onetrack

Jerry is spot on with his determination that banks are not your friend. In fact they're the most ruthless and uncaring of any corporate organisation. And if you take them to court, you're up against a coterie who group together like a pack of ruthless commandos, to annihilate you. I've been on the receiving end of banks ruthlessness, and it cost me everything I'd ever accumulated in my 30 years of working life to that point (1995). This bank destroyed our family business, our assets and our family by demanding repayment of ALL outstanding loans and other monies owing - a total of $1M - within 48 hrs. And we had no payment arrears, no major financial problems, and the $1M was fully secured with $1.6M of excellent properties - a farm, city property and industrial property in Kalgoorlie/Boulder. The reason given for the unprecedented demand? "Some computer-generated future scenarios were carried out, that showed, in perhaps 12 mths time, the bank will be owed money by your family business, that we will be unable to recover. Accordingly, we have lost confidence in you as our customer, and no longer want your business, and you will repay the entire sum owing within 48 hrs". Of course, you say - do what any right-thinking person would do - go to another bank! We did. We went to NINETEEN other banks to get them to take us on as their customer, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM gave us the same response. "Who are you with now?" "XXX Bank, one of the Big Four". "Oh. If they don't want you as a customer, you must be hiding something from us that means a great hidden risk to us. Thanks, but no thanks." I went to see a lawyer about invoking a lawsuit via the Unconscionable Conduct laws relating to Banks. His answer was succinct. "How many years have you got, and how much money have you got?" He went on - "Because no matter if you have $10M or $20M to spend on financing a lawsuit against this bank, I can tell you this much. They have tens of billions to spend on countering lawsuits, and will continue to run the lawsuit for as long as it takes, with delaying tactics, disputed evidence, and various other legal scheming, that will guarantee YOU will run out of money, and time - long before they do!". He was entirely correct, as the banking lawsuits associated with the 20 Foreign and Australian Banks loans to Bell Group in 1990 proved. The 20 Banks had lent multiple hundreds of millions to the Bell Group, owned by Alan Bond, when it was in its death throes and essentially insolvent. The W.A. Govt had also lent over $150M from the State Govt Insurance company (SGIO), to the Bell Group, in a number of badly-managed investments. When Bell Group went into liquidation, the 20 banks ensured they received the lions share of any remaining Bell Group assets, and the remaining creditors could go whistle. The W.A. Govt, funding the Bell Group liquidator, took the banks on, to recover their lost monies, claiming the banks exercised their power as secured creditors in unreasonable arrangements that denied funds to other creditors. It took until 2013 - TWENTY THREE years of bank arguments, delaying tactics, subterfuge, and disputed evidence, to come to a judgement whereby the Banks were instructed to pay out $1.7 BILLION to the creditors denied their rightful monies via devious bank behaviour. EVEN THEN, the banks refused to pay, declaring they wanted it all reheard again. The W.A. Govt took the unbelievable step of passing the BELL ACT, which was designed to MAKE the Banks pay their judgement monies. Of course, the banks went to court again, and spent ANOTHER NINE YEARS claiming the BELL ACT was invalid - and it was, according to the learned judges. Eventually, the banks agreed to a mediation whereby they would offer a reduced amount ($1.3B) to settle the Bell Group argument, without DECLARING ANY GUILT for unconscionable behaviour. Therefore, it took THIRTY TWO YEARS to settle the aggrieved creditors claims over the Bell Group losses. These banking people are the most disgusting people on the face of the Earth, and I trust there's a special seat in Hell for them. In our familys case, we had no option but to sell everything we owned, and worked our guts out for, for over 30 years, at fire sale prices, resulting in the total destruction of our equity, and the total dispersal of all our assets. I can assure you, I went through a dark place, and spent many years plotting how to kill bank executives by the dozen in a co-ordinated attack - until I finally realised the futility of my thoughts, and the fact that meeting evil with more evil only backfires on you. I'm not alone, I have read multiple stories of business people and farmers who were treated the same as our family, with utter ruthlessness and destructive bank decisions, that sent others into a spiral of depression and revenge. I read of one bloke who actually planned to fly a bomb laden aircraft into a bank headquarters (this was long before 9-11) - and he said he only gave up on the plan when he realised he could not be sure of killing the exact people he desired revenge on, who had destroyed his lifes work with their intransigent and ruthless behaviour. In many cases, farmers lost their farms simply because of bank revaluations that substantially lowered the value of their farm at that particular point, which meant the farmer was technically bankrupt. It was egregious behaviour that was completely unwarranted, a short term position, and one that valued the long-standing customer as worthless. But this is the history of banks - and no-one knew that better than King O'Malley, who had seen the ruthlessness and money-grubbing behaviour of banks in America in the 1800's. I definitely did not get enough financial training in my younger years on how to counter banks ruthlessness, but I doubt any extra training I might have received, would have enabled me to deal with bank avariciousness, especially when they hold all the cards. One thing I have learnt, is to NEVER allow any one bank to control all your assets and financing, and never let them take more security than they actually need. It is standard technique of banks to ensure that they grab all your assets for loan security, when you take out a loan with them, whereby they can end up with double or triple the asset value that is required for that particular loan security. Once they have your major assets listed under their control, that then increases their assets base, and allows them to hand out more high-return unsecured loans such as credit cards. So they're effectively lending unsecured money to other people, secured by your assets. And be assured, that ANY Bank, reserves the power to call in ANY loan - including your house loan - within 48 hrs, if they make a decision that you're no longer able to pay off the loan. In fact, it doesn't even need to be a decision based on ability to pay off the loan - it can be a reason as trifling and as irrelevant as undergoing a separation, changing a partnership agreement, or any one of a hundred spurious reasons that enables them to do this, and to claim their loan or loans are at risk of being unrecoverable. One of the documents I received during the foreclosure on our business, was a 48-page document - in fine print - outlining EVERY single reason for a foreclosure. It was breathtaking in its comprehensiveness, and ensured the banks actions were protected and justified, in every single act it carried out. They play for big stakes, and hold all the cards, and you have none - and they play by their rules.

