red750

I worked from 16 to 65, with a period of 8 years of on again - off again temp jobs around the age of 46 - 54. Paid tax all the way through. Contributed to a voluntary provident fund before I was retrenched, and because my wife was working, I was not entitled to any unemployment benefits through that 8 years. To assist my wife's income and educate 3 kids, I was obliged to draw down that provident fund. When compulsory super came in in 1993, I was earning a very small amount, so 3% super didn't amount to much. When I got full time employment at 54, it was at a much lower salary than I had prior to being retrenched. The only government handout we received was Child Endowment (now Family Allowance) which went on the kids clothes and footwear. At 65, I was engineered into retirement, with a totally inadequate super fund. My wife's super and mine lasted us 6 years. We have been retired now for 8 years, and are totally reliant on the pension. We scratch and scrape to make each pension day,and dread the mail or phone calls chasing unpaid bills and threats of disconnected services. We live on the cheapest store brand items, and discounts, and shop after 6 pm when meat and bakery items are marked down. We live on the razor's edge the whole time and pray for a miracle. Our health rules out any possibility of looking for work. We are both 73.

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Could KJU be playing DJT for a chump. Take a step back, get the US troops out of South Korea, then move in and take over?

If Trump pulls the troops out, where are they going to put them? What are they going to do with them? Unemployment will skyrocket. They'll have to start another war to keep them busy. Meanwhile China sits back rubbing its hands together.

As for Trump being impeached, out of the frying pan into the fire. VP Pence would take America back to the 30's.

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I was in the six item express lane at the store quietly fuming.

Completely ignoring the sign, the woman ahead of me had slipped into the check-out line pushing a cart piled high with groceries. Imagine my delight when the cashier beckoned the woman to come forward looked into the cart and asked sweetly, "So which six items would you like to buy?"

Wouldn't it be great if that happened more often?

A man goes to see the Rabbi.

"Rabbi, something terrible is happening and I have to talk to you about it."

The Rabbi asked, "What's wrong?"

The man replied, "My wife is going to poison me."

The Rabbi, very surprised by this, asks, "How can that be?"

The man then pleads, "I'm telling you, I'm certain she's going to poison me.

What should I do?"

The Rabbi then offers, "Tell you what. Let me talk to her, I'll see what I can find out and I'll let you know."

A week later the Rabbi calls the man and says, "I spoke to your wife on the phone for three hours. You want my advice?

The man said, "Yes" and the Rabbi replied, "Take the poison."

Hank Marvin (The Shadows) made some beautiful music. Chris Rea. What about Keith Richard (Rolling Stones)? How he can play with those gnarled arthritic looking fingers beats me.

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Amazing fact

1. The sport of choice for the urban poor is BASKETBALL.
   2. The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is BOWLING.
   3 The sport of choice for front-line workers is FOOTBALL.
   4. The sport of choice for supervisors is BASEBALL.
   5. The sport of choice for middle management is TENNIS.
   And;
   6. The sport of choice for corporate executives and officers is GOLF.
   The amazing fact is the higher you go in the corporate structure, the
   smaller your balls become.
    
   

There must be a sh!t load of people in Canberra playing marbles.

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I worked in the superannuation industry for 8 years until my retirement. Not for a super fund per se, but for a administration company which contracted to process employer contributions and member claims as well as customer service call centre for a dozen or more industry super funds. By using economies of scale, these funds were able to process the funds much more cheaply than each owning their own systems. They each had their investment strategies and policies, but the nuts and bolts of daily processing is the same for all, to the point where my son now works for an industry fund who have their own call centre, but use the same processing centre. When I worked there, prior to 2010, funds were returning an average of 10 to 14% annual return. These funds pay their agents a set salary, not trailing commissions.

Out of the mouths of 3rd graders

Teacher: "Kids, what does the chicken give you?"

Student: "Meat!"

Teacher: "Very good! Now what does the pig give you?"

