Yes, it has been a long time, and there is a very good reason for this; I have been through what is probably the worst three months of my life.
The basic problem was my decision, undoubtedly the stupidest decision that I have ever made in my life, to leave Singapore and return to Australia almost two years ago. What I came back to was a total mess, a nation wracked by the Great Recession (a.k.a. the 'GFC'), and in particular a state (that is to say; a city) brought to its knees and still incapable of getting off them. Unfortunately the expense of returning and setting up was so great that it precluded me just turning around and heading back to SG as soon as it became obvious that this had been a very big mistake.
So, this mostly centres around the lack of work that there is in Adelaide. I have had interviews over the last couple of months and been asked to start the next Monday with the job then not materialising. But in the last three days I have had three calls from agencies asking if I was interested in a position, and one interview. Does this finally mean that the drought is over? Because as soon as it is I start my countdown to returning to SG, and this time with no intention of ever returning to AU. (Family visits aside.)
Okay, update that, I just took a call from one of the agencies and I start on Monday - a six month contract with a probable three month extension.
Anyhow, the main point is that I did not want to blog whilst I was feeling near suicidal from the voidness that is my meaningless existence.
Wednesday, March 9
Monday, January 3
I Hate Life
I have been going through a rough patch. Basically suicidally rough. Funny thing just now is another stuff up with Steam. Start with that, shall we?
My desktop has been dead for a month or two. Turns out that somehow the CMOS had reset its clock to zero, not sure I see how that stopped the box from running, but at least it is running again. My laptop has died as well; it was running like a dog, the fan and thermal bridge were not getting the heat away from the graphics chip. But then it started blue screening (still is) with an iastor.sys message. I have stuff on the damned thing, but I got off my finance assignment, which is the most important thing as it is due next week (managed to send to a flash drive on a rare two minute period before the blue screen). When I moved on to trying to install windows seven (which won't install from disc unless windows has already booted, which it won't, so w7 won't install) I decided to play something on the desktop whilst I waited. My steam password has been reset since the last time the box was running (and what a battle that was) and that password was on the laptop so I tried to reset the password when I started steam on the desktop. This requires you to answer a secret question and was where I seemed to have trouble last time, now I know; the steam secret question does not work. True; both times I got the answer right (after the reset I had to set a new question and answer), neither time did steam take it, end conclusion - steam doesn't work.
Oh, naturally Steam on the desktop has to reconnect via the net before it will run and naturally the Steam servers are drowning (due to Valves total lack of service provision for their customers).
Can I rehash something old? Coming back to Australia was probably the single stupidest thing that I have ever done in my life. I got all antsy because they wouldn't pay me anything near what I got here, but I come back here to find that Australia (most particularly Adelaide) has been totally killed by the GFC and not only is my rate usually about HALF what it was three years ago, but I can only get contracts for less than HALF my time; so I am on less than a quarter (annually) what I got before, and half what I would have gotten in Singapore. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.
There is a very thin line of hope that I could grasp; it means returning to SG, but with some dedication this time, i.e. taking what I can get and casting off AU for good. If I can pull that off then I can clear the mountain of debt that returning to, and setting up in, Australia has cost me. This time I need to find a job in SG from here, before I go there.
I have talked about this with almost everyone that I know; their question usually boil down to where was I happier (isn't that sweet of them) but they all then acknowledge that I was much happier in SG than here. Even sweeping streets I would be happier there.
My desktop has been dead for a month or two. Turns out that somehow the CMOS had reset its clock to zero, not sure I see how that stopped the box from running, but at least it is running again. My laptop has died as well; it was running like a dog, the fan and thermal bridge were not getting the heat away from the graphics chip. But then it started blue screening (still is) with an iastor.sys message. I have stuff on the damned thing, but I got off my finance assignment, which is the most important thing as it is due next week (managed to send to a flash drive on a rare two minute period before the blue screen). When I moved on to trying to install windows seven (which won't install from disc unless windows has already booted, which it won't, so w7 won't install) I decided to play something on the desktop whilst I waited. My steam password has been reset since the last time the box was running (and what a battle that was) and that password was on the laptop so I tried to reset the password when I started steam on the desktop. This requires you to answer a secret question and was where I seemed to have trouble last time, now I know; the steam secret question does not work. True; both times I got the answer right (after the reset I had to set a new question and answer), neither time did steam take it, end conclusion - steam doesn't work.
Oh, naturally Steam on the desktop has to reconnect via the net before it will run and naturally the Steam servers are drowning (due to Valves total lack of service provision for their customers).
Can I rehash something old? Coming back to Australia was probably the single stupidest thing that I have ever done in my life. I got all antsy because they wouldn't pay me anything near what I got here, but I come back here to find that Australia (most particularly Adelaide) has been totally killed by the GFC and not only is my rate usually about HALF what it was three years ago, but I can only get contracts for less than HALF my time; so I am on less than a quarter (annually) what I got before, and half what I would have gotten in Singapore. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.
There is a very thin line of hope that I could grasp; it means returning to SG, but with some dedication this time, i.e. taking what I can get and casting off AU for good. If I can pull that off then I can clear the mountain of debt that returning to, and setting up in, Australia has cost me. This time I need to find a job in SG from here, before I go there.