This is what is wrong with EV's, and what is still putting people off. They're essentially toasters, you scrap them when the battery is RS. Watch the video right through, the bloke is not anti-EV. Even just doing any repair work on them generally starts to become horrendously costly within a very short time. Mind you, a lot of IC-engined cars of recent design are no better. Thus, my argument remains that the only way to make EV's fully superior to IC-engined vehicles, is to build them with swappable batteries. It is idiocy to keep building EV's with batteries that are essentially part of the chassis and body.

110,000 kms isn't high mileage today - 350,000 kms is, though. I regularly see cars with 250,000 kms advertised for sale, and still asking good prices for them. EV's have far less components to wear out than petrol or diesel vehicles. The battery age or charging cycles is the big bugbear with EV's - at 10 years old, the battery is 80% done, you'd be lucky to get another 4 or 5 years out of it, and a new battery is as expensive as a new petrol or diesel engine. Tesla won't give out the price of a battery replacement, but one Tesla owner has been quoted AU$16,000 for a replacement battery. Musk says a Tesla battery will go to 1500 cycles before replacement. If you recharge the battery once per day, that's 1500 days or 4.1 years. Of course, not many EV owners charge once per day, maybe once every 3-4 days, but that still means 12-16 years and the battery is toast. Then there's the cost of repairing EV's if you have even a mild accident. Hitting a 'roo causes multiple thousands in damages, and you can't just take it to your local mechanic to fix it, it all requires complex work to fix - and only Tesla dealers can do it.

Dreamt.

This is a perfect solution to the EV charging question. I'm actually amazed that the shopping centre owners haven't realised the potential money-making potential involved in turning their free parking into an additional source of income from the land, by installing solar panels and EV chargers, and even batteries.

We need more chuckles at present, the forum is become depressing, with constant talk of wars and Trump. I've found Hilary B. Price is about on a par with Gary Larsen for clever animal-related cartoons.

The word is, within a few short years, there will only be 5 to 7 Chinese EV manufacturers left - out of a current, approximately 100 Chinese EV manufacturers. In 2019, there were 500 Chinese EV manufacturers! The majority of the current 100 EV manufacturers will go bankrupt, but some will be merged with the larger Chinese EV brands.

The amazing thing to me is the supply of Chinese EV's and the way they keep dropping the prices. I'm not sure how much further the price cuts can go. The mind-numbing part is, China's EV production capability is only running at 50% of what they could actually produce, if they were running at full production capacity! https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/byd-pushes-chinese-electric-car-brands-to-the-brink-of-oblivion latest-round-of-price-cuts

Personally, I look forward to the day when we can tell the Middle East to shove their oil where the sun doesn't shine. Petrodollars go to finance Middle East weapon expenditure on a huge scale.

I trust someone in the U.S. Administration knows that Iran has thousands of missiles, and is a world leader in missile and drone technology. Just hang around and see what the Iran response is to the "Great Satans" attacks. It will probably be bigger and better than 9/11.

Yeah, but has anyone told Chump that? They all look like Arabs, so they must be Arabs!

Yerah, but those Arabs are pretty sneaky to deal with, when you want to trade something with them. He's gonna have trouble pulling a deal with them, they've got lots of oil, did anyone tell him that?

The latest Trump news is that he is ignoring all his Intelligence community advice and information, that says Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, to say that Iran IS building a nuclear weapon. This is a decision that says Trump has the ability to do what he likes, without consulting anyone, including Congress. If he chooses to join Israel in bombing Fordow, he may find he's only started another American war he can't end. So much for Trumps claim he doesn't start wars. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-21/donald-trump-says-tulsi-gabbard-wrong-on-iran-nuclear-program/105445142

Whitby, because it's only town that doesn't end with a body part in its name.

American singer-songwriter Lou Christie, a 1960s music idol who soared to the top of the charts in the US and UK with songs including "Lightnin’ Strikes", and "Two Faces Have I", has died aged 82. Christie died at home in Pittsburgh after a short illness. He was born Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco in February 1943 in Glenwillard, Pennsylvania. He was known for his stupendous singing voice, that had a four-octave range and a distinctive falsetto. Christie is survived by his beauty queen wife Francesca, who he married in 1971, and their daughter Bianca. Their son Christopher died in a motorbike crash aged 46 in 2014. RIP Lou.

New keyboards are cheap. Personally, I've always preferred and used Logitech keyboards. Operator error is the biggest single problem, use a keyboard that has a good feel to the buttons and one that is tilted upwards slightly at the rear.

Yeah, they only go on to indulge in clever white collar crime, and devious tax evasion.......... 😬

Not sure if this should be in the Trump thread, or in this thread ..... Click on the photo to expand it, if you're having trouble reading it.

Nev, are you using a laptop? If you're passing your hands or fingers over the touch pad while you're typing, it will activate unintended commands. Use a mouse.

SWMBO bought a little (16") battery electric mower off eBay about 5-6 years ago, and she loves it, and it's never given any trouble. Nice and light and highly suitable for our handkerchief-sized lawns. It takes a bit of forethought to ensure the battery is charged prior to using it, you can't just cut the grass on a whim, that's about the only drawback.

GON, are you prepared to fund the massively-increased cost of longer incarceration of criminals? A fair percentage of criminals can be reformed - but yes, some of them certainly deserve long and heavy sentences. Repeat offenders need to have their sentences doubled.

The Middle East is the crucible of all wars, every nation there loves killing off neighbouring tribes, it's the history of the place for thousands of years - it's only been since WW2 that there has been long periods of relative peace (interspersed by short wars, of course, such as the Six Day War). As one lot of dictatorial warmongers is killed off, another dictatorial warmonger, or warmongering group, arises to replace the ones bumped off. Trump would be well-advised to steer clear of any involvement, because there's nothing surer the enemies of America in the Middle East will be hatching another 911 attack on the Great Satan, as of right now.

But don't worry, FB is still tracking you, even though you're not logged in, and can't log in. 😬

Corruption is rife in every State, and it was blatant in earlier decades, but became more hidden as corruption commissions were set up. In W.A., Brian Burke was certainly corrupt and went to jail for it. He was called the "four on the floor" Premier for his mateyness with the scumbags of the "W.A. Inc" era - Alan Bond, Laurie Connell, et al. Former Premier Ray O'Connor was almost certainly as corrupt as they came, but managed to avoid any official scrutiny. Several Police Commissioners in W.A. were almost certainly corrupt, but were "protected" by power groups, possibly Freemasons and others. There was reported to be a "Purple Circle" inside the W.A. Police heirarchy, and at least 2 senior W.A. Police officers are incriminated in unsolved murders - the murder of Shirley Finn, a Madam who was paying Police protection, and the murder of bikie, William "Billy" Grierson at Ora Banda, N of Kalgoorlie.

The Victorian Libs need to stop fighting over who has the steering wheel, and start concentrating on where the car is actually going. While they have major infighting and a lack of policies and direction, they will be forever consigned to the opposition benches as a minor political party with little relevance. The times the Liberals led the country, they had good leaders who sorted out infighting and who knew what the electorate actually wanted, and where their direction was going as regards satisfactory living conditions for the average voter. As a farmer friend said to me many years ago, we need more Statesmen and Stateswomen, not politicians. Statesmen and Stateswomen have a clear vision of what the country needs, and a plan of how to achieve it.