Student: "Bacon!"

Teacher: "Great! And what does the fat cow give you?"

Student: "Homework!"

A report yesterday that Kmart was going to stop selling DVD's and CD's due to the growth in the use of streaming services, and that other retailers are likely to do the same.

The Morning Show report.

BECOMING A SENIOR

Barb was lying in bed one night. Larry was falling asleep but Barb was

in a romantic mood and wanted to talk.

She said: "You used to hold my hand when we were courting."

Wearily he reached across, held her hand for a second and tried to get

back to sleep.

A few moments later she said: "Then you used to kiss me... "

Mildly irritated, Larry reached across, gave her a peck on the cheek

and settled down to sleep.

Thirty seconds later she said: "Then you used to bite my neck..."

Angrily, Larry threw back the bed clothes and got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" Barb asked.

"To get my teeth!"

DRIVING

Two elderly women were out driving in a large car - both could barely

see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to

major crossroad. The stop light was red, but they just went on

through.

The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself, "I must be losing

it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light."

After a few more minutes, they came to another major junction and the

light was red again. Again, they went right through.

The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had

been red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was

getting nervous.

At the next junction, sure enough, the light was red and they went on

through. So, she turned to the other woman and said, "Mildred, did you

know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could

have killed us both!"

Mildred turned to her and said, "Oh! Am I driving?"

DOWN AT THE RETIREMENT CENTER

80-year old Bessie bursts into the rec room at the retirement home.

She holds her clenched fist in the air and announces, "Anyone who can

guess what's in my hand can have sex with me tonight!!"

An elderly gentleman in the rear shouts out, "An elephant?"

Bessie thinks a minute and says, "Close enough."

SENIOR DRIVING

As a senior citizen was driving down the motorway, his car phone rang.

Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Vernon, I

just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on I-25.

Please be careful!"

"Hell," said Vernon, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!"

Jennifer, a manager at a local Aldi store, had the task of hiring someone to fill a job opening.

After sorting through a stack of resumes she found four people who were equally qualified.

Jennifer decided to call the four in and ask them only one question.

Their answer would determine which of them would get the job.

The day came and as the four sat around the conference room table, Jennifer asked,

'What is the fastest thing you know of?

'The first man replied, 'A THOUGHT.' It just pops into your head. There's no warning.

'That's very good!' replied Jennifer. 'And, now you sir?', she asked the second man.

'Hmmm...let me see 'A blink! It comes and goes and you don't know that it ever happened.

A BLINK is the fastest thing I know of.

''Excellent!' said Jennifer. 'The blink of an eye, that's a very popular cliché for speed.

'She then turned to the third man, who was contemplating his reply.

'Well, out at my dad's property, you step out of the house and on the wall there's a light switch.

When you flip that switch, way out across the pasture the light on the barn comes on in less than

an instant. 'Yep, TURNING ON A LIGHT is the fastest thing I can think of'

Jennifer was very impressed with the third answer and thought she had found her man.

'It 's hard to beat the speed of light,'she said.

Turning to Wally, the fourth and final man, Jennifer posed the same question.

Old Wally replied, 'After hearing the previous three answers, it's obvious to me that the fastest thing

known is DIARRHOEA.

''WHAT !?' said Jennifer, stunned by the response.

'Oh sure', said Wally. 'You see, the other day I had a rotten pain in the guts, so I ran for the bathroom,

but before I could THINK, BLINK, or TURN ON THE LIGHT, I shit meself!!

'Wally is now working at an Aldi near you”

Two Queenslanders, Jim and Bob, are sitting at their local bar having a few beers.

Jim turns to Bob and says, "You know what? I'm tired of drifting through life without a real education. Tomorrow, I think I'll go down to that TAFE College and sign up for some classes."

Next day, Jim goes to the TAFE and a helpful lady in Admissions says she'll sign him up for the four basic classes: Maths, English, History and Logic.

"Logic?" Jim says. "What's that?"

