onetrack

Clive obviously needs $300B to survive on. Anything less, and he's off to the courts, to try and wring some more money out of someone/some Govt/some business, who has offended him in his quest to own everything.

I have put it behind me, there's no benefit in carrying grudges for life, or in going over already-raked ground. I don't consider those years "lost", I did gain some benefits from it. Military engineering training was comprehensive and instructive, and has stayed with me for life. The experiences of being forced to deal with Army dickheads was educational. Travelling to a new country and experiencing a new culture was eye-opening. Travelling around Australia (and overseas) at Army expense, and living in Army barracks was educational. We even got to live in some great locations in Australia - the barracks at South Head in Sydney, the School of Military Engineering at Casula, Canungra, and Karrakatta. There were some times that weren't good, but I don't dwell on them, SWMBO has taught me to keep a positive spin on life. I trust you can leave your bitterness behind.

Those pokies will get most people in. Thank goodness, the W.A. politicians have always refused point-blank to allow pokies into the State, on a wholesale basis. They're only allowed in the Burswood Casino.

Jerrys gambling road looks like a major new freeway! Are you saying he's going to run out of freeway soon, and end up in a potholed backroad, in a car with busted suspension?? 😲

Clive's on a bit of a losing wicket in recent times. He forked out $60M in the last Australian Federal election, to only garner 1.85% of the vote, and to end up with no seats as well.

I'd like to be, Under the sea, In an octopus's garden, In the shade.....

Good point. On the manufacturing output chart, Chinas 2024 industrial output was $4.16 trillion, the U.S.'s 2024 industrial output was $2.49 trillion. American manufacturing output is not recovering, China's is racing ahead. But the U.S. dollar is still the worlds leading financial instrument. For how much longer, is anyones guess. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-vs-americas-industrial-growth-2019-2024/

It took me a while to see it. The word "Go", that is. "Go up in smoke".

This news makes my day. Clive Palmer has lost his bid to extract $300B (yes, you read it right) out of the Australian Govt, over the purported losses associated with his Balmoral South mining lease in W.A., whereby the W.A. Govt stopped Palmer from selling the lease to the Chinese in 2012. Palmer has been running lawsuit after lawsuit, complaining about his future multi-billion-dollar earnings losses by this horrible W.A. Govt. The W.A. Govt even enacted a law to ensure Palmer couldn't make claims against the State of W.A. over the canned project. He sued the W.A. Govt for $30B and lost. The High Court decided the W.A. legislation was legal and proper. So Clive transferred ownership of his main company, Mineralogy, to a Singaporean-based company, Zeph investments in 2019. Naturally, Clive owns 100% of Zeph Investments - but now, he claims he's officially a "foreign investor" in Australia - and this restructuring allows Palmer to claim foreign investor status under the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), and thereby allows him to sue the Commonwealth of Australia through international tribunals. But unfortunately for Clive, the Swiss Tribunal has seen through Clives sham company actions, told him he hasn't got a legal leg to stand on - and has ordered him to pay the Commonwealth of Australia's tribunal costs - AU$13.6M. Of course, for a bloke worth North of AU$20B, AU$13.6M is only pocket change. I think, like many others do, that Clive should be declared a vexatious litigant for his constant lawsuits, all based on the flimsiest of reasons, and all simply trying to unjustly enrich himself, constantly. I suppose he does share his wealth around, he must keep a lot of lawyers in new Beemers and Mercedes. Clives loses his "Foreign Investor" lawsuit - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-27/clive-palmer-foreign-investor-claim-dismissed/105823966 The background - https://www.hfw.com/insights/clive-palmer-v-the-commonwealth-of-australia/

I reckon, sooner, rather than later, Poo-Tin will get assassinated - and quite possibly by one of his inner circle, not by Ukrainian commandos.

Yeah, right on! Let's lay some "trumped-up" charges against Trump, and send him to the electric chair! I bet he might have a different opinion on the death penalty, then! The lawyers will be celebrating this! - appeal after appeal, after appeal! - some previous death-row inmates died of natural causes, before the death penalty was carried out.

