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Here are the slides from my presentation to a group of real estate agents today.

Solving the financial crisis and global warming

I rode this morning. It was the usual Thursday morning ride complete with a crash and the attendant postmortem. But it was a chat over coffee that got me thinking.

My mate runs a bike shop. It's successful, as is he, but I could hear the fear in his voice knowing that the full force of the economic crisis is yet to bite. There are going to be lots of job cuts. My brother may well be one of them.

In government there's plenty of hand-wringing and furrowed brows. Unemployment is politically unsavory. So are bank foreclosures. Leaders know that now is the time for serious economic support, hence the $10.4 billion stimulus package recently announced to help families and first home buyers. All good stuff, at least politically.

But I'm wondering why the government isn't doing more to sort out climate change as a major part of kick-starting the economy. Rather than sinking money into unprofitable child care centres and similarly unprofitable auto manufacturers, let's sink money into developing clean energy and infrastructure that reduces the demand for fossil fuels over the long term.

Just stimulating the economy is a short-term fix; politically palatable and achievable inside a single term of government. However, thoughtful, well-crafted economic strategies could provide an instant boost to the economy and go on paying dividends for generations to come. The Rudd government appear intent on doing just that; or at least in part.

Their support of the auto industry includes a $1.3 billion injection into the Green Car Innovation Fund. It's clever strategy and linked to a long view of the future.

Barack Obama's accptance speech - full version

Barack Obama's victory speech

How sad we didn't get Sarah Palin as Vice President of the world

Sarah Palin outlining her foreign policies. Just think, she could have been the next Vice President of the most powerful nation on earth, the person charged with oversight of the US war machine if something happened to the President.

All I'll say is thank God it didn't happen.


Watch CBS Videos Online

Barack Obama's grandmother passes away

It must be incredibly heart-breaking for Barack Obama, on the eve of the most important day of his life, to lose his grandmother to cancer. My thoughts are with him.

Barack Obama advertisement brought me to tears

The latest Barack Obama commercial, a beautifully crafted 30 minute infomercial, brought me to tears. The way Obama appeals to the potential of the human spirit really gets to me. He talks without preaching, without attempting to manipulate, and what he says speaks to my values. I'll be disappointed beyond belief if he doesn't win next Tuesday. If he wins it will be a win for world peace.

I've embedded the video below from Obama's Youtube channel.

When the chips are down

When the chips are down why not take advantage: at least that seems to be the attitude of OPEC. Give it to the West while they're hurting. I say good on them. The more damage they do, the quicker the world will start investing in alternative energy supplies. Noone has a monopoly on wind, wave, and solar power generation.

Probably not a Rhodes Scholar

These guys vote. How did that happen?

Forest activists attacked in the Upper Florentine Valley, Tassie

Pink Floyd (Bob Geldof) - Nobody Home

I just love this song. The Wall is one of my favourite albums ever.

Commonwealth Bank feeling the pinch?

This in from Commsec:

The financial sector is lower by 3.6pct being weighed down by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). Its shares are down 8.6pct or $3.88 to $41.27 after resuming trade this morning following capital raising to fund the $2.1bln acquisition of BankWest and wealth management group St Andrew’s.

We're told that the banks, who've just been given a 1% (which is really around 14%) cut in the cash rate by the RBA, are feeling the pinch. So what's the Commonwealth's response? Raise $2.1bln to buy out Bankwest. Excuse me if I sound populist, but that smacks of double standards. They took 3 days to raise $2.1bln but complain that funds are tight. I'll bet if I walked in to a branch and asked for a small business loan I'd be told all manner of bullshit about how tight liquidity is at the moment. I'd be asked for my house, my car, and my wife as security.

Seriously. How about giving the battlers a break, then look at building your empire. No wonder the punters are pissed.

My fellow prisonoers: McCain gaffe

Maybe John McCain still thinks he's back in Nam. Maybe he sees no way out of the mess the country is in. Who knows. But would you want this guy running the country?

Sad Guys on Trading Floors

A fascinating series of photos capturing the fear and turmoil in the stock market.

Sad Guys on Trading Floors

Qantas jet falls ahead of stock market plunge

I couldn't help but notice the irony of the front page of today's West Australian. It seems that Qantas jets may be the precursors to rapid falls in interest rates and the stock market. Let's hope they don't crash one properly.

Gates No Longer World's Richest Man - Forbes.com

How is it that we still measure wealth and riches by what we own?

Gates No Longer World's Richest Man - Forbes.com

Something my dear Aunty Marj wrote

Here's something my dear Aunty Marj wrote last year.

Well now, here it is 3:30 a.m September22nd 2007.

I have my cup of Lazarus brew along side me and my computer. I suppose I should explain why I call my coffee “Lazarus Brew”. I have a theory about that. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He opened Lazarus’s tomb and went inside and said “Lazarus come forth” and stuck a cup of Starbucks coffee under Lazarus’s nose. And behold Lazarus came forth.

As yet, the birds haven’t started taking roll call, and daylight will be a little bit longer arriving here. We are heading into shorter days and longer nights. I wish it wasn’t so, for I love the long days and short nights. Our bodies start to go into another cycle for autumn that gets us ready for the cold  winter days and nights.  I ‘specially love my flower garden. It’s too early in the a.m for me to see how they’ve managed through the night. Sometimes we can get some rather nasty surprises this time of the year when Mother Nature decides to give us a taste of the yet to come...and the lovely flowers bow their sweet little heads...upset, for they will have to leave soon. And they have enjoyed my talking to them and telling them how lovely they are.

It’s quiet times like this my mind goes back to memories of the dearest kind. And how fortunate I was to be at a certain point at a certain time to have been there...


In 1973, I made the long and tiring trip back to Australia, to bring my Mother to the U.S. for a prolonged visit, and decided to go west first and visit one of my sisters and her Hubby and 4 wonderful sons, Rod, the oldest, then John, Peter, and Tim who  lived in a huge shed, on 968 hectares, 43 miles from the nearest town, 16 miles from the nearest school in a district called Jerdacuttup. I think they were about 4 miles from the nearest neighbour, and had hundreds and hundreds of sheep, several horses, one of which was a pony by name of “Flicka” (and I was to find out in a couple of days had more herding sense than I), a couple of milk cows, chooks, a white turkey (that a fox relieved them of and departed to his very delighted wife and little foxes the next night),  and a terrible drought in progress.

The grass was nonexistent. The sheep looked as if someone had played a terrible joke and just put dirty wool over bones. The dams were mud holes. I had never seen such devastation, and my heart ached for the family. The land was an ongoing brown/black/grey with no demarcation of horizon. It was all so depressing  and I couldn’t help but wonder how the family could possibly survive this awful catastrophe. In all the years I had lived in Australia I had never seen a drought; and that too was going to change after I left West Australia and flew north to Queensland, for they, also, in Central Queensland, were in the grip of the same situation - no rain for 3 years.


However, let me get back to Jerdacuttup and the real reason I started this remembrance of the dearest kind.

To live and survive  under the most abject conditions takes and makes a child into the man or woman he/she will become. And my Sister Betty and her Husband Ron, and their children, and the many who tamed West Australia, leave a legacy of endurance of what surely must have been what looked like a hopeless cause and turned it into what they had left behind . A vital Culture…Civilization.

One of my nephews, a 9 year old, by the name of Peter ,was already showing that the world was waiting for him. There was something about him in his eyes...almost spiritually at times. On one hand he seemed as old as the hills, as if he’d been here, or there, before. At the same time, he could have charmed the socks off an Eskimo. He had one fervent wish at that time, to have a Harmonica. That wasn’t hard to take care of. 

In order to save as many sheep as they could, his Dad and whoever was available, (the day before, it happened to be me) would herd the sheep down about 2 miles to what was called a Brigelow scrub where they could at least get some foraging . The sheep were so weak if they fell down the rider would have to get off his/her horse and pick them up and set them on their poor bony legs again. However, the poor things would be back the next a.m in the upper pasture again weakly and pitifully calling for forage of substance and water. My heart sank. The wind had come up and the sand was blowing and stinging and penetrating everything. There was no top soil left, only stinging sand. Sand everywhere with almost gale force wind driving the sand into every nook and cranny.

Now this is where a 9 year old Lad named Peter, still fills a place in my heart. I saw him and his Dad come out all rugged up and young Peter had a bandanna tied around his face. He was the sidekick for the day. I expected any second for the wind to pick him up and toss him to one side. Somehow, they both got on their horses. Only Peter was riding “Flicka”. The know it all about herding sheep . The horses were having a time trying to maintain with the driving wind and sand.  And I could see what looked like hundreds of sheep lying on the ground too weak to get up. I knew there’d be a lot of getting on and off the horses to pick them up and get them started again.

I turned to my sister Betty and I could see she, also, had some misgivings about this . The Lad was awfully young and it was a matter of real concern. So we, Bet and I , turned to start the wash. We’d have to hang it up in the shearing shed and hope we could shake the sand out after it all dried. The day seemed endless. Our minds were on the two riders. And finally, coming on dark we heard the riders come in. What a pitiful sight Father and Son were. They were both exhausted. Their faces were sand blasted red, but it was the eyes that shocked me. They looked like burning coals in a stove. Betty hurried to get some water for them to try and rinse the sand out of their eyes. I’ll always remember Peter’s remark as he tried to get some relief for his burning eyes: "Mum, doesn’t it say in the Bible, 'if thine eyes offendeth thee, pluck them out?'" Bless his cotton sox.


So now you know why a 9 year  old lad left me with memories of the dearest kind.

Written with love.

Aunty Marjie Maureen

The stock market

Jeez, how bad is the stock market at the moment. I bought some Macquarie shares at $53 a couple of months ago. Today they're less than $30. Youch. Hope it turns around soon. I suspect we've got some pain to come. Will one of our banks be a casualty?