willedoo

"Have you ever met a specialist doctor who wasn't at the least a snob, and at the worst an arrogant prick? "YES

 

The wifes Neurosurgeon.

 

He had a good laugh when I asked if I could get a "Memory-Chip" in My head

 

spacesailor

Must be a neurosurgeon thing. The one I go to, you wouldn't get a nicer bloke.

This thread is drifting a bit. Time for a silly picture.

The pension age increase was long term planning, brought in at the May 2009 budget to be phased in from 2017 onward. I think that's why a lot of Labor voters think the Libs brought it in. One point is that Labor set it at 67, not 70 as per the preferred Liberal party number. If Wayne Swan didn't do the long term thing and had not brought it in, the Liberals would have made it 70 straight up when they took over. But they might still do that if they have trouble making a quid in the future.

A Lada powered timber jinker:

And spare a thought for those people who have turned 65 and can't find paid employment. A handful of years ago, they could apply for an age pension. Now it's a kick up the arse and live on $300pw on Newstart till you're 67. The Libs were planning age 70 till Scomo realized he'd better start getting popular for any chance to win the election.

The thing that really grates is that it was a Labor government who raised it to 67; the first change for the male pension age since the pension was introduced in 1909. Thanks a lot, Wayne and Kev.

Good point, I'd forgotten about rates in rough calculations; probably more than $30,000 over the years. Another thing to factor is the selling agents fee which escaped my original guesstimate.

I think from memory, all write offs come off the top, eg: total sale value minus costs, expenses, inflation indexing etc.. Then it's that figure minus value of house & 2 hectares, divided by two = capital gain.

PS

 

lost my desktop, something changed my C: drive to X:. Will have to remove the drive & format it, Hope it works. But loosing all my data, thats BAD.

space, you might be able to try the drive in a hard drive dock & plug it into another computer as an external hard drive. If the data is accessible that way, you could copy it to somewhere.

Good luck with it. Turned out not too bad for us but I won't say it was simple. It is hard enough learning information you are interested in but even harder when the subject matter is boring and detailed.

Well, I'll be trying to lower it as much as I can. With capital gain tax, selling agent fees, moving costs and stamp duty and other costs to buy the next home, if the homework isn't done right, it's easy to go backwards.

Thanks Octave. I knew you could designate the boundary lines of the two hectares but didn't know it could be split into portions. That makes it easy if there are sheds and infrastructure a distance away from the house. I'll probably be going through all that CGT stuff next year if my property sells.

A friend of mine has been in a nursing home for a year now. For his room & board + care he paid a deposit of around $400,000 which supposedly goes back to his estate when he passes on. On top of that, they take 80% of his pension to cover costs. It leaves him with enough cash to supplement the diet a bit. It's a good facility; his only regular complaint is the food which he describes as "rather moist and uninteresting". But I guess the reality is that the caterers have to cook soft food for the oldest and most infirm, and it wouldn't be practical or economic to try and cater for different categories of resident.

The new toys are great. The internet changed the world forever. What a fantastic resource of knowledge. We used to have to go to the local library with it's small collection of largely irrelevant books. If someone hadn't written a book on the subject of your interest you were just left in the dark. But now, if you want to know how many dimples a Mongolian moth has on it's left toe, it's most likely only a few mouse clicks away, and all in the comfort of your own home.

Press some buttons and you can bring the world into your living room.

Thanks Octave; I'm well versed in that as I have more than 2 hectares. The mate in question owns half of a property more than that 2 hectare limit. He lives on the property but it's the portion exceeding the two hectares that bumps his assets up.

Centrelink valuations can be dodgy and are well worth appealing if they seem unrealistic. They often use contract valuers who wouldn't know if their arse was on fire. I've had personal experience of that - not with my arse being on fire, but with dealing with one of those twits contracted by Centrelink. His valuation wasn't adverse to my situation but in phone conversations, I was quite astounded by his lack of basic knowledge on the subject.

It can be a bit unfair. Someone who has a rural residential block they've lived on most of their lives can receive a pittance % of the pension due to the size of the block, while their neighbour can have a ten million dollar house on less than two hectares and receive a full pension if his other assets do not exceed the limit.

Where I live, so far, it hasn't been a problem because of the type of district it is. If you have a larger property, they value the total property. Then they estimate the value of your house and two hectares. The difference between the two is deemed a non exempt asset. Because I live in a high growth/demand area, a two hectare block is worth just as much as a ten hectare block, so the difference is minimal. Where the mate on the disability pension lives, there is a much bigger differential between a two hectare block and a bigger one, so he is effected a lot more than I am.

Once you exceed the asset limit, your pension is reduced by $3 a fortnight for every $1,000 the limit is exceeded. So if you are $100,000 over the limit, you lose $300 per fortnight. If you live in a city and your non residence assets don't exceed the limit, you can receive a full pension. If you live outside of town on a few acres you can be forced to sell your property you've lived on all your life so you can get a pension.

