Jerry_Atrick

The church next door has a swiper; you select the amount, and swipe your card. I have never used cash to teach my kids about money. I want them to save and invest; I have been teaching them to move their money between accounts; keep tight reins on what they are spending through their cards (by having two accounts - one to spend from, which they top up, and one to hold their cash... when the bank tells them they have no more cash left, it is only in their spending accounts); and how to top up their investment accounts (note, we have things called ISAs (Independent Savigns Acocunts, I think they are called - you can invest up to £20K/year and all of the income that flows from them is tax free. You can invest in stocks and shares, and I think ETFs now, too; government bonds, or just take the interest). Still use cash as the corner shops (milk bars) still accept it. Our village fete accepts cash, but all the stallks have a mobile (cellular phone network connected) card reader. Aren't they free anymore? oh - and for the above, wherever I have said card, I also mean phone or watch. The one scenario I often think about is the homless or beggars.. They are the ones most likely to miss out.

I use whatsapp for calls, too, but remember, it is owned I thinbk by Meta, who owns FB, so I think the same reason to be weary of provacy should still apply.

BTW, this came up in my YT feed:

The cost of carrying cash largely depends on the business. I used to work for a werll known chain of show shops and a well known army surplus chain and neither used Armourguard or similar services. The banks did, however, charge us a very small amount for withdrawals; but as I recall not for deposts. And the cost was the same whether you withdrew $1 or $100,000. For those businesses that don't need to sanitise their hands, cash can be a very competitive. There is a hidden cost to society for cash handling. Although working for reputable chains, we didn't do it, but there were and probably are still many small businesses that don't quite declare all of their cash income, and therefore profits, and therefore paying tax. Individually, it is not much, but collectively, that can be denying the taxman, and utlimately society quite a bit. However, you could argue as they don't have the means to afford the big ticket accountants, lawyers and structures to help funds trasnfer type tax avoidance.. er minimisation, this is their way of taking the pie. Before we start saying there have been no convictions or even institutional accusations of excessive merchant fees, a couple of things to consider: Getting a merchant account isn't automatic. I was working for a dot bomb startup in San Francisco which at the time had $20M in the bank, and no merchant provider would touch us. We were building an international premium wine exchange; had all licences in place, but didn't have revenue, as our revenue model relied on, you guessed it, card transactions. Of course, that was over 20 years ago before card/eelctronic payments over the internet were the norm. Large companies that have massive cash payments going through them (thinking retail here - such as Amazon) will pay next to zero for their merchant fees because of market position; small business will be slugged the full list fees, which is illustrated by @onetrack, above. This, piled onto the fact smaller businesses don't have the purchasing power, tilts the cost favour to the bigger businesses - yet another hurdle. Merchant providers are taking a chunk, no matter how small in terms of their larger customers, of every transaction that is made. Think about that; as the developed world at least has moved more or less to card and equivalent payments, a good 90% of transactions involves the merchant skimming the cream. And then you have sponsor banks as well as the card companies themsleves. How many billions, if not trillions a day of transactions are there that are put through here? The money is mond boggling, yet, as long as the banks maintain sufficient cash inventory in their vaults, the only real cost of this is movign a few electrons here and there, with some hardware and software costs - all of which are far cheaper than bank tellers and branches. Even bPay (direct debit here) results in a fee to the seller. Of course, it is much wider than that. For example, although I think Australia lags in this, most debit card fraud, once established is a genuine fraud, is repayed by the banks to the customer, although in the UK, it is only voluntary conduct and some backs do not do this. If you're mugged of your pay packet in cash, you are unlikely to see that money, even if the perpetrator is there. The EU (and Britain had it as well), that was something like it is illegal to add card processing fees to the cost of goods at retail. This is remarkably similar to the merchant contract I had with one of the big 4 in Aus when I had a software selling business. The term of the contract was I was not allowed to offer my goods cheaper to cash buyers over card buyers (this was the days of swipey machines; I don't think EFTPOS was born then, or if ti was, it was the preserve of the bigger companies). What it means is that there is recognition that there is mass adoption of the payment system, and the prices should not discriminate between the payment system used by the customer; and yes, there were businesses that as a result, no longer accepted cash. Also, transaction fees for retail customers do not exist at all in the UK or through Western Europe. For me, that is a rort and a half.,

Are you sure about that? I read most of what he has said is able to be verified with provable facts... to be BS :-)

Back to the photo; I wonder if it could have been them all having a bit of a laugh on deck, and somehow social media got hold of it and crucified the captain?

