Detroit – still a ghost city (Zombieland) from the financial crisis?

The cover photo shows Highland Park Community College, in 1985 and 2012. It closed in 2009 because of financial reasons.

With photos like this of Detroit so easy to find, how can America still dictate terms to other countries, spending billions on wars it cannot afford when at home there are hundreds of thousands of homeless people and many still suffering from the GFC?

It is unconscionable conduct from supposedly the leader of the free world, when in fact it only leads in hypocrisy.

Take care of your own first, then if you have money to spare spend it in other areas. But until every American has a home you have no right to spend so much on defence, or as it should correctly be called, warmongering.

The Royal Wedding – why it is a great advertisement for a Republic

Warning: if you love the Royal Family you may want to stop reading.

Before this event was shown on millions of televisions worldwide, I read an article that said over two billion people would be watching. This was quickly changed to a few hundred million, and I think that is part of the problem.

Hype.

The Royal Family changed their surname in World War I to Windsor, as they are all of German descent. But no, that is not what I do not like about them. What I don’t like is people holding positions of power and influence simply because of who their mother is, and the industry of hype that surrounds them.

Take Royal Commentators. Who would employ these egotistical windbags if they didn’t have the Royal Family to be interviewed and written about? No one I suspect. Also losing their jobs would be their voice coaches, who teach them to speak with an overly exaggerated posh English accent that millions fall for. Margaret Thatcher employed one of these voice coaches and went from a backbencher to Prime Minister.

Oh how gullible we are as a collective.

I am from a business background and had to work very hard for everything I have, as have the other nearly six billion people on this planet. Sure, people can be born into wealth and that happens on a daily basis, but they are not also born with power over how countries are governed. Unless of course you include North Korea, and gee isn’t that going well.

Yes we are very fortunate that the British Royal Family seem relatively sane, but if Prince Charles had married Camilla when he had wanted to, and there was no Diana in their bloodline, I believe we would already be a Republic.

My main point is that we already should be a Republic. Why?

Glad you asked.

We currently have a Governor General who can wield massive power over our country (just look at the 1970s) and answers only to their boss, the Queen. Residing on the other side of the planet the Queen mainly understands our society from what her advisors tell her. She could be receiving good advice, yes, but there is also a fifty percent chance that the advice is bad.

Bottom line is she is not Australian and is not immersed in our society, so why is she our ultimate ruler? We get upset when a politician doesn’t live in the electorate they are campaigning in, yet we bow to the Queen of England who doesn’t even live in our country?

Which brings me around to those projected television audience figures.

For some reason people become so overly excited that everything about the Queen and her family is highly exaggerated. How can billions become millions? Media hype.

The media see dollar signs in the Royals (and not much else). Television stations jack up the prices of advertising during the wedding. Countless photographs of the happy couple adorn the covers, insides and everywhere else on magazines and newspapers for weeks on end. Newspapers in particular temporarily forget that their job is to inform us about what is happening in our own country. Granted, this doesn’t happen much any more because Mr Murdoch has sacked all the good investigative journalists, instead his newspapers copy stories to fill pages (pick up a paper from Melbourne and you will read the same articles in the paper in Adelaide).

Hype turned up to 11, blaring at us from every direction, because of one wedding that is taking place on the other side of the world. And the only reason many of us are interested is because the people involved were born into wealth and power? Are we really that discontented in our own lives? Do we really believe that they should rule over us instead of a democratically elected Head of State who, shock horror, would be an Australian?

Granted they do some good work in raising funds for good causes but so do thousands of families in Australia, and they don’t get to live in a castle with servants. The amount of money spent on this wedding could save thousands of lives amongst the two billion people who currently make only $2 a day. Same with the homeless, who I suspect were removed from the route taken by the horse and buggy show before the cameras arrived.

There, but for the grace of a few missed pay days, go the rest of us.

If you want to watch a wedding and cry at the love and devotion two people have for each other, there are hundreds of them that happen every Saturday. They may not have veils longer than a football field, but they are displays of love and therefore, in my opinion, far more ‘tear worthy’ than the one on every television last weekend.

Thank god for Netflix!

$Billion Bank Profits yet they sack workers!

So NAB announce a full year $5.3bn profit and at the same time the sacking of 6,000 staff.

Absolutely disgusting! With the $5.3b profit they should be hiring people to take care of the community, not firing 6,000 and potentially destroying 6,000 lives!

I know legally they have to put shareholders first, but surely the time has come for social responsibility to outweigh and extra couple of cents dividend per share! Oh, and I am sure executive bonuses will go up as people are shown the door carrying their careers in cardboard boxes.

We desperately need a change in corporate focus!

Constantly Working Long Hours? Maybe You’re The Problem.

I’ve always thought that if you’re constantly having to work long hours (the exception being if it’s your business, then it’s your choice and sometimes a necessity) then you are not efficient and don’t use your time as productively as possible.

In the past I’ve heard many people spend an hour a day, or more, complaining that they don’t have enough time to do their job!

A person working long hours more often than not demonstrates a lack of ability or of support, both are toxic in any organisation.

Go home, spend time with family or on yourself, because you’ll never be paid for those extra hours and your boss won’t appreciate it, she/he will just get used to it and soon expect it as your normal day.

Do yourself a favour and GO HOME!

RAH HELL!

No wonder Jack Snelling left when he did. This is the disgusting state of health care in SA and after Labor spent $2.6bn!!! Waiting times longer than before, no beds available… basically a complete disaster!

And we have the most expensive hospital in the southern hemisphere!

They should all hand their heads in shame and all the heads of the Health Department should be fired immediately! No excuse for such complete incompetence in looking after our most vulnerable!

Why Articles and Books on How to be Successful, Suck

Most business articles on how to be successful are crap. You do what works for you, we are individuals. Yes some basic humanity and empathy is required but articles that begin with “The 5 steps to…” are complete time wasters.

Of course this is just my opinion, but the way they make it sound as though it will work for everyone shows a complete lack of objectivity and, basically, reality.

If you’re looking for a magic formula you’d have better luck chasing the next rainbow.

Labor approved friends $757,000 grant in just one day! ICAC investigation needed!

They should repay the lot out of their own pockets…to approve a grant application in one day when so many worthy health and art causes get constant rejections is disgusting and outright corrupt in my opinion.

This is more than I will pay in income tax during my lifetime, and they just give it away.

If they don’t lose their jobs (which they won’t) then corruption is proven and jail should follow!

PokemonGO

Sorry, but to me the PokemonGO craze is just symptomatic of a desperate collective trying to escape from an uninspiring world. Sad.

There have always been fads (mine were yoyo’s and scateboards!) but unlike today’s versions which draw you into an enclosed world and drain your experiences of the outside world.

Talking to people (in particular the young and those from Asian backgrounds) is now an exercise in fighting to gain eye contact. Their phone is their most important possession, indeed studies have shown that a significant percentage would rather lose their hearing than their phone.

So our society doesn’t offer them enough to keep their interest in the real world, or is this just a fad?

If not a fad, then insurance companies will have to add “this policy does not cover self harm, including walking into objects or dangerous situations whilst your attention is distracted by using a smartphone.”

And who would have seen that coming??