GON - How many fuel tanks were in the one you checked out? The Qantas Cats doing the Perth-Ceylon "Double Sunrise" runs, carried 1800 Imp. Gallons of fuel (8,182 litres). The standard factory MTOW of the Cats was 27,000lbs and Qantas raised this limit to 35,150lbs for the Double Sunrise route. It's reported these Cats regularly exceeded this Qantas limit by several hundred lbs on takeoff. Payload was only 1000lbs, and after taking off from Melville Water at Crawley on the Swan River, the Qantas Cats were only just able to clear the top of the road and rail bridges on the Swan, at Fremantle, after being airborne for approximately 7 miles. It generally took them an hour to reach 1000 feet in altitude after leaving Perth. I have a copy of the book titled "Qantas Empire Airways - Indian Ocean Service" by Barry Pattison and Geoff Goodall, it's rare to be able to find a copy today, and it's a worthy read. One small fact that fascinated me, was the information that if the Qantas Double Sunrise Cats needed an engine overhaul, the crews had to remove the U/S engine at their Crawley base, and then send it to the RAAF base in Kalgoorlie for reconditioning!! What a wartime shambles!

Four Cannibals apply for a job in a big corporation… "Well", says the CEO, "This is a long shot, but if I hire you guys, you have to promise to not eat any of our staff." The Cannibals promise that they will not eat anyone, so they get hired. Everything is going well for a while, and one day the CEO calls them into his office. “You’re working well and all, but we’re missing an office cleaner. Do you blokes have something to do with that?” The Cannibals swear that they are innocent. The boss believes them, they all leave the CEO's office, and once out of earshot, the Cannibals leader turns to the other Cannibals. "You idiots!", he screams. "Who ate the cleaner?" One of the Cannibals sheepishly raises his hand. "You fool!", shouts the leader. "For weeks we've been feasting on Directors, Team Leaders, Supervisors, and Human Resources Managers - and then you go and eat someone they'll actually miss!"

The Martians have landed on Earth, and in meeting the world leaders, they have an audience with the Pope. The Pope looks at them and asks, "Do you know Jesus?" The Martian replies, "Oh, Jesus? Yeah! - What a great bloke! He comes and visits our planet, twice every year!" The Pope is astonished! "It's been close to 2000 years since he was here, and we're still waiting on his Second Coming." The Martian thinks for a moment and says, "Maybe he doesn't like your chocolate." The Pope looks at him and says, "Chocolate?" "Sure! Every year, we gather up all the chocolate from the best manufacturers, and give it to him as a gift, because he's such a great guy! What did you do to him when he first showed up?"

It must be time for some more funnies, the forum is descending into excessive levels of global gloom. And besides, it's Spring, and the days are beautiful. Ghengis Khan ran a huge Empire, and he was an outstanding Emperor King Louis the XIV ran a huge Kingdom, and he was an outstanding King Donald Trump runs a huge Country, and he's an outstanding..........

Jerry, the video has been blocked for viewing by us, as it's apparently owned by NBC, and they are refusing to show it in anything other than a few selected countries - and we're not one of those selected countries.

So, now Trump is planning a big bailout for farmers. The last time he screwed up U.S. farm markets, he paid out $23B to U.S. farmers to make up for their losses. I don't know how he thinks he can keep bailing out farmers, when he's supposed to a premium-grade, free-enterprise capitalist. Plus, the bailouts go dead against all his other Govt cost-cutting moves. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/business/trump-farmer-bailout.html But at the end of the day, the farmers themselves say they don't want constant bailouts for constant losses, they only want stable markets, and a market share that isn't screwed up by politicians. Trumps management of the U.S. farm economy is wrecking any kind of global competitiveness that the U.S. farmers ever achieved. https://fortune.com/2025/09/25/the-frustration-is-overwhelming-soybean-farmers-feel-betrayed-as-argentina-blows-a-hole-in-rural-americas-47-billion-soybean-bonanza/

Litespeed, it gets better. You might need a whole carton of beer to dull the energy costs pain ....... ENERGY NEWS: Ausgrid recorded a significant profit of $546 million for the most recent period (FY ended June 30, 2025), with $517 million of that being handed to shareholders, as customers face rising power bills. This was a "bumper profit" for the company and was met with criticism, given the increase in customer electricity costs. Key Details: Profit Amount: Ausgrid's profit for the most recent period was $546 million. Shareholder Payout: $517 million of this profit was distributed to shareholders. Context: This profit was reported as Australian households are experiencing higher electricity prices. Regulatory Scrutiny: The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) is reportedly under scrutiny for agreeing to increase Ausgrid's operating budget by nearly 10%. Criticism: The situation has drawn criticism, with some labeling it an "insane profit" as electricity costs for consumers continue to rise.

Trail mix.

