Shia assault happens – with or without the Peugeot rider’s nuke – the obvious casualty to the consumerist west is oil prices. Already Tress and Kiddo gasped at the $1.45+ per litre price over the weekend. Mad there-will-be-no-carbon-tax Gillard’s action aside, it looks like it will continue to be very expensive to drive.

I wonder what it does though, to Israel and what this means to world history through the eyes of the Bible. Maybe nothing at all but with a huge event brewing in the middle-east, one has to think about implications to Israel and the Biblical views of things, no?

So – companies are failing, we have to drive less and an Armageddon styled confrontation is brewing. All this as we witness the unfolding of 2011 to usher in 2012. Is the 2012 story really credible after all or is it just a convenient collating of events to say – there, I told you so?

Somehow I feel vindicated for leaving a job which was taking away my opportunities to do other things. Since starting my new job about a month and a half ago, I have found more time to read, write and feel less stressed.

Last Saturday after dropping Tress off for a dental appointment I went back to do some reading and planning and after picking her up again about an hour later I went to the MST library to acquaint myself with the system and resources there and to do some research. Unfortunately it closes at 12pmon Saturdays so I only had just over 1.5 hours there. I did what I could and got home to do a bit more work.

I had to move on though, to finish my preparations for a foundation course I had to present on Sunday (“TRAIL”) so I quickly put my MST stuff away, had a quick lunch and started work on the TRAIL prep work. The slides had to be cleaned up and organised and I went through the 40+ slides at least 3 times more, and prepared guidance notes for a macro map as well as for specific slides.

In the midst of doing all this a mate called and asked if we’d like to drop in for dinner. Kiddo had an exam (a “SAC”) coming up on Tuesday so she has been working hard too so I decided we’d turn it down and concentrate on finishing the work we had to do.

We went out for a quick dinner and came back to watch a DVD on the course presentation again – a third viewing for me – before I decided it was enough work and saved the slides on a desktop shortcut and printed off my notes.

Somehow, spending time on these things made it feel like it was all worth the while. Given what I read recently about what’s been going on in this seemingly crumbling world, I’m glad I paid the financial cost of giving up my previous role to be able to do what I did over the weekend.

Regards,Ian

Sent from my iPigeon

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Red Elephant


I should include an entry on this Thai place we went to last Saturday, which was really nice.

Last Sunday night we had the cell kick off dinner in our home, with about 25 people. Tress and I had started to prepare for the dinner from early Saturday. We mowed, trimmed, swept, applied my leave blower liberally, wiped the outdoor furniture, vacuumed the house and shopped for all of the stuff we were going to cook and by the time we were done it was about 6.30pm.

We were tired and hungry and were ready for a good meal out so Tress rang around and we found this place in Hawthorn called the Red Elephant. We thoroughly enjoyed the meal and after that hefty dinner we went to Armadale to collect mail for this couple who have been away on holidays. We got home happy but still thinking about dinner the next day. As it turned out, the dinner was good and the cell had a good kick-off meeting. The silly season has well and truly gone by and work, school and church stuff had started again.

Regards,Ian

Sent from my iPigeon

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Will 23 March Speak?


How many votes and how many seats do you think Labor would have lost or not received in the last elections, had voters knew Gillard was going to go with the Greens and introduce the carbon tax?

How many voters who voted for Labor would have voted someone else – either the Coalition or an independent – had Gillard campaigned saying, at least in so far as the carbon tax is concerned and leaving aside other issues like giving Territories outright law passing rights, that she would team up with Bob Brown and his Greens? That would have set off a whole chain of activities which would likely shift the mood and results in a different direction, or not?

Will we have a whiff of the hypothetical outcome on 23 March, when the conservatives plan to hold rallies against the carbon tax?

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JG’s Green Pork Barreling


Alan Kohler’s piece on Julia Gillard’s porky leaves a lot of juicy fat to chew over. He wrote Julia’s great big lie wasn’t about the environment as much as it will be about two much bigger agenda both of which are crucial for her survival and that of labor.

The first is about a re-badge of labor with a heavy tint of green. The green tide and the undeserved powers of non-representative persons like Bob Brown and Adam Brandt are growing threats to Julia’s labor. This carbon tax will stem that tide and propel labor using the same force.

The second is good old pork barreling strategy. This tax is timed to bring home the bacon for re-distribution at the next election. This explains Abbott’s anger and strong reaction.

For all of the giggling and waving of hands etc Julia is really quite a schemer. If only her schemes are fair dinkum beneficial for Australia.

Ciao Summer


‘Luruh’ is a Malay word for I think, ‘fall’. It is now ‘fall’ again – or autumn – and this morning being the first day of ‘Luruh’ the weather was noticeably more crisped than in recent days. I labored through my 7km run but quickly cooled down instead of sweating like a pig. On warm summer mornings, I’d finish my run and still be sweating half 20-30 minutes later after even after getting on the train. I love the cooler weather.

Soon there’d be leaves covering the footpaths, lawns, even cars. The good news is in a few weeks the lawn would stop growing like a teenager so the lawnmower need not be dragged out quite as often but the bad news is there’d be a lot of raking and blowing of fallen leaves and the gutter would clog up again. The days would also be shorter and the winter woolies would be out soon after. I would not be able to throw the windows wide open as I do now.

Last night I was in my study room for a few hours –studying McGraths ‘Christian Theology’ (while waiting for my copy of Millard Erickson to arrive via Amazon) and trying to digest Theology 101 with a bit of Mozart in the background. A glass of crisp Sauvignon Blanc – ubiquitous over the summer months – sat on my table, which would soon – perhaps in 2-3 weeks –replaced by glasses of Shiraz to see me through the winter. Winter is nice like that – huddled up in a room with a book and beautiful music and a glass of heartwarming nature’s gift. This wild topsy-turvy summer (floods, cyclones, uprisings, carbon tax and Ashes pain) is finally over. Welcome back, Luruh. Stay awhile.