Jerry_Atrick

Here is an interesting article on the 5 possibilities the war in the Ukraine will end. To be honest, it doesn't illuminate anything that hasn't been discussed on this thread, but it puts them together, though. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-28/ukraine-war-post-putin-russia/102778338 Also, is the hypothesis of why the West is slow in sending supplies to Ukraine. It must be awfully frustrating for the Ukrainians..

Gripe of the week. I have to learn Python (programming language). Microsoft as decided to embed Python into Excel because Python is the new cool language. FFS, all modern languages can do the same stuff, so marketing decides what happens rather than tech. Python has been around for a while now, and it is no better than any of the other languages - it became popular as you could do AI and alogorthimic (trading) programming in it because there were pre-packaged libaries in it - but those libraries are written in another language which has been around since I started in the industry 40 years ago! Another two weeks of my life spent learning a slightly different syntax to do the same thing. It is not like learning a new human language (nor as hard, I must admit). First world problems, I know.

The cheap plastic guttering is about £8 per 4 metres, and the good stuff is about £20 per 4 metres, including VAT (GST). We are getting the better stuff and it is guaranteed for 25 years. The bulk of the cost, however, is the scaffolding. I will never buy a house where ladders aren't a vialble option for roof maintenance again! There's actually not that much work to do - max a week - but builders are run off their feet since most of the Eastern European ones fled back to Europe after Brexit. Apparently, a relatively well known French writer lived in the property for some time in the 50's.. and his son, who apparently spent most of his childhood growing up here is visiting today. He is staying in the pub (silly man didn't try AirBnB - he could have stayed with us). The garden is a mess as the mower broke down and since it has been fixed, we have had nothing but rain. Yes, you can cut wet grass, but on the ride on I have, it is a bugger as the grass clogs up the chute... It looked promsiing this morning, but has clouded over again. This summer has been the sterotypical English summer - there wasn't one! Need to look on the bright-side though - it wasn't Europe, Canada, or Southern US with the wildfires!

Bit of an update. The scaffolding has been up for two weeks, and the builder turned up last week. The pointing at the back of one of the chimneys was flaking away, so that has been done. Some guttering was rusted as, so the cast iron was replaced with some very thick polymer guttering that looks like cast iron. Some backing plates had disappeared allowing water to run down behind the guttering and into the eaves - that has been replaced. He worked for about 2 days and hasn't been seen since! And… of course.. it is raining!!!! At least the pubs open for Sunday lunch today. Had the plumber in.. as we decided to source our won rads (radiators).. saved a bundle (like £7K). And we decided to redo the boiler room And a pressure test to see if the existing piping will work. That is going to sting me £20K (thanks, Brexit!!!). Expect the rest of the bill to come to £20K regardless. Had a sparky in to quote replacing the old ceramic fuse boxes with new switch boxes and to run ethernet through the house. Have not heard back yet. Here are some photos. First, the sourced rads; yep - all 20 of them, and we need about three more: The scaffolding You will have to click on the picture to enlarge it.. You can see some of the chimney pointing crumbling in the red circle. To the left are ridge tiles we are trying to source .. looks a bit like a kid's missing teeth. The circle to the left of the scaffolding was a missing edge of the guttering, causing the water to run into the toilet upstairs, also notice the black run down on the corner of the house under iut as well as the circled bit in the middle of the scaffolding - that is water damage. The rid circle to the right is the mouldy downpipe - the works of the lot, bit all of them had soil (I would say roitted leaves) built up for years. They have been flushed down. The red circle above the white wall is a new lead roof - put in not long after we moved in as that was a waterfall on the inside when it rained.. |That white curved bay is the private rector's chapel - now a study (under renovation). The bottom left is the rusted guttering - of which a close up is here: This is a photo looking up to the next bit that needs repairs - a gutter has come away from the wall. The scaffolding has to move a bit: And finally - for this section of the wall, there is a dodgy facila board ciricled to the right. The wood has apparenlty rotted and collapsed.. but I think squirrels have gnawed at it. The tree they use to get to it is being felled: The study/chapel is in renovation mode, but partner and I can't agree on the final fitout - she will undoubtedly win: And, today, I got bored with working on the house, so I decided to put together a home gym in the basement. The window to the right is about 2 - 3 feet underground: The ceiling plaster is so9 flakey that when I was vacuuming cobwebs, flakes of skimmed plaster were falling off. There is another job to do! Thge circle to the left is a lagged waterpipe, we want to recess into the wall, or at least bx in; to the right is where there was a decent water leak - all fixed now.. apparenlty. And finally, something to brighten up my day: A mate has formed a sling syndicate with three others and they are building it together. He is the one on the right, supervising 😉 Monday is a public holiday - Tuesday - putting in an application for bridging to get this thing done ASAP! (Site won't let me remove this picture for some reason)