The young lady says, "I'll give you an example. Do you own a whipper snipper?"

"Yeah."

"Then logically speaking, because you own a whipper snipper, I think that you would have a yard."

"That's true, I do have a yard."

"I'm not done," the young lady says. "Because you have a yard, I think logically that you would have a house."

"Yes, I do have a house."

"And because you have a house, I think that you might logically have a family."

"Yes, I have a family."

"I'm not done yet." she says.

"Because you have a family, then logically you would have a wife and because you have a wife, then logic tells me you must be a heterosexual."

"I am a heterosexual." says Jim.

"That's amazing. You were able to find out all that because I have a whipper snipper!"

Excited to take the class now, Jim thanks the young lady at Admissions and leaves to meet Bob at the pub.

He tells Bob about his classes, how he is signed up for Maths, English, History and Logic.

"Logic?" Bob says, "What's that?"

Jim says, "Well Bob, I'll give you an example. Do you have a whipper snipper?"

"No."

"Then you're a poofter."

If your editing software allows you to set the image quality, enormous file size reductions can be achieved with very little discernible quality to the image. Take the following image for example. The 100% image at 1024 x 768 would not load because the file size was too big - 571.2 kb. I reduced the image size to 800 x 600 to reduce the file size to 363 kb. I then resaved the same size image at 90%, and the file size was 128 kb. The difference is barely noticeable.

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I have been fascinated by the fact that photos of exactly the same dimensions can have vastly different file sizes. This can cause problems when posting photos online and there is a file size limit. I decided to run a test and took a series of photos of solid colours. Using a photo editing software, I resized the camera image to the normal upload size of 1024 x 768 pixels, and 100% image quality for saving. Here are the results:

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It's interesting that a green image is a larger file size than a more complex check image.

Good for you spacesailor. You have good reason to want to live longer. I have no grandchildren and looks like I never will. My sons are 45 and 44, and neither have had steady girlfriends, or at least have never spoken of them. Might I also add, they are not of the other persuasion, either. Both are involved in very social things, and have many friends, but seem happy remaining single. Maybe the example my wife and I set scared them off.

No Nev, down to one working (partly), one laid up (my daughters). Didn't have much say in the pacemaker, kept blacking out. Almost six years now - no problems since.

I'm not down, O.K. Well.... Maybe a bit, but not out. I spoke to a pollie conducting a meet and greet in the shopping centre this morning and mentioned insurance, (See my separate thread on that subject). He totally agreed with my concerns, but as a State pollie, had no influence on the Royal Commission, but said he would raise it with the Federal Member. In the mean time, I keep waiting for the Cash Cow to call.

When you are young, perhaps just married, or with a child, it's easy to be convinced that it's a good idea to protect your family in the event of a devastating event by taking out death cover life insurance. The premium is relatively small in relation to the protection it offers. As you get older, the premium increases, sometimes so does the cover amount. But there comes a time where one has to weigh up whether to continue to pay the increasing premium, or dump the policy and throw away all the money paid so far. If you want anything back, you have to die. In the meantime, the insurance company is stacking your money on the edges, and your agent or "managing representative", who does absolutely nothing, and many of whom you don't even know because your agent has retired and his portfolio reassigned, continue to receive trailing commissions on every payment you make. This is because it is 'Insurance", not "Assurance". Insurance, like car insurance, is protection against something that might happen. Assurance accepts that we are all assured of dying, provides protection in case of dying early, and pays out on maturity. It affords the opportunity to cash in if you wish at an early stage. In other words, insurance is a legal protection racket. Each year is treated as a fresh contract, so the premium jumps accordingly. No consideration is paid to the premium paid previously. Sure, you can choose not to renew the policy when it expires, and loose the lot, but at least premiums should be capped at a certain point. When you get to pension age and are paying one third of a fortnight's pension in insurance premiums and are unable to pay the ever increasing gas and electricity bills, something is definitely wrong.