Here's a hypothetical situation: You can have the arse out of your pants and be living on breadcrumbs, and so are forced to sell up and downsize so you can receive a full pension and feed yourself. Let's just say that over all the years you've lived there, property values have increased by great numbers. You can sell that property (more than 2 hectares) for 10 million dollars, then buy a ten million dollar house on less than 2 hectares and receive a full pension and live a bit better. Only hypothetical of course, as most people with 10 million dollars would buy a cheaper property and live as a self funded retiree on the balance. And be free of Centrelink to boot.

A mate of mine is on a disability pension. A few days ago, he was notified that his payment is reduced to $50 per fortnight because Centrelink re valued his property and he now exceeds the asset limit by another $150,000. Problem is, he's still disabled and can't work. He's going to appeal the decision, so it will be interesting to see the outcome. It's ironic that he voted for the government who only two months later took away his disability pension.

Brings to mind the famous Harry S. Truman quote - " How many times do you have to get hit over the head before you figure out who's hitting you.".

We have to pay for those tax cuts one way or the other.

The clowns are in charge on both sides of the Atlantic now.

It's just part of history. We've had the bronze age, the iron age, and now we're entering the age of global buffoonery. It's clownage.

And we're keeping up with the Joneses as well. This is standard footwear in Canberra:

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I imagine bike helmets would have improved a lot. Haven't stuck my head inside one since the early 70's.

They Look Gay !( Happy)

 

spacesailor

Crikey, don't say that, spacey. I've got a crate full of those old Soviet gas masks.

Good point, Nev. I always rode with full face protection (saved my features once when I slid down the road face down) .

It's not much fun. I landed face first at 110mph and it was only the fact that I'd borrowed a mate's Bell helmet that saved me. The brand of full face I normally wore was very soft in the front chin guard, so I probably would've broken a jaw and lost a bit of nose with that one. The Bell was heavier, but solid as a rock.

Who said the Cold War wasn't fun?

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Problem is spacey, without a helmet, if you fall off you could be much more involved with the next world out there.

Does it come complete with machine guns?

Probably an optional extra, no doubt. So far it's only been for police & security motorcades but Kalashnikov have been doing the sums on serial production for public sales. I doubt they'd sell enough to make it worthwhile, but who knows. They make a smaller electric bike in police and special forces variants as well.

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And is it Russian ?.spacesailor

I think it's a Suzuki. C90 Boulevard maybe.

This one's Russian. Electric motorcycle made by Kalashnikov. 3 metres long and weighs 510 kg.. Electric motor torque can push it from a standing start to 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds.

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If they want to cater to a more modern audience, they could have two hours of 007 with his head buried in his mobile device. Something people can relate to. All that other stuff is just too real.

US Navy downs Iranian airliner.

The 29th. anniversary a couple of weeks ago. Here's the Iranian viewpoint on it; well worth a read.

PressTV-The ‘forgotten’ US shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655

It is believed that in most cases incidents that were described as inter-tribal warfare were actually armed expeditions that were socially sanctioned for a particular purpose, such as to avenge a death, or to punish an offender. It is ridiculous to think that groups of people living within established territorial boundaries over hundreds of years where food and shelter were sufficient for everyone's needs, would spend their time in mortal combat with neighbours for no apparent gain.

That's quite right, OME. Possibly there were odd tribes who didn't get along in general, but most were as you described. A lot of fighting was token, to avenge a murder, or a raiding party that pinched a few roos from some other tribes land where they weren't supposed to be without an invite. In spite of strict tribal law, due to human nature, they had the odd bad egg just like our society. That could give rise to a murder not sanctioned by the murderer's tribe, so honour reprisals were the thing.

Another common reason was women. To avoid too much inbreeding, wives were stolen from each other's tribes and custom and honour dictated that the tribe who suffered the loss would avenge the offence. In a lot of areas, many tribes came together for big meetings at set times; for trade or ceremonial purposes or both. I remember once in SW Qld., either Durham or Karmona, coming across a big creek system with literally many hundreds of fireplaces along a stretch of the creek bank, probably over a distance of 200 metres. Way too many for the normal population and lifestyle of the local tribe. It looked to me like one of those meeting places where other tribes came from miles around to an annual festival.

Also, reasonable relations between tribes would have been necessary for trade, which was prolific. In the north of South Australia, the stone axes are made from a stone that doesn't exist there. It came from a long way down into NSW, and was probably traded through several tribal areas on established trade routes before reaching it's destination.

The kid is probably right that there are only two genders. Even if an hermaphrodite had a mix of xx and xy chromosome pairs, that's still just a combination of two genders. No third type of chromosome pair. He was making the point that all other claimed genders are just personal identification and not true genders.

I think that was the point he was making. His argument was not about dicks or no dicks. He was basing it on science.