I have talked about this with almost everyone that I know; their question usually boil down to where was I happier (isn't that sweet of them) but they all then acknowledge that I was much happier in SG than here. Even sweeping streets I would be happier there.
Monday, December 6
When Support Does Not Mean Help
Why do the staff at Valve (i.e. Steam Support) have to be such useless shits?
Seriously, for two weeks or more I have been asking them to reset my password. Nothing more, just that. But will they? Noooooo, they insist on trying all of this useless shit that we all know is not going to achieve anything. Please send us a system info file (note that you have to 'save' not 'export', same output, but they are too useless to convert it). Please turn off all of these programs if they are running in the background. None of this achieves anything, and we all know that it won't. Only two things ever work with steam; reinstall or reset.
Just that, nothing else. Uninstall and reinstall the application, or reset your password.
But, as usual, it is my password that is the problem. And, as is often the case, I cannot reset it because their application (more probably at their end methinks) won't accept my answer to my secret question. So I have to ask them to reset the damned password. This is not the first time that I have had to do this, it is not the second, nor the third, nor the fourth, nor the fifth...
You see how useless the application is.
But will the stupid prick at the other end do what I ask?
Noooooo.
Fuckwit has to try all the shit that they always want to try to absolutely no avail.
Won't just reset my password as I asked for two weeks ago.
Dickwads.
Seriously, for two weeks or more I have been asking them to reset my password. Nothing more, just that. But will they? Noooooo, they insist on trying all of this useless shit that we all know is not going to achieve anything. Please send us a system info file (note that you have to 'save' not 'export', same output, but they are too useless to convert it). Please turn off all of these programs if they are running in the background. None of this achieves anything, and we all know that it won't. Only two things ever work with steam; reinstall or reset.
Just that, nothing else. Uninstall and reinstall the application, or reset your password.
But, as usual, it is my password that is the problem. And, as is often the case, I cannot reset it because their application (more probably at their end methinks) won't accept my answer to my secret question. So I have to ask them to reset the damned password. This is not the first time that I have had to do this, it is not the second, nor the third, nor the fourth, nor the fifth...
You see how useless the application is.
But will the stupid prick at the other end do what I ask?
Noooooo.
Fuckwit has to try all the shit that they always want to try to absolutely no avail.
Won't just reset my password as I asked for two weeks ago.
Dickwads.
Friday, December 3
Just Quickly
I have not been blogging, principally because I have been depressed, principally because I have been 'between contracts' for too long. I have exams this week and next, indeed two tomorrow, so don't expect this to be too long.
Let me start by saying that I like Lee Hsien Loong's view on social welfare; the burgeoning welfare state is the biggest single challenge to the Anglo world but few have the inclination to recognise it for what it is. In my view the leadership of Singapore has been wise in avoiding this trap.
My younger brother is a father; his girlfriend has given birth to a daughter - at present she only has two states; crying or sleeping. She kind of looks Asian, I am guessing this comes from my brother's mother who has Asiany looking eyes, I have no idea where she gets that from, but the little girl looks more Asian than my friend's children - who have a Chinese mother. I wonder if it will stay that way as they all grow?
I am having a 'cultural' issue; I am getting pissed, totally pissed, at the ethnics at uni, specifically at the fact that their stupidity and ignorance wastes an hour of most lectures. On one hand there are really dumb questions; we have to use a financial calculator, for financial functions you enter a number, press the button for that variable, you enter all variables except one, then you press 'compute' and press the last variable button, a slide shows all of these buttons, it has numbers above the buttons for all except one, it has the answer below that button. How hard can it be? Apparently it is still quite difficult if you are Indian. But then there are the totally irrelevant questions; if we are talking about interest rates some Indian will have to ask the lecturer if they think bank interest rates are fair and then make some comment about them being mercenary. Then there are questions, lots of them, from Indians that have supposed to have done degrees (we are doing a post grad) and done them in English, that show a total lack of understanding of basic English such as how to write a list of numbers.
My younger brother was complaining about how this was wasting so much time in his lectures. There are about four hundred in his class, of which six or so are White, the rest are Indian and Chinese. He says that he understands the Chinese having troubles and can sympathise; English is not their first language and their accounting system is different from the European model, but the Indians are meant to have studied in English and they are meant to use the same accounting principles, yet they are wasting the lecture with stupid-level questions. My observation is that they also have a tendency to throw out seemingly random answers, perhaps hoping for some recognition for participation, although to be fair, randomness would entail a fifty percent chance of being right whereas they are almost always wrong.
The bottom line is that I am being significantly held back by having to share my lectures with foreigners and our universities should offer Australian-only classes so that we can study at a faster rate. The other major point is that catering to these ethnics is lowering the overall quality of education provision.
I am having trouble with Steam again. I can log in offline, but it will not let me log in online. I tried to reset my password, but it would not let me, it would not accept the answer to my secret question. I have asked Steam Support to reset the password, but rather than simply do as I ask they insist on a lengthy series of email exchanges and a system info output. Why? All they ever do is tell you to reinstall and reset the password; they have no other answers to anything.