End of an era

Oi! Don't do that! I will be ostracised... ;-) Can you have sections and threads as per this site on farcebook? Either way, I am with OT, and you can bet your bottom $ it ain't as private as you think. This is a great site and am happy to chip in..

Here is the problem: Quite simply, power corrupts.. this from the party that fights for the "little" people

1. The official policy of integration was to eradicate first nations culture. In other words, subjugation. Why would First Nations people aquiesce to that. I recall the book and move, Roots coming out and how so many people found the courage of Kunta Kinte (sp? but named by his white masters, as Toby) inspiring. Why do we find First Nations peoples rsolve to preserve their culture as a nemesis and not also inspiring? (I am not talking about the sunstance abuse and social behavioural issues). 2. This was the official policy of protectionism.. It only didn't work from the perspective that the colonists seruoiusly thought First Nations peoples biology was defective and they would die out. Of course, because of the sacred lands and their national boundaries, preserving them in a bubble would mean giving back the lands, and that was and will never be on the cards, and in reality nor should it. Yes, I think that is mutual.. And this is the rub... what is the all new item that will lead to reconciliation? Does anyone know? Or should society enter into a discussion in GOOD faith? This would mean tear away the BS and the lies and look at the positions and the requests, and work together to get a compromise. I don't know what it is.. It ins't handing back the keys, nor giving carte blanche.. In fact, from what I have read, a lot is about simple recognition and accomodation of some First Nations cultural values in the way society deals with them. Is that too much to ask? Yes, there are some more extreme requests, and should be given short shrift. But we do have to get away from compartmentalising First Nations people's demands and getting them to conform to entirely western ways. For example, I agree with @Bruce Tuncks - if First nations peoples are using modern methods and tech to hunt traditional prey, they should be somewhat constricted on how much they can catch. Yes there have.. But many that haven't been carried out have been where there has been a total takeover. Take Kosovo for example; a previously Christian enclave now taken over by Muslims... completely. But Australian First Nations is different. We still have a population that is First Nations that, regardless of historical injustices suffers some of the worst social problems of any indigenous populations in the world. Well, do we want to look after all of our Australians, or continue the problems because they don't want to betray their culture entirely? By the way, we have made strides in recent years. Of course, I am looking at it from mostly a legal spectrum, but there are Koori courts, and there are, you know, I can't recall the name, but where there is a magistrates case being heard of First Nations people that live on the land, they get the magistrate, the Aunties, family, and accused together in a circle and go through the case. It is definitely a positive step. I disagree, as long as you keep people like Dutton out of it and keep the narrative and discussion in good faith. .There will be disagreements, but if everything is in good faith, it will eventually come to compromise and agreement. Of course, in the current socio-political environment, that is just a pipedream. I don't disagre with you; in fact I have expressed something similar to First Nations peoples previously. However, this does not mean we should not try and right some previous wrongs and practically accomodate first nations culture within our established Westminster culture. Although, I have to admit, I can't see myself eating any grubs! By now you will have all realised, I am a bit of a mongrel; when I get a bone, I don't want to let it go.

That looks like a roundabout traversal sign in Swindon https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=tablet-android-samsung-rvo1&source=android-browser&q=swindon+crazy+roundabout#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:10096743,vid:6OGvj7GZSIo,st:0

https://kb.iu.edu/d/bcyv

They say the 80s was a decade of characterless music.. don't think so...

Yeah - they should have called it, "Hitch it UP" 😄

Are you sure? That could be photoshopped!