The UK has death duties on estates > £250K. It also has gift tax - if you gift more than £15K in any one year to catch out moving large quantities of money to people to offload death duties. In addition, if your house is sold materially below market value, then the purchaser may also be subject to a top up tax. The tick was to settle estates into trusts; that way legal ownership of the estate never transferred and therefore death duties wreen't payable. But in the UK a trust has a maximum lifetime of 80 years and at the dissolution of the trust, captial gains tax is payable. As a revenue stream, it is not bad, but it does punish poorer people becuase they are the ones who can't afford to pay the tax and end up havin gto sell, while the wealthier ones often have succession planning in place to minimise the burden and ensure the assets stay in the family. And, the house and all its upkeep, taxes, rates, etc have all been paid for after tax. Maybe a capital gains tax on the assets passed down would be fairer, because at least the cost of the asset and miantenance has been taken out. Also, given the vast majority of the buyers and sellers do not involve deceased estates, I am not sure what impact it would have on the price of property. In serfdom times, it was very different and property was held only by the rich - and inheriotance tax was a way to prise open the property market.

Here's the next instalment of the synopis.. this time Week 7. It is long - 1.5 hours.. But well worth the watch. The coal face personnel of the department were in no way unclear in their memory of wehat went on, while those senior public servants were very haxzy.. It makes you wonder how they can be claim to be experienced professionals if they can't remember that experience to apply it to theiur jobs? What is amazing is that even in the face of objective evidence, they can deny they knew about income averaging or fdor some reason they can't explain, they came to a different conclusion than emails they either read or authored themselves. One senior public servant claimed they did not even understand the email they wrote at the time! Good on Legal Aid and good on Professor Peter Hanks - as well as Deanna Amato - for finally casting this chapter of iinjustice to the history books., Made my blood boil...

Back to Trump and his cases. Sandwiched in between all of his public misfeasance cases, and the defamation case is a fraud case for conning poeple into selling video phones... When it rains, it purs:

I guess the Russians are yet to leave Crimea or the rest of Ukraine they occupy.

@Marty_d - you're right.. but that policy wasn't taken to the electorate in the UK, either. It is one that is implemented when in offie in reaction to a shock event. In this case, it was house price rises. It helped that it was a conservative government here that implemented it (or the second stage of it) - in reation to booming house prices. Also, it was done early in a term (5 years here, can only be shortened by a 2/3 majority vote). By the time the impacts were felt - this case the desired impacts and there wasn't a crash in the rental market as most predicted - it was a non-issue at the next election. It is not a policy to take to the people to get elected on - iot is one to use after getting in and then taking the results of that to the next election (of course, with an on-side press helps). Also, just because it worked in the UK doesn't mean it will work in Aus. There are demographic, cultural, and structural differences. @onetrack - I agree. In the posher burbs, the prices will normally hold well even in down turns, but that old adage in property - last up first down is very true. China is one influence on the Aussie housing market that has kept it going for so long - very different to the UK. While predictions of the Aussie housing market's crash have been around for a long time, China's strength feeding the Aussie economy has been one area that have provided salvation. When that runs out, and it will, I hope I will have the money lying around to pick up some "relative" bargains.. the quesiton will be how long will it take to recover?

In theory, Australian house prices, even in the cities should be more moderate than what they are. Generally, the price of anything is based on the supply and demand of that thing; rarely does it actually have to do with the cost of production and distribution. When there are distortions in the markets, as there are in the Aussie (and UK) housing market, then one of the sides of demand or supply are distorted. In addition, another distortion is that the available money to participate in the market is affected... add money to the market and the prices will be inflated; take money away from the market and the prices will be deflated. One would expect regulation to create distortions in the market as housing, like the labour and rental markets are about peoples' lives. Therefore, allowing the market to go unchecked can result in disproportionate unfairness due to the actual non-level nature of the playing field of theoretically perfectly competitive markets. According to Google Maps, Melbourne is contained within the red dotted outline (would use another city, but I know Melbourne best) I was surprised that Melton, nor even Rockbank isn’t considered in the boundary of Melbourne. Melbourne's population is expected to rise to 5m people - say about 2m dwellings and associated infrastructure will be needed. Over the years, particularly in what would traditionally be called Melbourne, your 1/4-acre properties have been subdivided to put villa units on them, developers have been building upwards (apartments - and Melbourne's skyline is a blight with them). The green band between Bundoora and Doncaster is settled but semi-=rural areas of Eltham, Warrandyte, etc. I didn't realise that the urban areas of the Mornington Peninsula were now part of Melbourne - there ya go. But looking at this map, there is plenty of supply to meet demand - and if one draws a circle around the boundary - much more availability to meet demand of 2 - 3 million dwellings. So, what has been driving the prices up? First, there’s the planning laws and restrictions. I know in Vic there is some controversy at the moment, but generally these are required to ensure a balance of housing people, preserving recreational space and some quality of living, adequate facilities, safety, access, transport, and latterly, environment. Yes, planning has not necessarily achieved these, but they are restrictions. We don't want dwellings on every spare cm of land. Planning restrictions distort the availability of supply side, which drives up prices. Help to Buy grants: These cause more problems than they solve. They add money to the property market, which drives up demand, and drives up the prices. These are usually only available for new builds, but as the prices of the new builds go up, when they are flipped, the sellers looking to buy in more established areas have more money than they would have, adding money into the supply and further forcing up prices. Negative Gearing. This is both a demand and money distorter. The ability to offset your losses immediately against your income is, IMHO, the right thing to do financially. However, the housing market directly impacts peoples' live, and increases the price of housing, making it unaffordable for too many. Retail and professional investors are drawn into the market increasing demand. Allowing the loss to offset taxes payable on income at the time of the loss rather than the end of the financial year, provides more money (affordability). The increase in prices due to demand is then used as collateral against the next loan for the next property and so the spiral continues. If you want to bring house prices down, this is the one you get rid of - even if you allow all the deductions at the end of the financial year. The ability for investors to minimise the impact to their free cash flow is the big one. In the UK, we have never had negative gearing, but we did allow all the deductions at the end of the financial year. In fact, some of the depreciation allowances were more generous that Australia. When the government decided it needed to rein in the residential property prices, it started removing these deductions. After all, if a house is meant to be owned and lived in, then these deductions are not needed by most of the homeowners, right? They phased out virtually all deductions - interest, depreciation, maintenance, etc. And it did work - it slowed the markets down as a) a lot of landlords decided to put their properties on the market (increased supply), and b) the demand of all the mum and dad investors dried up. Now, only companies can get those deductions, but pay full whack of capital gains taxes (private landlords don't). Macro-economic factors (interest rates, etc) also help, but specific to the residential property market, these are the things that could work.

Nope.. neither is SFM, nor Dutton

England in its current self was borne from a monarchy efectively established from William the Conqueror. Cromwell was but a mere blip in that road, and even he is attributed to have said he intends to restore the monarchy (although lined up his son to be his successor) is what I have read. Nor was the republic democratic - parliament was elected only by the gentry and ruled for the gentry - peasants initially and for some time had no rights. In addition, Australia, in its current self was born from England that had already transitioned to a democracy - albeit fledgling. So, Australia, too, is born from the same history - with the lessons learned from England at the time, applied. But, it was (and still is, if you think of Australia's head of state) still linked by the umbilical chord to England (well, Britain by first landing and the UK by federation). I am not sure what you mean by empty of political rule - the monarch and the Curia Regis (court of the monarch) were the political rulers until parliament was formed (I can't recall when). It was suspended but was reformed in the 1600s after William of Orange and has, as I understand though memory is fading a bit form when I studied it, stood ever since. Be that as it may.. in referring to whether or not there is a democracy, I am referring to the present and more modern history

A dissertation of a famouns three-wheeler:

We use the usual definition of democracy, because, well we use definitions. In short, a democracy is where the eligible people, i.e., those with citizenship, of adult age, etc are able to either exercise power directly or elect a representative body to govern/administer them. And of course, the people have the power to remove them as well (i.e., holding them accountable). Too many people and too much of the press assume democracy starts and ends with the ballot box - of course that is not true. Equality and freedom, in this context, refer to one (eligible) person, one vote, and that exercise of that vote is free. and administration of democracy is fair. There are inequalities and unfairness in a society in general - sometimes sadly intentional, and sometimes unavoidable in trying to strike the right balance in competing interests. So, with that background, looking at the assertions that the UK is somehow not, or materially less of a democracy than Australia: House of Lords: This is an unelected chamber of parliament and on the surface, is undemocratic. This is true, but as with virtually everything there is more than meets the eye. The house of lords is a review chamber. They can make it difficult for the house of commons (elected representatives) to pass laws, but they cannot stop them. The parliaments acts have been used to push through legislation that the Lords have not wanted to go ahead. And yes, the House of Lords can initiate bills, and do, sometimes at the request of the government is technical bills where their expertise is invaluable, the house of commons can stop any bill presented by the Lords without recourse of the Lords to push it through. So, while the House of Lords is technically a chamber of parliament, and an afforded, for example, parliamentary privilege to act as a review of the house of commons, they do not wield absolute power to prevent the house of commons from pursuing its agenda. This is why they are known as the house (or chamber) of review. The power to pursue a governing agenda rest with the house of commons - elected representatives alone. [edit[] A bicameral system does not guarantee a democracy, either: http://council.gov.ru/en/structure/council/, And how many primary votes did the like of Fraser Anning and the young bloke living in Bali get to become elected representatives in the senate? The Monarch (aka Head of State): The head of state in the UK is the current King of England - the monarch - that is it. It is not the queen; it is not the princes/princesses, etc. Only the Monarch is the head of state. The rest are a succession plan. The monarch is prohibited from entering the house of commons - the elected house; the sergeant at arms has the power to apprehend the monarch on an attempt to do so. The King's speech opens a parliamentary session and is made in the House of Lords. It outlines the elected government's regulatory agenda of that session and that is about it. The other powers are providing royal assent and the monarch is the ceremonial head of the armed forces. While the monarch is the fount of all justice, as the monarch does not have power to enter the commons, the monarch cannot dismiss the government. The Prime Minister has an audience with the monarch every Tuesday - I think for an hour, and the other official duties with respect to government are to receive resignations of the prime minister, requests to suspend parliament (e.g., BoJo famously lied to the queen to prorogue parliament during the Brexit debate), and request to dissolve parliament. A majority of the commons can render any such agreed action as invalid. The constitutional head of Australia, albeit this is that very same monarch and has very similar powers. Through the representative, the governor general, the same, with the exception of prorogation can be done. And the GG/monarch of Australia are not elected by the people. The princes/princesses provide the same succession plan in the Australian head of state as they do the British. Famously, the unelected monarch of Australia has the power to dismiss the government, whereas the monarch does not, and in modern history the Aussie monarch has used it. So, in reality, that is less democratic than Britain. The Oath of Allegiance: Not sure what the point is, but as far as I can find out, both country's military, pollies and other high-ranking officials swear allegiance to the monarch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_(Australia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_(United_Kingdom) On equality - in terms of a democracy, I am assuming this means equality to participate in the democratic process - one person, one vote. Is anyone asserting that a prince or princess has more voting rights than a commoner, as I don't know of any law that allows this. The elections here are run much the same as they are in Australia. It is one's right not to vote (or more accurately have your name marked off an electoral roll), and the model of voting is different, but these can be changed in a free and fair election, so I am not sure what the equality issue is. Are you saying Australia is an equal society in general? Yes, princes/princesses do have a privileged life (generally) thanks to their hereditary lines, but they are basically heirs to wealth amassed many years ago. in the same way kids of Aussie billionaires are, too. Also, the UK is a signatory the European Convention of Human Rights and it is enacted in UK law. Many people (usually the bottom feeders who read Murdoch press) are, for some strange reason, campaigning against it, as if voting against your human rights is a smart thing. Of course, this is about immigration, where the Supreme Court (no longer the House of Lords) found sending refugees to Rwanda, where the UK government negotiated refugee camps similar to Manus Island et al, was against the European Convention of Human Rights. I seem to recall Australia still sends its refugees to suspect camps and that corruption is becoming a bit of an issue. There are many facets of a democracy beyond the above - some make the UK a worse implementation of a democracy than Australia; some make it a better one. But remind me, how is the UK less of a democracy?

