IntenseDebate - RayJamieson

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - Agmates Community News... · 0 replies · +1 points

It's an ill wind if it blows nobody any good...
Reading the headlines almost puts a smile on your face, if it wasn't so tragic! The fires tragedy has highlighted so much stupidity, such as the guys fined for clearing roadsides, doing their own hazard reduction burning, piling rocks for CFA access, now vindicated. In the future, their court defence may go better for them.
The international carbon price collapsed, forcing a rethink of the ETS, perhaps a carbon tax and a debate. Maybe they'll realise Carbon is not the problem!
Now we find that pastures are a better method of sequestration if carbon was the problem, but if it was, then pastures are a great way to do it.
It's amazing that when upheavals such as this occur, it provides the opportunity for a rethink of the craziness and "sacred cows" that have matured into a load of old "bull".
Now, it is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure the changes actually happen. As one news report said, the status quo will be back within 5 years if we let it! And all those people will have died in vain... Now that WOULD be a crime...

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - A Storm in the financi... · 0 replies · +1 points

In the news today:
"The founders of Storm Financial are trying to regain partial control of the financial advisory firm to pursue the Commonwealth Bank through the courts.

Emmanuel and Julie Cassimatis confirmed in a statement on Tuesday they would pursue a Deed of Company Arrangement (DOCA)."

So the folks at the head of Storm are trying to do the right thing by investors by taking back control, and forcing the banks to be made accountable for their part in it. Lots of legal wrangling to come.
But wait, what's this, at the end of the SAME article?

"Meanwhile, a bid by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to freeze $2 million the couple paid to themselves days before the north Queensland firm went into administration will return to the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday."

I wonder what is REALLY going on there? Like I said previously, the posturing and arguing will go on for years and the investors will watch, wonder and weep!

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - Agmates Community News... · 0 replies · +1 points

If ever there was a time for a new broom to sweep clean, this is IT! However, the ones pushing the broom haven't changed...

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - Agmates Community News... · 1 reply · +2 points

Thank you JeffT, I read your tinyurl, and comments after the article. I was disappointed in Tim Flannery's comments also. I thought better of him. However, I have to concede that man HAS had an effect. I looked at everything in coming to this conclusion and realised that in the last twenty years or so, man's effect was not on temperatures, droughts, or anything but the vegetation that was allowed to accumulate. I based this on my own research, feedback from my Dad, a 60 (SIXTY) year and still active veteran of the NSW Rural FB, and a lot of studies in recent days of past bushfire research and Govt enquiries. The ONLY man-made difference is in the amount of vegetation fuel available. And a recurring fact is that EVERY TIME this amount of vegetation builds up and coincides with hot weather, drought and winds, bushfires appear and destroy everything in their path. That is also verified by the enquiries, which make all the same recommendations. I can't wait til the next round starts - will they just change the addresses and victim's names? Or will they look at the previous ones and say "OK, we have seen enough, LET US DO SOMETHING NOW!"

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - Agmates Community News... · 0 replies · +2 points

I watched Channel 7 "Sunday Night" program also, and found it hard to believe what I was hearing. Like the older gentleman on TV, I wanted to get up and walk out, but it was my own loungeroom! I listened to a guy living in a concrete jungle tell the CFA bush residents what the problem was.. And he didn't think it was the fuel problem either... Couldn't specify exactly what the cause was, or a solution for the bushfire problem, but still got airtime! And therein lies the problem.
Seems that if you are a greenie you can get the airtime and the audience, but if you have a commonsense solution, anything that suggests removing a tree or creating a firebreak, there's an endanged plant or animal that will be threatened by it...
Funny thing, those endanged flora and fauna are very scarce over almost a million acres of Victorian bush right now!

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - Katter, Windsor, Oakes... · 0 replies · +1 points

We know that people have short memories, and voters even shorter memories, but with the wounds from the economic stimulus package likely to be open and festering sores around the time of the next election, I know of 3 at least independants that should probably start forward planning a new career any time from now.. Disappointed I am, surprised, I'm not. That's why I created www.politicalguts.com - there are too many politically expedient decisions made with short term thinking. This island we live on is one of the oldest continents on the planet - the audacity of those who think a three year term ahead at a time! The inhumanity of what they surely must know they are inflicting on our children... People of Australia, we can do better. WE MUST!

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - What The Greenies are ... · 0 replies · +1 points

There is a slightly larger picture emerging from this whole debacle... That of the vacuum of leadership, and our amazement at how low someone can stoop to when the carrot is big enough.
It began with the talk of arson being a cause of the deadly fires and now there is someone in custody. The claim is that the person is 'mentally fragile' but regardless, he is safer in custody than out in the community. I thought this was as low as human nature could go.
However, it went even lower with the Rudd team linking disaster relief with the economic stimulus package. As if that wasn't bad enough, all we saw from Turnbull and Co was grandstanding.
In times of leadership vacuum, there is the opportunity for true leadership to step up and be counted. However, we have failed! We have failed to elect anyone with the moral fibre, the political guts, to take charge in this situation. The leadership vacuum is our own responsibility. We need to be more proactive in selecting those who would represent us in parliament, to ensure that we get what we need. Instead, by allowing anyone who can afford the fee to stand and can hoodwink the party, we get what we deserve!

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - A Storm in the financi... · 0 replies · +1 points

Susan, my heart goes out to you. I am one of those "financial advisors". However, for 20 years, I have been a business advisor and was involved in corporate rescue for folks like yourself from as far back as the 1987 market crash. It's only in the last two years I relented and got my qualification as a "licensed financial planner" so that I could legally continue to give the strategic and business advice that my clients required. There are two types of financial planners, one the career planner/insurance sales person, and the other the person with a strategic eye to the client's wellbeing. Just as there are accountant bookkeepers and management consultants with the same qualification. Unfortunately, in situations like this, the greed and "protect my butt" philosophy is the way of the organisations with the resources of corporate lawyers and time to wait until folks like you cannot afford to fight back. I don't know the answer afterwards, but I hope the average investor realises they need more education before they invest in the future. I have daily requests from this type of organisation to lure my clients into their investments, but I refuse!

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - Senate Rejects Stimulu... · 0 replies · +1 points

Funny, as someone who has never "had a job" and always been self employed, taking personal responsibility has been my way of life. It's interesting to rub shoulders with those who have this belief of 'entitlement' and eagerly await the next handout. In an ABC radio interview, the guy who set up the "Micro Loans" concept recently said that the handouts in Africa after the BANDAID concerts probably set the country back decades, because the people learnt to wait for the next handout, rather than learning how to create the next opportunity, and to take responsibility for their lives. It's happening here too. We rely on "Guvmint" to look after us, but there are many people now who are finding out the futility of that strategy. What will it take to get people to realise that it's time to start thinking for themselves, and to stand up against the bureaucratic thinking imposed on them from afar?

17 years ago @ Agmates Rural News - 10 years of run away G... · 0 replies · +1 points

I think it says it all quite well! That picture exceeded the word limit by 5 times!

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