Hey - welcome to the forum, Derek (are you on the sister site - recreationalflying.com). Yeah it was a long time ago, and yes, the link was not what the original event was thinking about. You are right, manufacturers often have many decades of experience, and also regulators do set minimum saftey standards to adhere to (whether or not they are adequate is a different question). But even manufacturers with many decades of experiecne get it wrong.. Sometimes with not too much risk at the end of the day, but sometimes you don't want to be killed by your airbags (now itself an old technology): https://www.vehiclerecalls.gov.au/recalls/rec-006035 Yeah, it is a supplied component, but you think they would do adequate testing. And Takata has been around since 1933: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takata_Corporation For a list of all Aussie recalls: https://www.vehiclerecalls.gov.au/recalls/browse-all-recalls

OK - understood (I was reading/tapping while at back to back meetingd at work, and was a little bored so 1/2 listening to the meeting and 1/2 looking at this). The judgement does refer to a decision of people made who are long dead; yes. But the judgement is about the legality of that decision according to the laws of the people who made that decision at the time the decision was made. OK, I agree that we should not feel guilty about that - we weren't there and I am sure if the decision were made today, the decision would probably be different. But to say that there are no future ramifications of a past illegal decision becuase the people have died is like saying a dead person defrauded you, but becauuse they are dead, you have no claim on their estate. I get that there are many generations and my analogy would say that the estate has been disprsed, but in this case, the estate (soverign lands) as not been fully dispersed. Has anyone had to give up their homes because of native title? No. Do we have to pay a bit more to see Uluru because it is now granted native title? Well, I am not sure. Yes, we have to pay how when we didn't back in the 70s (or at least I didn't see my parents pay anything). But with the governments these days, I would contend that status quo would not have lasted. But that is an aside, because, the (ancestors) of the peoples who were wronged have had their claim on the undispersed estate, so to speak. In my analogy earlier, say you were defrauded and then you died. The executor of your estate (ancestor) would have a fiduciary responsiblity to your estate to pursue the debt. Again, this is no different - except there are many generations (as at 1992, when the decision was made). So, yes, they are historic.. but does that not mean that redress for those adversly impacted is not to be available. And it doesn't mean that we hand over the country and leave, either. That has nothing to do with you or I at an individual level and there should be no guilt felt by thge current generations, except for a refusal to entertain redress - of course, not personally/individually, but at a sovereign, or governmental level. What that redress is, is not known. Clearly, handing the keys to the country and going back to our European ancestoral countries is not going to cut it. And there is a group, something like the alternate aboriginal parliament (not the tent parliament) that want to have parallel nations within Australia. That is probably not going to cut it either. What we should do is listen to the demands and reach a compromise. Not all of their demands are about financial redress or land redress, by the way. Some of it is about cultural recognition in the law. Obviously (as you have previously pointed out) it is impossible for customary law in its entirety to sit alongside our current Westminster based law. But, what should be sought is a compromise; Simple admonishment and ostracisation in First Nations customary law is a very serious punishment - for example, so for lesser crimes, maybe that is an acceptable alternative to incarceration... But this is just an example - it is a societal rcognition of a very different culture and implementing machinery to respect that culture. And of course, one of them would be the reduction and removal of instirutional (not individual) racism. Just last week, the NT government issued [yet another] formal apoligy for racial discrimination towards First Nations peoples. To think that First Nations peoples would live in a bubble like those on an island off the Indian coast while this large landmass gifted with abundant natural resources, is, of course, a furphy. We all know that, and I am sure First Nations know that. The problem for First Nations people is that from the time of white settlement until well into the 1980s. there has been not a systematic effort to evolve an Australian culture based on fusing First Nations culture (apart from some town names) with European culture; there were systematic attempts to extinguish entirely the First Nations culture. There were three offical government policies; Not in Chronoloigical order, they were "integration" (integrating First Nations in European Culture), "Protection" (isolating First Nations fom Europeans hoping they would die out), and I can't recall the name of the other, but that and Integration were the main drivers of the stolen generations. If there was a genuine attempt at integrating First Nations cultures with European cultures, we may be in a very different place today, and of course, the benefits of multiculture to the First Nations people would be positive and a fact of an evolving global neghbourhood. It sort of is. See above Would early European settlers have died if they tried to adopt indigenous life? I think Australian history is littered with examples where they died for not adopting indigenous life.. Mainly explorers, but pastoralists that that contracted diseases that were cured with local plants First Nations had been using for years, etc. Yes, Indigenous culture wasn't about mass production to support massive dense populations, but that is more about, what do we call it these days... immigration control, right? I am not suggesting that First Nations people should stay in a time warp.. and with few exceptions, there is no evidence that they all believe they should either. As Bruce points out, they are very happy to use modern methods to hunt traditional foods - why wouldn't they. But it doesn't mean they have to completely replace their cultures, beliefs, and norms as a result. It is sort of a maass scale missionary process then, isn't it? And there aren't too many who think missionaries are particualrly great. I don't think they are after soverignty per se' a bit more self-determination to live their lives they want to in their communitiesl; and respect. At the moment, a little more than lip-service is paid to this. When you think about it, the recoignition the delcaration of terra nullius was invalid means that, at least at the time, there was a requirement for the Brits to enter into a treaty with the First Nations, as they did in New Zealand. As a conquest (in the legal sense), the Brits would have required the treaty to take into account the land rights and laws of the First Nations people. This does not mean that they are adopted wholly; but it would have meant not a complete inception of British law overriding everything either. And the culture of Australia as a collective of First Nations and European settlers would have evolved.. No guarantees how, or peacefully, or satisfactorally to one or the other camps.. But at least with a respect for the First Nations culture rather than not. But even today, what would be wrong with trying to come up with something that is mostly satisfactory to both echelons? Are you sure about that? Firstly, if we are talking economically, it has already changed the economic outcomes for First Nations, by way of native title. Native title has given First Nations people direct rights to the land - mostly unoccupied, but sometimes parallel. Permits for certain areas result in revenues going directly to the local First Nations communities that were not there previously; So, as the declaration of the illegality of terra nullius resulted in the new common law docrrine of native title, which then resulted in the Native Titles Act, I would argue it has improved economic outcomes (regardless of whether or not communities have taken advantage of them). However, standard of licing is not always economic. In fact, it would appear, there is little correlation to economics (in a financial sense) and First Nations culture. What native title gives them is control over the land for their customary/cultural purposes, and I would argue, from that standpoint, it increasses their standard of living - but while I could argue it, it would be better that came diect from the horses mouth, as that is just my opinion based on my readings.