In response to the above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTeuHg4dZFw

You're entitled to your opinion, but I would suggest the facts say otheerwise.

To suggest the UK doesn't have a democracy is no less absurd than suggesting Australia doesn't have one. The head of state in Australia, which has, and has used the power to dismiss the elected government is a monarch's representative - not even the monarch itself! I can't recall the monarch in the UK dismissing a government, yet. Yes, the House of Lords is not elected, but mostly appointed by parliament; there are a few peers left, but I am not sure hereditary peerages are allowed anymore. But, unlike the senate in Australia, they are a house of review, which the house of commons (elected representatives) can bypass. The Parliament Acts of 1947 and 1949 can be used to still pass an act of parliament despite the Lords voting it down. Therefore, the UK is more a unicameral system of parliament, like NZ, but with a house of review. And, while the House is not elected, historically life peerages were awarded based on party lines in equal proportion of the representation in parliament, they were also considered to be experts in various areas. Therefore, traditionally (up until the Johnston years and since), the house of review, as it is known, would have some expert analysis of different bills. Peerages are life long and they "only" draw expenses for the days they are in parliament. As they are guaranteed, it has been observed that the house of review is not as wedded to the party line as the house of commons and there have been many rearguard actions to preposterous commons proposals. This would contrast to Australia, as the senate is elected and generally senators will tow the party line regardless. [Edit] Oh, and I forgot.. seems senators in Australia can get elected with around 10 primary votes - hardly representation of the people, I would suggest. And what about Joh and his long tenure thanks to his gerrymandering of the electorate? Even that bastion of democracy, elected an orange pouting baby with the lesser of the votes in 2016 - before he attacked democracy. Or, the over-use of moving "The member no longer be heard" by the previous Aussie government, etc. And last time I did work for the ADF, like the British forces, their allegiance was to the monarch (queen at the time), not the elected government. No democracy is perfect and they do contain anachronisms of their past. But to suggest the UK is not one, well is as absurd as suggesting Australia is not one.

Prigozhin seems to have been killed is a plan e crash - I guess falling out of windows is not dramatic enough: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-24/wagner-chief-yevgeny-prigozhin-moscow-plane-crash/102768858 Though, there is apparently some doubt he was actually on the plane.

I fronted court today and had to ask is a lady barrister without her briefs a solicitor?

The reject shop, maybe?

Yes.. Some of the financial markets are complex in their operation and need more than a remedial treatment to give an accurate response. Having said that, the above is not much more than a remedial treatment.

The difference is if Ukriane captures POWs from Russia, they generally treat them OK even if they are mercenaries; if Russia captures foreign nationals fighting for Ukraine, they are deemed foreign mercenaries and under Russian laws are put to death. Also, the western pilots could gfive Russia more information (under torture) that would be useful than vice versa.

Ahh. OK.. look forward to the news in the papes tomorrow... thanks