The Random thought thread

[nomadpete]

 

Quote of the day, from Mr Hegseth:

 

"The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top."

 

I think the clowns have been out for quite a while.....

[Jerry_Atrick]

9 hours ago, old man emu said:

Is that like throwing a noose over a rafter in preparation for hanging yourself?

Well.. Not really...  To be honest, in my case, it would be a godsend. Not a large enough payout to be life changing, but enough to buy me a good chunk of time to work on the property and get going myself. Time for me at the moment is precious - I have not much left over between work and some domestic items that have to be attended to. As I am 6 years at the firm, it would free up some time for me to get stuck in as well.. most of what has to be done now I can do; so it would be a life raft in the move back to Aus, which is now about a decade in the making. 

 

(And I know for some, they are thinking long may that continue ;-))

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 07:56 AM by Jerry_Atrick

[rgmwa]

From what I saw of his speech the ideological clown was definitely in and loaded up with testosterone. The patriotic cowboys must have been backstage. 

[facthunter]

HEs MAD and dangerous like the rest of them. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

I just love how they accuse everyone else of being exactly what they are...

 

Except, they are also hypocrites. 

[facthunter]

Way out of their depth in a real World. Full of their own self importance.  Unable (or unwilling) to see the side effects of what they do. Nev

[rgmwa]

OneTrack hasn’t been around since June despite being a frequent contributor. I don’t suppose anyone knows what happened to him and whether he’s OK? 

Edited Saturday at 04:36 PM by rgmwa

[willedoo]

I think his last activities on both this forum and RecFlying was June 30th., so over three months now.

[pmccarthy]

He has disappeared for weeks and months a couple of times in the past, so I hope no cause for alarm.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Agree.. But does someone have his email address and can give him a buzz to see. 

[red750]

I have sent OneTrack an email and am awaiting a reply. 

[red750]

Today is the big day. I have been to the Cochlear Support Centre and received the external sound processor, which is now turned on. It sounds completely different to what I expected, although I knew it sounded different to what I have been hearing. For example, the ticking of a digital clock sounds like someone tapping a metal pipe with a small spanner. I now have a couple of months for my brain to learn to deal with sound frequencies it hasn't received in years, and for the device to be calibrated to my hearing.

[facthunter]

Not many in the world would have access to that solution. Nev

[red750]

This is the building I worked in when I first started work in 1960, and again, working for a different company, when I retired in 2010.

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DrJavigSH/

[old man emu]

Victorian era extravagence. I wonder if Trump has seen this clip? It might inspire him to greater things.

[nomadpete]

59 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Victorian era extravagence. I wonder if Trump has seen this clip? It might inspire him to greater things.

No way. It's really a rather grand building.....

 

Not enough fake gilding stuck to the walls. Not enough white marble either.

[pmccarthy]

I have spent a couple of hours on the phone over four calls with the Westpac bank as they are trying to re-confirm my customer identity. I have banked with them for thirty years at least. I sent them a copy of my driver's licence and, when that was unacceptable, my passport.

They say I am not McCarthy but I am Mc Carthy. The space is on my driver's licence and my passport, has always been there and had never caused a problem before. So, I sent them my birth certificate. They say that it is not necessarily me because, although it shows my father's name in full, it only gives my two Christian names, so my surname could be anything. At that point I lost my cool and now may be looking for a new bank.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I banked with Westpac for a short while. Moved to Bank of Melbourne.. who were then taken over by Westpac. It wasn;t long before their crap was imposed on BoM. Left Australia shortly after anyway, so didn't matter in the end.. Returned with Bendigo Bank who seemed much better.. and had most services retail clients and SMEs would need. 

 

Sure many others have recommendations - depends on your needs. But, unless you need access to capital markets or wholesale financing, the Big 4 historically are not the best. 

[facthunter]

From Westpac's point of view that Extra space could be of concern. They have to be dead sure in everybody's interest, including yours. Nev

[rgmwa]

I had trouble opening a savings account with Bankwest recently for the similar reasons - a minor discrepancy between my driver's licence and passport. They are very pedantic, although I don't begrudge that. They have statutory requirements to comply with so they have to be careful.

 

I also applied for a credit card and was surprised to get knocked back. They refused to tell me why, but I eventually worked it out. The problem is that just working part-time and not having set up a superannuation pension at this stage they weren't satisfied that I could afford to make the required repayments if my card was fully maxxed out. They assume that any other cards you admit to having are also fully maxed out. I've had Westpac and NAB credit cards for many years, so on paper I had a large debt as far as they were concerned and they weren't prepared to give me more credit.

Edited 1 hour ago by rgmwa

[willedoo]

NAB are a funny mob. My bank offloaded their credit card service to NAB so my card is with NAB now. If the balance is zero you get emails from them trying to talk you into booking up overseas holidays. Then if you spend even a small amount like four hundred dollars you suddenly get emails asking if you need help to pay it off and offering financial councilling. Weirdos.

[old man emu]

22 minutes ago, rgmwa said:

a minor discrepancy between my driver's licence and passport.

Does that mean that if you don't have a passport, you can't open a bank account? I have a photo licence, Medicare card and penrion card. Would that be enough?

[rgmwa]

23 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Does that mean that if you don't have a passport, you can't open a bank account? I have a photo licence, Medicare card and penrion card. Would that be enough?

Driver's licence is enough if it matches the name on your application form. I have two middle names which I put on the Bankwest application but my driver's licence only shows one, so they wouldn't accept it even though the post office verified that my photo licence was me. I had to make another trip to the post office with my passport as ID.

Edited 1 hour ago by rgmwa

[rgmwa]

43 minutes ago, willedoo said:

NAB are a funny mob. My bank offloaded their credit card service to NAB so my card is with NAB now. If the balance is zero you get emails from them trying to talk you into booking up overseas holidays. Then if you spend even a small amount like four hundred dollars you suddenly get emails asking if you need help to pay it off and offering financial councilling. Weirdos.

They've given up on me, although they do send me paper statements every month even though I told them more than a year ago to stop and help save the planet.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

It sounds like there has been a recent regulatory change or that there as been some case that has made a decision that has the banks scrambling.

 

Modern systems have a lot of cross referencing to work out anomalies and match data as they try and remove the human element to it. We are implementing a system that assesses such anomalies and can accept a certain tolerance of differences between identification documents or will refer to a staff member for review. If a staff member can't make the leap, they have probably been instructed by an overly zealous risk manager not to accept any differences. This comes down to risk appetite.. We have an appetite that two people with almost identical identification documents where everything else checks out except placement of letters of a name (but they are in the correct sequence) has a 99.9% probability of not happening. Same DoB, address history, contact details, etc. It's going to be very unlikely that a space interspersed in one doc means it is a different perspon - especially with recognised surname prefixes, etc. 

 

Re the credit card thing, it is the banks duty to ensure that, when you apply for new credit that you can afford it (they also should be doing periodical reviews on your existing revolving credit - of which a credit card is a revolving credit line). They are on the hook for your debts and if, after you going broke, the client can prove that they could not have afforded it and they disclosed all relevant information, the bank gets a fine to boot (over here, anyway)