When you consider Michael J Fox had the onset of Parkinson's disease.. not a bad effort:

What on earth are you talking about? Where are you getting this stuff?

@nomadpete - I am genuinely not sure of the point you make re only ruling on the acts of the first fleet. The HCA ruled that the settlement was illegal. That is a fact. And it is not me who is burdening with a historical aggreivance. I think you will find there are many current First Nations people who still harbour the aggrevience. And if there is a systtemic and collective grievance, will brushing it under the carpet alleviate that aggrevience - or will the "burden" of it persist? And I was merely pointing out the flaw in Spacey's argument - the first fleet (and beynd) did not adpopt the culture and lifestyle of their new country - they volunatrily came to. i.e. the very argument he is stating to justify requirign First Nations to adapt is flawed. That's all.

Immigrants come to a new country on their own volition (normally), so why would the not be required to adapty to their new conuntry's culture. Your argument sort of falls short. The first fleet were immigrants, yet they imposed their culture on the existing peoples and did not adapt to the "ALIEN" culture you speak of.. Which way do you want it? Either way, the people whp were here first, as found by the High Court, acted illegally in the settlment of Aus - by their own laws and not the laws of the First Nations people. I honestly do not understand the logic of your arguments, unlessw human life started in 1778.

I've never ridden a recumbent, but they do look more uncomfortable than comfortable. Maybe one day I will test ride one.

Nor those magamaniacs that lap his insane BS up

I find it funny the displays of national affection when big sporting events are on; like this fella driving a French car: