nomadpete

I think my post went straight through to the catcher. My bedroom window is 3m wide and faces east. I don't need a TV.

I watch sunrise most mornings. I don't get closed captions. Just twitters, bluesky and a colour show. The wrens come out first. Best of all it has no merdok.

Marty, that's fine whilst you live in the sweet spot of having good income and totally owning your property. Do you really think that reverse mortgage is great? What if you outlive that mortgage? Do you lose your home? It sounds like a way of bleeding the ownership away. Then what? Are you expecting to die before you need to sell up to pay for your aged care expenses? I will more likely drop off my perch before needing to liquidate my assets to pay for aged care. My mother-in-law thought that too.

I think there are a lot of us in the same boat. I did have partial pension until recently. My once affordable rural bushland block is now a financial burden. So after some expense and 3 years dealing with state titles office, getting a full survey, we got a archaic property boundary reinstated. We just sold that bit for what our whole block initially cost. Hurrah - money to sustain us. But then our remaining land theoretical value went up. And combined with our new bank balance, we will never get a pension. So when the cash runs out, we will sell up. By then the sale won't buy a little townhouse in suburbia. What then? The system is already set up to remove any accumulated wealth of the average wage earner. The elite live in a different financial world. If you think there is a safety net just take a look at the average pensioner. The social obligation to the aged has been eroded.

Wow. Awesome pics. I wonder,,, since our moon always has the same 'side' faving away from earth, does it actually stop a lot of incoming asteroids,etc, that would otherwise hit earth? There seem to be some big impacts in these new pictures of the 'dark side'.

Well, there already is. For any homeowner that has more than two hectares. According to our accountant my mother-in-law pays CGT on the majority of her land. Her 100 acre 'farm' is in a rainshadow and never produced an income. Due to urban sprawl it now seems closer to town so it has been revalued as an asset which precluded the age pension (lost that a couple of yrs back) and now around 70k will go as CGT. You might think that's small bikkies as a % of 1.6 million (less commission), but matters - it is costing 650k to get her in the door of a nursing home. The nursing home still charges substantial monthly costs, so the rest of her wealth will be whittled away by that. Her present temporary residential care is costing about 1.5k per week until the property sells and the market is flat so that might take a while. Some people have to take a mortgage on the home to tide them over until the home sells. Aged care is a different issue but CGT comes into it. So CGT is not a simple thing. Tax reform isn't either. But successive governments have dragged their feet on that.

Globalisation works in mysterious ways.

I am helping my mother-in-law into a nursing home. We are struggling to rearrange her "wealth" to provide aged care (dementia) in a manner that the funds from sale of her home will last her life out. And that is with the present CGT rules. I object to people blaming the oldies for the present housing crisis. When an average person has struggled to pay off a home with tax paid worker's income why do they have to pay tax on the sale of the home? It may look like a profit but it isn't enough to buy an equivalent home at today's prices. So there is no real 'profit'. Even though the numbers of the cheque are massively bigger. As for redistributing this ficticious wealth, my mother-in-law's estate won't pass on enough for any of the younger generation to even put a deposit on their home. The bank of mum and dad (in this case of grandma), is empty. However, owners of multiple properties are investors, and should pay tax on those financial gains.

Same cynical comment from my late dad. He was on the big guns around there. He said the American warships arrived, pounded the island with heavy fire from a safe distance until there wasn't a palm tree standing, then ping off and send the Aussies in to "mop up". Then the Japanese would come out and the real combat started.

But only when he holds all the cards

I am concerned about losing the CGT relief for primary home owners.

Fine. A nice step, but only a little step. When do you think they will address the big players who offshore their profits to avoid tax? A few billion recovered there would help Australia's bottom line.

Firstly, TDS is certainly a thing to worry about. Observing the derangement of trump should be a warning to us all. Yeah I do know the intended meaning of TDS.... but the yanks were seldom good at irony. It would be clearer if they put the apostrophy after the middle word, but the yanks don't do proper grammar either. The positive side of watching 'Good Ole USA' going down it's own self made gurgler, is that we have the option of learning from it. The lesson goes way beyond "Don't put a raving nutcase in charge of the place!". Our leaders SHOULD be taking notes on how badly certain policies can turn out. Are they watching the cause and effect of eash fiasco in the american clown show? It should make it easier for our political observers to work out smarter ways to run our own country. Sadly (In my opinion) we are following too closely behind USA instead of steering clear of the biggest sinhle cause of government erosion. The rise of the oligarcs - the ones with obscene wealth. The ones who can and do buy and sell just about every politicion and policy with their small change. The ones who fund 'Super Pacs' etc. The politicians (not just their party leaders) do not sing to the tune of the majority of the populace. There is no point in saying 'Oh but there are some pollies with ethics', unless the majority have ethics, the political system is owned by the big players. So, my challenge to you is this..... what would you propose to change this ? Cos I have no effin idea.

That's a bit rude, Nev. I take that personally. Are you suggesting my fuel habits are part of this problem? First, I am not a Queenslander, and when I was I wouldn't deem The Courier Mail as worthy to wrap my kitchen waste. As for the information being all 'out there'. Well, a week back the Guardian did an article which covered the nonspecific government plans. Four levels but few real details. However the official line was:- "Australia now has 39 days’ worth of petrol, 30 days’ worth of diesel; and 30 days’ worth of jet fuel." So we have not used any of our reserves. And deliveries were normal. Nothing to worry about. There are numerous websites that claim to track 'dry' servos. The ones I looked at, the totals did not diferentiate between 'reported possible dry' and 'confirmed dry'. I cannot see any historic lists of how many servos are normally temporarily out of gas. Logically, in normal times it is not unusual to see a brief shortage. And such numbers would defuse the concern about the current numbers. The fact that I am keeping my car tank more toward the F mark, cannot increase my weekly consumption. My jerry cans will be empty again within a fortnight or so, and meantime I'm not wasting more fuel driving into town to buy mower or tractor fuel every time I start a machine up.

I started looking at EV's before the Iran war. Back then, there was a one or two month wait for delivery. Now when I go into a dealership I am confronted by frustrated salespersons who open the conversation with immediate apologies for the long lead time to fill an order. The humble Nissan leaf is old but still popular. But no use to us. We need either rear wheel drive or AWD for our driveway.