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I don't think Down East is a troll and I welcome his perspective. His rebuke was based on fact. Yes, he went aggressive on it, but no one has so far disputed that fact. It is easy to blame the US for everything, but as I have mentioned on the What has Putin Done now feed, the Europeans also caved in.. The "insult", IMHO doesn't detract from his point, although I agree, we should purely play the ball and not the man. "That is complete crap".. would be better but remember, the US have different cultural norms and the term used, "you are full of it" is in context of what you have presented usually, and not a general aspersion (although, yes it cane be in certaincircumstances)- but that was predominiantly the west coast for me. East coast could be different. And I am sure some will say I am full of it now 🙂 You forgt the role the fourth pillar of government - the press - plays. The press today is increasingly partisan and and misleading in their approach, and this is the primary method of informihng the public, who are increasingly time pressed just keeping their heads above water - exactly as the politbureau want it, I would suspect. so... IMHO, is spot on and applies to others I can think of - ScoMo, BoJo, and even Putin when it was more ore less democratic in Russia for that very short window.

I reckon I could do a better job of predictions with more accuracy, than his airy shots in the dark. But I would not be in the least surprised to see Trump fabricate a National Emergency, so he could declare elections suspended, and make himself President on a continuing basis.

By that logic he should have stopped after the first time... He got a hole in one!

It must be rather unfortunate to have the surname Madoff, and to lecture on wealth transfer!

A couple was on their honeymoon, lying in bed, about ready to consummate their marriage, when the new bride says to the husband, "I have a confession to make, I'm not a virgin." The husband replies, "That's no big thing in this day and age." The wife continues, "Yeah, I've been with one guy." "Oh yeah? Who was the guy?" "Tiger Woods." "Tiger Woods, the golfer?" "Yeah." "Well, he's rich, famous and handsome. I can see why you went to bed with him." The husband and wife then make passionate love. When they are done, the husband gets up and walks to the telephone. "What are you doing?" asks the wife. The husband says, "I'm hungry, I was going to call room service and get something to eat." "Tiger wouldn't do that." "Oh yeah? What would Tiger do?" "He'd come back to bed and do it a second time." The husband puts down the phone and goes back to bed to make love a second time. When they finish, he gets up and goes over to the phone. "Now what are you doing?" she asks. The husband says, "I'm still hungry so I was going to get room service to get something to eat." "Tiger wouldn't do that." "Oh yeah? What would Tiger do?" "He'd come back to bed and do it again." The guy slams down the phone, goes back to bed, and makes love one more time. When they finish he's tired and beat. He drags himself over to the phone and starts to dial. The wife asks, "Are you calling room service?" "No! I'm calling Tiger Woods, to find out what the par is for this damn hole."

By that logic, anyone who gets elected is beyond criticism. Trump is the antithesis of a democratic leader and distorts the Constitution, law and even truth. He is a dictator at heart and egotistical sociopath. Just because he managed to get elected, he is actively trying to destroy society.

Two candidates put themselves up for election and one of them received more votes than the other.

It's not the first time and certainly won't be the last, that insults are thrown at the messenger. I am not upset, it displays the intellect of the responder. In this case, he gave me a piece of his mind, sadly I can't accept, it appears he needs what little he has.

Because they live in a Parallel Universe and can Buy favours. Nev

Interesting analysis of the tax situation in the US if you've got 25 minutes. Probably pretty relevant to Australia too.

Elect a Better Person and they won't have to cop deserved Criticism. Don't expect us to sit back and just Meekly TAKE anything HE dishes out IF you don't obey his every whim. We are/were supposed to be Allies and Friends. Plenty of Americans are turning against TRUMP. Nev

Hi Ian, My first thought is speak to a trusted financial advisor. $100K is probably not a lot for most of them, but importantly, your kids are young and this could be the kick start for them to invest to earn and not save. Yuor strategy with your bank savings did very well.. I am guessing it was compounded or sem compounded interest that was being paid (and by semi compounding, I mean left the interest payments paid on whatever frequency in the account to add to the principal on which the interest is being paid). I am no financial adviser, and if you look at my current personal financial position, you would probably want to do the opposite of what I have done, but FWIW, which is nothing really, when investing, you have to consider at least the following: Purpose and Time Horizon: In this case, you are saying they want to buy a house and at 27 and 24 repextively, I would say the time horizon to utilise the funds and any growth will be shorter than 10 years. Risk aversion: From the purpose, I would suggest there shouuld be a low tolerance to risk. In investing, like most other things, there is suaully a risk v reward gradient - the higher the risk, the exponentially higher the reward you should seek, because at anything greater than 10% risk, you should assume you will lose it. The timeframe is relatively short and the purpose is a major capital purchase. I would suggest a very low risk tolerance Strategy of investment: Do you want to max returns or ensure the amount preserves its purchasing power/value. We all think max the returns, but I would argue, with a low tolerance to risk, it is more about preservation/modest growth - i.e. safety rather than squeezing every drop yu can from it. That is my opinion, yours or your kids may be entirely differnt. Costs and Charges: Whatever you choose there's a cost, and an opportunity cost. What may seem a "small" charge (2%) is actually high and can cost you much more, especially over time. In the EU, all unit based investmen companies have to publish the effect of their costs on projected earnings versus the cost free projected returns and the graph differences are very telling. Also remember, for unit trusts and the like, there is often trailing comissions paid to agents for years - the life of the investment. But. don't be too stingy about it. If you are paying two percent and they are giving you a 20% return, bersus paying 0.5% for a 10% return, well, I would rather take the former. It's a minefield. Taxes, which is another cost at the end of the day. There are tax efficient vehicles in Australia for investments held over 10 years, but you generally always pay some. I would suggest a short term super fund investment is not the way to go as therewill be taxes and exit fees (ooh, I forgot to mention those earlier - they can be a bummer on unlisted funds). Australia has about the worst tax regime for personal investoers. Even the US has tax free investment accounts. In the UK and Europe, there are tax free accounts - UK has ISAs - up to £20K per year can be invested and returns are entirely tax free. Also, we pay zwero input tax into Super and 25% of contributions can be withdrawn tax free after 55 years of age. It sounds like you are pretty averse to risk, but also the time horizon and purpose would mean you would want more fo a defensive strategy than a aggresive one. The infation rate in Aus at the moment is 3.8%, so a 4% term deposit is treading water - sort of. If it is compounded daily, then it can grow very much quicker than inflation as the rate curve becomes exponential-ishh0. House price inflation in the areas your kids want to buy is more important - how can you invest and keep pace with that? Also, I read that Chalmers is considering a cap of two homes for negative gearing, and I am guessing the removal of the CGT allowance on residential property investors, which personally should have been done years ago and contributes far more to house price inflation than the immigration issue (which also does contribute). Also strengthening Anti Money Laundering riles for real estate agents and solicitors shouldl also have been done years ago. These measures will slow house price inflation, but it will still be more than the inflation rate. What that may mean though, is that they want to get on the housing ladder sooner rather than later, even with the changes. I am sure there are other consisderations than the above.. Personally, an ETF that has a mix of growth hedged by defensive positions would be where I would go for. While it is very low cost here, and online brokers don't charge a fee (they get a 0.05% commission, generally), they tend to perform to the market. Despite the market turmoil, over the last 10 years, the NDX (Nasdaq top 100, I think) has performed remarkably: But note, while over the longer term, index finds do well, there is a lot of short term volatility and they may slump right when you want to cash in. There are other options than the financial markets. Despite the potential cap on negative gearing and the CGT allowance changes that may be coming, it may be worth them pooling their cash and earnings and investing in property rentals. Also, not necessarily residential. Quality commerical stuff such as medical centres, etc on maintaining leases are great and you would be surprised how you can access finance to this stuff. But also residential investments will help combat house price inflation and they can use the increase in equity over time (especially if they make improvements that add value) as collateral to expand their portfolio, and in 10 years they may have enough being generated from a portfolio to afford them each a house and some passive income to boot. The long and short of it is that they have to look at their life aims (maybe not focus on using the money to buy a house but set themselves up spo they can buy a house if that makes sense), do their research and look beyond the traditional financial markets investing . Hope that helps a bit

I can also understand it from his point of view. Googling can at times bring up posts from this forum at the top of the list, and anti-Americanism on this forum is heavy to say the least. I'm surprised more Americans haven't come on here to put their point of view. It wouldn't be easy for them to bite their bottom lip and resist giving a spray.

Joining a site like this is like joining any other group of people that have known each other a while. You've got existing cliques, well known stances on various issues, a bit of background on most people, and the occasional mad uncle (you know who you are). The point is, you show a bit of restraint and respect until you're established and part of the group. After 2 days, starting a post with "You're full of it." And ending with "...keep running off at the mouth with a half assed understanding" shows neither respect not restraint.

The Bible says there WILL be Wars and rumour's of wars and vehicles with Eyes of Fire.. Nev

Yeah ... Predicting the death of a 96 year old. Amazing!

Just my opinion and we know were ALL entitled to yours . Where's My lack of Courage been on show? Nev

Have the courage to handle it in an intelligent way.

"Full blown boots and all" from Down east as 7th Post seems like a Troll. Nev.

Yeah sadly though China's only a small part of it. These absolute morons, have let in a million and a half immigrants in their 4yrs, when we were a million houses short, but eh, so they've plus added 50% and went 1.5. To top that off, only 7% of those 1.5mill, were trades and skills we're actually also short of, the rest, God knows, they reckon family members and extras and all sorts. Butttt, apparently that's only part of it, they've also geared everything to investors and wealthy and literally sabotaged what little progress in new housing we could've made as well as reopened the door to China and their cases full of cash. Apparently, "everything " , they've done, only pushes house prices up and lines wealthy pockets. l can't pretend to even understand half of it but the immigrants and Chinese alone, more than screwed our own people especially our young. Makes me sick to the stomach but so 4yrs later we're in a worser state than ever. There's a dozen other things they've done to in real reports- can't even wrap my head around. But yep you bet rg, always a parent and yaknow, if my d wasn't to get married well she's gonna need help so l'm gonna be doing everything l can on the side. Got a small investment for her to which is suppose to go off well, if l get that lucky really hoping that can help her to by then. But yeah saw Perth rg l think they said is leading the pack this yr, must be bloody mad, feel so bad for young people there , everywhere but gees, crazy shyt over there, qld to. Somem like my place here onetrack , mine was a bit more though and closer to the coast and a really nice town but yeah worth about 130 now so nothing compared to even better town stuff let alone city but it's still 500% plus it's been rented out 18yrs to and that's paid for it 4 times over on top . Just a shame it's such small money for the market now most places better or we'd be sitting pretty eh.

Doesn't seem like much of a prophet. He allows himself plenty of wriggle room to adjust his prophesies to match what actually happens.

Echo chambers are boring. I prefer reading diverse opinions. Echo chambers make those doing the echoing feel better about themselves, but that's about all it achieves.

That's what's good about Australia. We managed to conduct elections in 1914, 1917, 1940 and 1943 during world-wide wars. We even held elections during the era of the Vietnam war.

Craig Hamilton-Parker, a psychic known as the “Prophet of Doom” and hailed by some as the “new Nostradamus,” has issued a series of startling predictions for 2026. Parker, whose previous forecasts included the Queen’s death and the Covid-19 pandemic, has built a global following for his detailed visions of political, environmental, and social upheaval. A third term for Donald Trump One viewer on Parker's YouTube channel recently asked him about the possibility of Donald Trump seeking a third or even fourth term. Parker, who first predicted this during Trump’s second term, warned that the next U.S. election could coincide with global crises that might make standard constitutional processes impossible. “To reiterate what I said at the time, I felt there would be some big global conflict, possibly involving Taiwan,” Parker explained. “Looking at it now, it could be any global conflict. I know a lot of people have criticised this, saying you cannot have a third term because it is written in the Constitution—but who knows? Things have changed so much in the world.” He cited recent international developments to illustrate how unlikely scenarios have become reality. “Who would have imagined the possibility of invading Greenland, or kidnapping a country’s leader, as has happened in Venezuela? The world is changing rapidly,” he said. Parker predicts that emergency powers could be invoked in 2026, potentially allowing Trump to remain in office if the global situation is deemed too dangerous for a standard election. “Something will occur that overturns the existing rules, and that period will be a time of great conflict,” he said. He also drew on the Nadi oracles from India, which he has studied for years. According to Parker, these ancient readings suggest an alignment between China and Russia against the United States—a scenario he first foresaw in 2015. “At the time, it seemed impossible because they were certainly not friendly,” Parker said. “Yet I saw them joining together in conflict with the USA. So could that be what I’m seeing now? Or could it involve Iran instead? My feeling is that around that period, we will see many conflicts emerging in 2026.”

Some funds have costs that eat into your investment. The industry funds are the Best there.. Nev