I have a contract starting on Monday, it is in the same division of the same department as one of the long term contract offers I had a while ago. I am hoping that I will impress them enough to get this other one happening again. It was advertised in the government notice of vacancies and they did not like any of the applicants, it was advertised in the public press but they got no responses, it was taken to recruitment agencies and I am the candidate that they got offered (indeed I was the only candidate put forward by the largest agency in town) but they then said that they had to get approval to actually progress the position. What does that mean? You advertised it three times without permission to fill the job?
I had a health scare recently; I had a choking problem. My father said that he had the same problem and it was only resolved when he lost weight, and further that the only way he lost weight was through starvation and totally no bread and no potato. ARRGGGGHHHH my two most favourite foods! Anyhow, I have been pretty good with this, I have stopped eating so much bread and am only having flat bread to make 'roll-ups' for lunch, I have reduced the number of times I eat a day, and I have reduced the amount that I eat at each meal. Almost immediately I could swallow better and have had only a few minor issues there. I have not noticed being any thinner though and was whinging about how no amount of exercise and diet got me any skinnier (remember walking the entire length of East Coast Park (two to three hours) every day for six months and not losing any weight?) HOWEVER; my underwear is all suddenly too loose. This must mean something...
Let me start by saying that I like Lee Hsien Loong's view on social welfare; the burgeoning welfare state is the biggest single challenge to the Anglo world but few have the inclination to recognise it for what it is. In my view the leadership of Singapore has been wise in avoiding this trap.
My younger brother is a father; his girlfriend has given birth to a daughter - at present she only has two states; crying or sleeping. She kind of looks Asian, I am guessing this comes from my brother's mother who has Asiany looking eyes, I have no idea where she gets that from, but the little girl looks more Asian than my friend's children - who have a Chinese mother. I wonder if it will stay that way as they all grow?
I am having a 'cultural' issue; I am getting pissed, totally pissed, at the ethnics at uni, specifically at the fact that their stupidity and ignorance wastes an hour of most lectures. On one hand there are really dumb questions; we have to use a financial calculator, for financial functions you enter a number, press the button for that variable, you enter all variables except one, then you press 'compute' and press the last variable button, a slide shows all of these buttons, it has numbers above the buttons for all except one, it has the answer below that button. How hard can it be? Apparently it is still quite difficult if you are Indian. But then there are the totally irrelevant questions; if we are talking about interest rates some Indian will have to ask the lecturer if they think bank interest rates are fair and then make some comment about them being mercenary. Then there are questions, lots of them, from Indians that have supposed to have done degrees (we are doing a post grad) and done them in English, that show a total lack of understanding of basic English such as how to write a list of numbers.
My younger brother was complaining about how this was wasting so much time in his lectures. There are about four hundred in his class, of which six or so are White, the rest are Indian and Chinese. He says that he understands the Chinese having troubles and can sympathise; English is not their first language and their accounting system is different from the European model, but the Indians are meant to have studied in English and they are meant to use the same accounting principles, yet they are wasting the lecture with stupid-level questions. My observation is that they also have a tendency to throw out seemingly random answers, perhaps hoping for some recognition for participation, although to be fair, randomness would entail a fifty percent chance of being right whereas they are almost always wrong.
The bottom line is that I am being significantly held back by having to share my lectures with foreigners and our universities should offer Australian-only classes so that we can study at a faster rate. The other major point is that catering to these ethnics is lowering the overall quality of education provision.
I am having trouble with Steam again. I can log in offline, but it will not let me log in online. I tried to reset my password, but it would not let me, it would not accept the answer to my secret question. I have asked Steam Support to reset the password, but rather than simply do as I ask they insist on a lengthy series of email exchanges and a system info output. Why? All they ever do is tell you to reinstall and reset the password; they have no other answers to anything.
I have a contract starting on Monday, it is in the same division of the same department as one of the long term contract offers I had a while ago. I am hoping that I will impress them enough to get this other one happening again. It was advertised in the government notice of vacancies and they did not like any of the applicants, it was advertised in the public press but they got no responses, it was taken to recruitment agencies and I am the candidate that they got offered (indeed I was the only candidate put forward by the largest agency in town) but they then said that they had to get approval to actually progress the position. What does that mean? You advertised it three times without permission to fill the job?
I had a health scare recently; I had a choking problem. My father said that he had the same problem and it was only resolved when he lost weight, and further that the only way he lost weight was through starvation and totally no bread and no potato. ARRGGGGHHHH my two most favourite foods! Anyhow, I have been pretty good with this, I have stopped eating so much bread and am only having flat bread to make 'roll-ups' for lunch, I have reduced the number of times I eat a day, and I have reduced the amount that I eat at each meal. Almost immediately I could swallow better and have had only a few minor issues there. I have not noticed being any thinner though and was whinging about how no amount of exercise and diet got me any skinnier (remember walking the entire length of East Coast Park (two to three hours) every day for six months and not losing any weight?) HOWEVER; my underwear is all suddenly too loose. This must mean something...
Tuesday, November 2
So Many Thoughts
I haven't blogged for a while, mostly because I just haven't bothered 'netting, whenever I have turned my pc on I have played. But I have had quite a few things that I wanted to write about and so I thought that I should get them off my chest.
The Kommunists
Spider Wasps
More Kommunists, specifically perverting justice
The SGX attempt to buy the ASX, second bite of the cherry
Elders selling their share in Rural Bank for 27M
Bob Brown's comments on SG being an oppressive dictatorship
Councillors
Rare Earth
Tax Returns, or rather the effect tax has upon returns
Window Dressing
Let's see if I can get through them all.
Australia, like most Western nations, employs far too many public servants. One in three people that work in AU work for government; our income tax is one third of our pay, so effectively one third is taken out of two people's pay and given to the third who is told that he was paid three thirds but one third was withheld for tax. Our non-income taxes pay for all of government's non-salary expenses. These bureaucrats don't do anything; for example, Health SA employs 35,000 people but there are only 9,000 hospital beds. Do you think that there are three and a half people to every bed? No way! There is only one nurse for every ten beds, one doctors for every thirty, one ancilliary for every ten, the rest are all administrating! Most tax dollars in Australia are spent on welfare, but for every dollar actually given to a recipient, four are spent on salaries for bureaucrats to make sure that one dollar isn't being ripped off!
So when the South Australian Treasurer says he is going to get rid of a couple of thousand leaches I think it is a small start, SA could get rid of 90,000 of them! But four thousand of these bureaucrats take to the streets and march. They have fire engines leading the parade; we pay our taxes to have them on station ready for emergencies, not being used as political props.
Spider Wasps
Ichy subject, I know.
The other day a woman in the next office (with the door open) made some statement about Aboriginals bludging at white man's expense. I thought of popping my head in and saying that she could get into trouble for making comments like that. Then I thought; only if someone that didn't agree with her heard it.
Then it reminded me of spider wasps...
If you have ever watched Discovery Channel (or Animal Planet or any of a dozen doco channels you can get on cable) then you have seen a wasp hunting a spider. Maybe you saw the spider behave in fear and try to escape.
Funny thing is that apparently if you put the spider in a glass cage in a white laboratory, i.e. out of his environment, and release the wasp into the cage, then the spider will hunt, and kill, the wasp.
Freed of her programming she knows that she has the upper hand. It is only because she has been 'programmed' into submission that the parasitic wasp can have her way.
This is the world that we live in.
This is Socialism, Feminism, and Humanism.
Perfectly, to a 'T'.
More Kommunists.
And this time perverting justice.
In civilised nations you are innocent until proven guilty.
Not so in Australia.
Specifically whit regards to unions accusing employers of OHSW breaches. The legal onus is on the employer to prove his/her/its innocence.
That is sick.
But it is specifically the situation that the Labor premier of NSW wants to keep.
The SGX is trying to buy the ASX.
That is to say the Singapore stock exchange is trying to buy the Australian stock exchange. They initially called it a 'merger' to make it sound more pallatable, but I don't think it is still going to be swallowed.
Funny thing is though; they tried something like this before, well more the real merger thing, with the two exchanges connecting live and traders being able to access the other. It didn't work, well to be more precise, it didn't get used.
This time around it is really just one company taking over another.
Bob Brown, our resident 'Green', that should, of course, be 'Red', doesn't llike it. His speech on the subject accused Singapore of being a totallitarian and oppressive state and therefore the deal was no go for him.
I think he lives in la la land, but he has proven that often enough.
Elders is selling its share in Rural Bank. For a mere $27M. Well, that may be all it's worth. Two things get me about this; firstly my total amazement that Elders is still alive, and secondly their fascination with selling everything that makes money so that they can keep running the things that lose money!
Rare Earth.
What can I say?
Well, something it appears.
Okay, the name means minerals that are scattered, as in 'rarefied', not actually rare as such. And that they all come from China, and the evil Chinese have decided to ration them so that they don't run out. How dare they think like that.
What it makes me think though, is what did we do before China opened up and traded with the world? Did we not have any 'rare earths'? Did we get them from somewhere else, but they were more expensive so we have forgotten how? Did we not build high tech equipment until China gave us these magical ingredients?
All seem pretty stupid to me.
Tax Returns
Ah yes, I made a model (that's what I do, remember?) for currency trading. Highly compounding, daily trading, each week at a set level before ramping up a level for the next week, taking out tax and safety margin each month, with tax rates, return rates, risk levels, etc built in.
I ran it to find out the starting funds I would need, at a conservative leveraging level (half what is common in the market), with a conservative rate of return (less than half what is common in the market), with a conservative risk level and a very safe safety margin withdrawal rate, blah blah blah, in order to find out what starting funds I would need to get a given return for a year.
The next bit is where it gets exciting.
I then changed the tax rate to SG to see the effect, since as you know, I am partial to moving there (again). The result was astounding; the return increased tenfold!
I then put in SG's currency trading tax rate (as opposed to ordinary company tax rate), the return increased another fourfold!