W.A. has a unique stand-alone power grid covering a third of the continent and there are many isolated mines that require huge power. The problems are all being addressed by wind, solar, grid-scale batteries, and diesel backup in remote regions - which is working quite satisfactorily for most operators. Kalgoorlie-Boulder has been having some problems, but that is a problem connected to backup generators, that are not performing when the grid goes down, or when it's switched off for upgrades/maintenance, etc. The big test will be to see if we can do without our Collie coal power generation in the time frame set - 2030. At this point, the time frame is looking too optimistic. But Collie has been losing money hand over fist for more than a decade, so no loss there. W.A. taxpayers poured over $310M into reconditioning the Muja AB (Collie) power station in 2009 - pushed by the Barnett Liberal Govt - that became a total and absolute waste - the generator was corroded out from top to bottom, and became a money pit, the timeline for the reconditioning blew out from 2011 to 2015 - and it was scrapped within 2 years of the reconditioning, as it looked like another $500M would be needed to keep it operational. In addition, hundreds of millions were wasted here on the left coast, in separating retail electricity from the power generation side. Multiple corporations were formed at huge expense (with finance and accounting companies getting richly rewarded), and then within a few years, the corporations had to be merged again - "to reduce costs". The same thing happened in S.A. - it reportedly cost S.A. electricity users $350M in the early 2000's for their power "corporations" debacle, when the Govt-owned electricity provider was split up. So, it's not just the power generation methods that are creating unnecessary costs for electricity users, it's also the shonky management of those assets.

There's a lot of small businesses asking for cash as a preferred payment system today - and I'm happy to oblige. I also detest the payment surcharges, and when I see a sign saying the business adds a surcharge, I always pay in cash. A local Japanese restaurant actually offers a 5% discount if you pay by cash. I always have a good amount of cash on hand, one never knows when the electronic transaction system is going to go down for an extended period.

It was pretty common to prank colleagues, by leaving a note to "call Mr Lyon" - with the number of the local zoo attached.

Step up to the plate.

One of the major problems with nuclear power plants is the need for vast amounts of cooling water. That means nuclear power plants must be sited close to the coast, to enable the use of seawater cooling. There are no major bodies of water in the interior of Australia, anywhere, that can provide the necessary amounts of cooling water for a nuclear power plant. And when you use seawater for cooling, everything in the system must be stainless, or special alloys that resist chloride stress corrosion. That adds huge costs to the nuclear plant. Plus, everything in the system must be foolproof, with double and triple redundancy, and automated shutdown if something unexpected goes wrong. All this keeps adding up and up. There are plenty of nuclear power plants that have been in the construction stage for over 20 years, and are still not completed. And as the construction time becomes more and more drawn-out, so the costs just keep on mounting. South Africa's only nuclear power plant is still suffering from major problems with aging steam generators, and plans to construct a new nuclear power plant a few years ago were scrapped, due to massive corruption in that deal. They are talking about SMR's for new energy generation, but nothing has come of those talks, and no-one has come forward with any viable deal to deliver economically sound, working SMR's, to suit the South Africans needs.

The U.S. farmers are in deep poo, thanks to Trumps tariffs, on-again, off-again "trade deals" that lead to massive uncertainty and dampening of steady trade - and the fact that China has decided to diversify its grain sources away from a major reliance on U.S. farmers. China usually purchases 12-13M tonnes of soybeans from U.S. farmers. To date, the Chinese have bought exactly nothing, by way of U.S. soybeans and other U.S. grains, this season. The beneficiaries are Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and Australia, as China turns to these nations to source its grain supplies. The Chinese have just purchased 10 cargoes (650,000 tonnes) of Argentinian soybeans, because the Argentinian Govt dropped its soybean export tax to assist with soybean export sales. There are reports that the Chinese purchase of Argentinian soybeans may end up 15 cargoes. A lot depends on just how much the Argentinians can spare by way of soybeans, they need to keep adequate domestic stocks. Brazil is next in line for big soybean sales to China. China has already purchased vastly increased amounts of all types of Brazilian grains. Australia is in the box seat to make increased grain sales to China, at the expense of the American farmers. At present, U.S. soybean prices are low, and heading lower. And the U.S. grain storage facilities are full, and the current soybean crop harvest is just starting! - so they're running out of storage AND sales options. Add in the fact that world grains are generally in good supply, and current crops are good, so the outlook is grim for U.S. croppers. To top it all off, Trump tariffs on steel and many other agricultural inputs have meant that prices for farm machinery and other farm inputs, have all gone up. Trump is going to have to find a vastly increased amount of farm subsidies in a U.S. budget that has little money to spare - unless Trump cuts far deeper on a wide range of Govt cuts, that will really start hurting very soon. https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-chinese-buyers-book-least-040604740.html