The funniest thing is; that although the tax rate was going down, the amount of tax being paid was going up! At 20% tax versus Australia's 30% tax SG would actually receive five times more tax, this is because it allowed a much faster rate of compounding, therefore far more profit was made. And by halving the tax rate for currency trading SG would double the tax it received.
I did some further modelling to find out what tax level would actually maximise the amount of tax a country would receive; 9.05% is what I got, so Singapore's 10% is not far off the mark.
Window Dressing
This is a funny one, the US SEC went public with an accusation that some accounting firms, they named Lehman Bros, were temporarily selling assets to 'cook' the books and improve companies' credit ratings. What I got from this was that they named Lehman, of all the companies that you could kick, they kick one that is down, in fact truly dead! Why not shame one that is still trading?
And I am not going to bother about councillors.
The Kommunists
Spider Wasps
More Kommunists, specifically perverting justice
The SGX attempt to buy the ASX, second bite of the cherry
Elders selling their share in Rural Bank for 27M
Bob Brown's comments on SG being an oppressive dictatorship
Councillors
Rare Earth
Tax Returns, or rather the effect tax has upon returns
Window Dressing
Let's see if I can get through them all.
Australia, like most Western nations, employs far too many public servants. One in three people that work in AU work for government; our income tax is one third of our pay, so effectively one third is taken out of two people's pay and given to the third who is told that he was paid three thirds but one third was withheld for tax. Our non-income taxes pay for all of government's non-salary expenses. These bureaucrats don't do anything; for example, Health SA employs 35,000 people but there are only 9,000 hospital beds. Do you think that there are three and a half people to every bed? No way! There is only one nurse for every ten beds, one doctors for every thirty, one ancilliary for every ten, the rest are all administrating! Most tax dollars in Australia are spent on welfare, but for every dollar actually given to a recipient, four are spent on salaries for bureaucrats to make sure that one dollar isn't being ripped off!
So when the South Australian Treasurer says he is going to get rid of a couple of thousand leaches I think it is a small start, SA could get rid of 90,000 of them! But four thousand of these bureaucrats take to the streets and march. They have fire engines leading the parade; we pay our taxes to have them on station ready for emergencies, not being used as political props.
Spider Wasps
Ichy subject, I know.
The other day a woman in the next office (with the door open) made some statement about Aboriginals bludging at white man's expense. I thought of popping my head in and saying that she could get into trouble for making comments like that. Then I thought; only if someone that didn't agree with her heard it.
Then it reminded me of spider wasps...
If you have ever watched Discovery Channel (or Animal Planet or any of a dozen doco channels you can get on cable) then you have seen a wasp hunting a spider. Maybe you saw the spider behave in fear and try to escape.
Funny thing is that apparently if you put the spider in a glass cage in a white laboratory, i.e. out of his environment, and release the wasp into the cage, then the spider will hunt, and kill, the wasp.
Freed of her programming she knows that she has the upper hand. It is only because she has been 'programmed' into submission that the parasitic wasp can have her way.
This is the world that we live in.
This is Socialism, Feminism, and Humanism.
Perfectly, to a 'T'.
More Kommunists.
And this time perverting justice.
In civilised nations you are innocent until proven guilty.
Not so in Australia.
Specifically whit regards to unions accusing employers of OHSW breaches. The legal onus is on the employer to prove his/her/its innocence.
That is sick.
But it is specifically the situation that the Labor premier of NSW wants to keep.
The SGX is trying to buy the ASX.
That is to say the Singapore stock exchange is trying to buy the Australian stock exchange. They initially called it a 'merger' to make it sound more pallatable, but I don't think it is still going to be swallowed.
Funny thing is though; they tried something like this before, well more the real merger thing, with the two exchanges connecting live and traders being able to access the other. It didn't work, well to be more precise, it didn't get used.
This time around it is really just one company taking over another.
Bob Brown, our resident 'Green', that should, of course, be 'Red', doesn't llike it. His speech on the subject accused Singapore of being a totallitarian and oppressive state and therefore the deal was no go for him.
I think he lives in la la land, but he has proven that often enough.
Elders is selling its share in Rural Bank. For a mere $27M. Well, that may be all it's worth. Two things get me about this; firstly my total amazement that Elders is still alive, and secondly their fascination with selling everything that makes money so that they can keep running the things that lose money!
Rare Earth.
What can I say?
Well, something it appears.
Okay, the name means minerals that are scattered, as in 'rarefied', not actually rare as such. And that they all come from China, and the evil Chinese have decided to ration them so that they don't run out. How dare they think like that.
What it makes me think though, is what did we do before China opened up and traded with the world? Did we not have any 'rare earths'? Did we get them from somewhere else, but they were more expensive so we have forgotten how? Did we not build high tech equipment until China gave us these magical ingredients?
All seem pretty stupid to me.
Tax Returns
Ah yes, I made a model (that's what I do, remember?) for currency trading. Highly compounding, daily trading, each week at a set level before ramping up a level for the next week, taking out tax and safety margin each month, with tax rates, return rates, risk levels, etc built in.
I ran it to find out the starting funds I would need, at a conservative leveraging level (half what is common in the market), with a conservative rate of return (less than half what is common in the market), with a conservative risk level and a very safe safety margin withdrawal rate, blah blah blah, in order to find out what starting funds I would need to get a given return for a year.
The next bit is where it gets exciting.
I then changed the tax rate to SG to see the effect, since as you know, I am partial to moving there (again). The result was astounding; the return increased tenfold!
I then put in SG's currency trading tax rate (as opposed to ordinary company tax rate), the return increased another fourfold!
The funniest thing is; that although the tax rate was going down, the amount of tax being paid was going up! At 20% tax versus Australia's 30% tax SG would actually receive five times more tax, this is because it allowed a much faster rate of compounding, therefore far more profit was made. And by halving the tax rate for currency trading SG would double the tax it received.
I did some further modelling to find out what tax level would actually maximise the amount of tax a country would receive; 9.05% is what I got, so Singapore's 10% is not far off the mark.
Window Dressing
This is a funny one, the US SEC went public with an accusation that some accounting firms, they named Lehman Bros, were temporarily selling assets to 'cook' the books and improve companies' credit ratings. What I got from this was that they named Lehman, of all the companies that you could kick, they kick one that is down, in fact truly dead! Why not shame one that is still trading?
And I am not going to bother about councillors.
Tuesday, October 12
Time to Blog
I have been slack on blogging the last few months, a sign of the stress I have been under, but I should keep it up, after all - the main purpose of this was to document my journey to living permanently in Singapore and I am not there yet.
Okay, first up, I get a new contract, great rate and a long project. It stalls. It is still out there, but lagging a few months. I get another contract offer, it hangs for a couple of weeks whilst people are off sick, then it goes belly up. It is a month and a half now. Then I get a new contract, the rate sucks, it is a tad over half what I got before the GFC but anything to pay the rent right now. It gets delayed, first by two weeks, which I don't mind as I have exams, then by another weeks. Then on the day that I get the call delaying it I get another offering a short one to fill this week.
So I spent today at a radio station. Office to myself off in some quiet corner, only five minutes walk from home. And the rate is a little better.
Originally it was because they couldn't roll their financial reporting model over for their new year. They have a UK owner so their year is different. I look at it with the Financial Controller, "seems like ten, maybe fifteen minutes work" after all, wrapping a formula inside an IF statement to deal with there being no 'previous period' data at the start of the year would do it. I get to work, I uncover that once this problem is resolved there are others that will become visible, previously hidden by the lack of data flowing through the model. I have a good look at this, at least for fifteen to twenty minutes, I undo the previous work and I make one change to one formula in one cell on one sheet. Problem solved.
Fun
But then I ask the philosophical question; you have previous period data, it is from the previous year but it could be shown, so why not? They like the sound of this, so I do it. Then I correct a few formulae errors through the model, simplify things, cut out some redundancy. Take it a lot further in one day then they thought that they would get in a week. But a chat reveals that there is a lot more work that they would like if I am willing to stay the rest of the week. Who am I to say no?
But the repeated false starts of this were echoed at uni. I have received three different course schedules for next semester, each time the reception ask me not to enrol as it will change again. I get told that it is finalised and that the last one I received is right to go, but the next day I get another one. I ask reception to enrol me in the two evening courses, whatever they may be. It doesn't happen. I meet the IT guy at the desk on my last day there last semester, he promises to do this. It doesn't happen. So I am using the printed form method.
Paul and Cheng fly off to Singapore this week. They will spend a month there, one week will be in MY seeing Cheng's family. The last two weeks staying with Jaz, Cheng's sister in SG. I was thinking of flying over for their last weekend there but I suspect that I will be too busy and so will drop that idea.
Have only been half watching the post-election games; Gillard seems to be lying and conniving at every chance. But the main thing was that I have noticed several times that the text stories on Foxtel's news multichoice have been very strongly, indeed outright aggressively, worded pro-Labor, pro-Gillard and anti-liberal, anti-Abbott.
So much for fair, balanced reporting.
People try and engage me in political debates and I respond only partially. I always come back to "I really don't care anymore, the country is going down the gurgler and I have made the decision to leave". This even happened with my step-mother at the agricultural show when she was getting upset at most of the orchids being foreign and I made some comment about non-Australian not worrying me and she responded with "you're already half in Singapore though". So true. I admired the beauty of those that I like without any consideration for their botanical political correctness.
Oh, yeah, exams last week. I expect to come top in both my subjects. The economics exam was outright FUN! The management accounting was, true to form, all cost accounting but not as bad as it could have been and my decision to actually revise paid off. I won't know the actual results for a while, but I am confident enough to judge that I can take on a heavier load and undertake three subjects next semester.
Okay, first up, I get a new contract, great rate and a long project. It stalls. It is still out there, but lagging a few months. I get another contract offer, it hangs for a couple of weeks whilst people are off sick, then it goes belly up. It is a month and a half now. Then I get a new contract, the rate sucks, it is a tad over half what I got before the GFC but anything to pay the rent right now. It gets delayed, first by two weeks, which I don't mind as I have exams, then by another weeks. Then on the day that I get the call delaying it I get another offering a short one to fill this week.
So I spent today at a radio station. Office to myself off in some quiet corner, only five minutes walk from home. And the rate is a little better.
Originally it was because they couldn't roll their financial reporting model over for their new year. They have a UK owner so their year is different. I look at it with the Financial Controller, "seems like ten, maybe fifteen minutes work" after all, wrapping a formula inside an IF statement to deal with there being no 'previous period' data at the start of the year would do it. I get to work, I uncover that once this problem is resolved there are others that will become visible, previously hidden by the lack of data flowing through the model. I have a good look at this, at least for fifteen to twenty minutes, I undo the previous work and I make one change to one formula in one cell on one sheet. Problem solved.
Fun
But then I ask the philosophical question; you have previous period data, it is from the previous year but it could be shown, so why not? They like the sound of this, so I do it. Then I correct a few formulae errors through the model, simplify things, cut out some redundancy. Take it a lot further in one day then they thought that they would get in a week. But a chat reveals that there is a lot more work that they would like if I am willing to stay the rest of the week. Who am I to say no?
But the repeated false starts of this were echoed at uni. I have received three different course schedules for next semester, each time the reception ask me not to enrol as it will change again. I get told that it is finalised and that the last one I received is right to go, but the next day I get another one. I ask reception to enrol me in the two evening courses, whatever they may be. It doesn't happen. I meet the IT guy at the desk on my last day there last semester, he promises to do this. It doesn't happen. So I am using the printed form method.
Paul and Cheng fly off to Singapore this week. They will spend a month there, one week will be in MY seeing Cheng's family. The last two weeks staying with Jaz, Cheng's sister in SG. I was thinking of flying over for their last weekend there but I suspect that I will be too busy and so will drop that idea.
Have only been half watching the post-election games; Gillard seems to be lying and conniving at every chance. But the main thing was that I have noticed several times that the text stories on Foxtel's news multichoice have been very strongly, indeed outright aggressively, worded pro-Labor, pro-Gillard and anti-liberal, anti-Abbott.
So much for fair, balanced reporting.
People try and engage me in political debates and I respond only partially. I always come back to "I really don't care anymore, the country is going down the gurgler and I have made the decision to leave". This even happened with my step-mother at the agricultural show when she was getting upset at most of the orchids being foreign and I made some comment about non-Australian not worrying me and she responded with "you're already half in Singapore though". So true. I admired the beauty of those that I like without any consideration for their botanical political correctness.
Oh, yeah, exams last week. I expect to come top in both my subjects. The economics exam was outright FUN! The management accounting was, true to form, all cost accounting but not as bad as it could have been and my decision to actually revise paid off. I won't know the actual results for a while, but I am confident enough to judge that I can take on a heavier load and undertake three subjects next semester.
Friday, October 1
Keyboards
I surrender, I give in, I give up.
Microsoft wins.
I can no longer tolerate having to constantly change the fracken keyboard setting because Microsoft Vista cannot understand that just because I speak English English, as opposed to American English, that I do still us a US keyboard, and not what Microsoft seems to think is an English keyboard - which Microsoft is adamant has the '@' and '"' signs transposed, so my email addresses always turn out someone"somewhere.
So I have turned the language back to US English since that is the ONLY way to get Vista to keep the keyboard setting as 'US'. Seriously, if my language is set to English (UK, Australian, or Singaporean) the keyboard reading goes stupid. Thank you morons at Redmond. Now I will have to constantly be resetting the dictionary when I use Word.
ACCA v CPA
Google it, see what you get.
I get either English people considering their options 'cos they are moving to Australia, Asian students chatting amongst themselves with no idea of the facts, or USers not understanding how the world works outside their own small universe.
I have been pondering it for a few days and have come to some conclusions.
1) ACCA is a British organisation. Yeah, I know, they 'claim' to be the biggest international accounting association, but that is because they are the only one that accepts international membership per se. ACCA is not recognised anywhere but Britain, if you come to Australia then you will have to join either CPA Australia or ICA Australia. The latter has a relationship with ACCA but is less than half the size of CPA Australia.
2) ACCA offers no real benefits for me vis-a-vis working in the Orient. CPA Australia has a joint membership arrangement with CPA Singapore, and the legislatively mandated body in both Singapore and Hong Kong is called 'CPA'.
3) The total world membership of ACCA is less than the combined memberships of CPA Australia and ICA Australia, so they aren't that big after all.
All of which totals up to ACCA being an irrelevance.
With regards to the snob value. There is a tradition in Australia of CAs thinking that they are better than CPAs. It is based on their requirement for one or two extra subjects when studying, so it limits your choice of electives in your degree, but other than that, no diff. In my experience, having had to clean up after both for twenty years, I find them, in the main, equally incompetent.
ACCA also requires one more subject; the MPA I am doing qualifies for both CPA and CA, but not for ACCA - for that I need to do advanced management accounting. Now given that 'management accounting' in Australia is actually not management accounting, rather it is cost accounting, and given that I do work in that area, I am considering doing that extra subject anyhow. But having done that, I then see no reason to apply for ACCA membership. As I have said, it seems irrelevant, meaningless, of no benefit.
Some of the English lecturers speak highly of it, and say that it is big in Asia, but I cannot find any proof of that, and I strongly suspect their prejudices are due to it being and English body. All I can find is that membership will work for you in Britain, but in any other country you will still need to join the local body.
It is my birthday next week, the day is sandwiched between two exams so I will be spending my birthday studying said management accounting. Not that my birthdays mean anything to me, I gave up on that back in my mid twenties.
I have postponed starting my next contract until after this exam week. They did want me to start earlier, but were having trouble with line managers all going on leave (long weekend coming) and so I pointed out that I had exams and would not mind postponing the start - my consultant at the employment agency called back within ten minutes to say the offer had been accepted.
I just got three assignments back. A distinction for one, a high distinction (well, 100%) for the other economics one, but a strangely low mark for management accounting. Even though the lecturer could only point out one error when we went through it (I did find a second later on my own), still I only got a credit.
Now why is that?
I was checking SG blogs the other day, ones that I have had bookmarked for years and used to regularly check, and noticed that several have gone quite stale, as in the authors are no longer posting. Big names in the SG blogsphere too. I guess people grow, change, and move on.
One of my best friends and his Chinese Malaysian wife and their two children will be visiting SG later this month. I was pondering flying over for a weekend whilst they are there. I have enough points in my KrisFlier account for one leg of the trip. It would be a chance to catch up with friends (my SG friends that is). Funny thing; I have more friends in SG than in AU.
Microsoft wins.
I can no longer tolerate having to constantly change the fracken keyboard setting because Microsoft Vista cannot understand that just because I speak English English, as opposed to American English, that I do still us a US keyboard, and not what Microsoft seems to think is an English keyboard - which Microsoft is adamant has the '@' and '"' signs transposed, so my email addresses always turn out someone"somewhere.
So I have turned the language back to US English since that is the ONLY way to get Vista to keep the keyboard setting as 'US'. Seriously, if my language is set to English (UK, Australian, or Singaporean) the keyboard reading goes stupid. Thank you morons at Redmond. Now I will have to constantly be resetting the dictionary when I use Word.
ACCA v CPA
Google it, see what you get.
I get either English people considering their options 'cos they are moving to Australia, Asian students chatting amongst themselves with no idea of the facts, or USers not understanding how the world works outside their own small universe.
I have been pondering it for a few days and have come to some conclusions.
1) ACCA is a British organisation. Yeah, I know, they 'claim' to be the biggest international accounting association, but that is because they are the only one that accepts international membership per se. ACCA is not recognised anywhere but Britain, if you come to Australia then you will have to join either CPA Australia or ICA Australia. The latter has a relationship with ACCA but is less than half the size of CPA Australia.
2) ACCA offers no real benefits for me vis-a-vis working in the Orient. CPA Australia has a joint membership arrangement with CPA Singapore, and the legislatively mandated body in both Singapore and Hong Kong is called 'CPA'.
3) The total world membership of ACCA is less than the combined memberships of CPA Australia and ICA Australia, so they aren't that big after all.
All of which totals up to ACCA being an irrelevance.
With regards to the snob value. There is a tradition in Australia of CAs thinking that they are better than CPAs. It is based on their requirement for one or two extra subjects when studying, so it limits your choice of electives in your degree, but other than that, no diff. In my experience, having had to clean up after both for twenty years, I find them, in the main, equally incompetent.
ACCA also requires one more subject; the MPA I am doing qualifies for both CPA and CA, but not for ACCA - for that I need to do advanced management accounting. Now given that 'management accounting' in Australia is actually not management accounting, rather it is cost accounting, and given that I do work in that area, I am considering doing that extra subject anyhow. But having done that, I then see no reason to apply for ACCA membership. As I have said, it seems irrelevant, meaningless, of no benefit.
Some of the English lecturers speak highly of it, and say that it is big in Asia, but I cannot find any proof of that, and I strongly suspect their prejudices are due to it being and English body. All I can find is that membership will work for you in Britain, but in any other country you will still need to join the local body.
It is my birthday next week, the day is sandwiched between two exams so I will be spending my birthday studying said management accounting. Not that my birthdays mean anything to me, I gave up on that back in my mid twenties.
I have postponed starting my next contract until after this exam week. They did want me to start earlier, but were having trouble with line managers all going on leave (long weekend coming) and so I pointed out that I had exams and would not mind postponing the start - my consultant at the employment agency called back within ten minutes to say the offer had been accepted.
I just got three assignments back. A distinction for one, a high distinction (well, 100%) for the other economics one, but a strangely low mark for management accounting. Even though the lecturer could only point out one error when we went through it (I did find a second later on my own), still I only got a credit.
Now why is that?
I was checking SG blogs the other day, ones that I have had bookmarked for years and used to regularly check, and noticed that several have gone quite stale, as in the authors are no longer posting. Big names in the SG blogsphere too. I guess people grow, change, and move on.
One of my best friends and his Chinese Malaysian wife and their two children will be visiting SG later this month. I was pondering flying over for a weekend whilst they are there. I have enough points in my KrisFlier account for one leg of the trip. It would be a chance to catch up with friends (my SG friends that is). Funny thing; I have more friends in SG than in AU.
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