ENGL

Buying all major stuff online

by with No Comment MusicPersonal

We are getting screwed by retailers in Australia. Australia is a country full of duopolies and monopolies. I was recently sent this video which discusses our two largest retailers.

Due to the high cost of the AU dollar and the reasons above nowadays there are a large number of items that if you don’t buy them online your are being irresponsible with your money.  I have been able to save 50% on the shop price on these two items.

Item 1

ENGL Valve Amp (nice!)  60%  $1300   saving including shipping from Germany


bought from Thomman

Item 2
Protien Powder 50% $100 saving

bought from https://www.completehealth.com.au

myspace

RIP Myspace

by with No Comment Music

As readers to this blog may know I am in a band called Jimmy Yukka & His Amazing Band. As part of being in an active band anytime from 2003 you were obliged to get your band on myspace.

In that band I wrote a song about it (below).

I wrote that song a couple of years ago. Myspace now has an all new look that format.  Maybe the new format is quicker to load and has some really neat features and maybe it doesn’t crash all the time.

I’m never gonna know though because I won’t be trying the new myspace. Die myspace
….Die……Die…….Die

china-reserve-bank-inflation

Bank Reserve Requirements 2011

by with No Comment Economics

china-reserve-bank-inflationI went to my bank to get some money to by my new car the other day. I needed $4000. They told me that officially I needed to give 24 hours notice for cash withdrawl over $2,000 however they had enough today so they could give me my $4000. Now my bank is probably a bit smaller than ANZ but I found this quite startling. It got me wondering about how much money banks have in reserve.

A note about Reserve banking . Banks don't need $100
dollars to lend you $100.The US has a requirement that
the banks have to at least own equity worth 10% of the
total loans outstanding. So if Citibank only actually 
owned $10 then the sum of all the loans they could
make could not exceed $100.

So I did a little investigation and what I found (with a quick look on wikipedia) concearned me somewhat. I knew that the US had a 10% requirement I didn’t know though that the UK and Australia does not require any reserve requirement whatsoever. So they can make money loaning money they don’t have. I wish I could do that.

Country?
 
Required reserve (in %)?
 
Note?
 
Australia
 
None
 
Statutory Reserve Deposits abolished in 1988,
replaced with 1% Non-callable Deposits[5]
 
Canada
 
None
 
 
 
Mexico
 
None
 
 
 
New Zealand
 
None
 
1999 [2]
 
Sweden
 
None
 
 
 
United Kingdom
 
None
 
 
 
Czech Republic
 
2.00
 
Since 7 October 2009
 
Eurozone
 
2.00
 
Since 1999[6]
 
South Africa
 
2.50
 
 
 
Switzerland
 
2.50
 
 
 
Poland
 
3.00
 
 
 
Chile
 
4.50
 
 
 
India
 
6.00
 
as per RBI.
 
Bangladesh
 
5.50
 
Raised from 5.00. Effective from 15 May 2010
 
Lithuania
 
6.00
 
 
 
Pakistan
 
5.00
 
Since 1 November 2008
 
Taiwan
 
7.00
 
[7]
 
Latvia
 
8.00
 
 
 
Jordan
 
8.00
 
 
 
Malawi
 
15.00
 
 
 
Zambia
 
8.00
 
 
 
Burundi
 
8.50
 
 
 
Hungary
 
2.0
 
 
 
Ghana
 
9.00
 
 
 
United States
 
10.00
Wikileaks

Wikileaks and Julian Assange

by with No Comment Behind the News

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen that has recieved many awards for journalism and peace (see the full list in wikipedia) just this month he won a peace medal from the Sydney Peace Foundation and he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize see reuters article here

On Friday I watch the video below

High tech terrorist
In an article in the The Huffington Post Vice President Jo Biden was reported as calling Julian Assange a high tech terrorist. The Uk’s Daily Mail quotes potential US presidential candidate Sarah Palin as demmanding that Julian Assange is hunted down like Osama Bin Ladin.

The court case
Julian Assange is fighting a court case that could see him be extradited to Sweden (and then the fear is extradited to the US on some terrorism charge). He is only required for questioning. This is very unusual for an individual in the EU to be extradited just for questioning on a crime – especially unusual where no charges have been laid. The case has been widely missreported in the media but is actually about is him having fully consensual sex with two woman on different occasions whilst not wearing a condom (this is against the law in Sweden) . The case was started after one of the women went to the doctors to be tested for STD where she explained she had consensual unprotected sex with Julian after which the police started proceeding against Julian. The offense is of “minor rape” where the accused can be found guitly of rape even of the the person raped consents (?). This does not have an equivilent in the UK or Australia, an article explaining this was published in The Australian newspaper.

To hear two feminists on the radio station Democracy Now debating the charge and whether a charge of consenting rape is approprate click here.

The US strategy to contain Wikileaks
In an ironic twist of fate the US strategy to contain wikileaks was leaked to wikileaks. Democracy Now recorded an interview about 12 months ago with Julian Assange where he discussed this leak (unfortunaltly I cant find the episode please add a comment to this article if you can find it) . The key components of the strategy were

  • Link the organization to one person specifically
  • Assassinate the persons character
  • Lay down the importance of the leaks
  • Attack its source of funding for the organisation

Any of that sound familiar?

About the video screening on Friday
The video at the top was screened in the Federation square in the centre of Melbourne buy the Australian journalists Union ACTU during the presentation a number of Australian journalists praised Julian Assange for his work. After that at the Melbourne State Library a guy called “Robert Foster” from the juice media made an impromptu performance on the steps. After a bit of digging I found this video

EXTERNAL SOURCES

floods

Floods in Castlemaine

by with No Comment DisastersPersonal

Australia has been devastated this last few months. The flooding has been on a massive scale affecting most of the east side of the country in one way or another. QLD has been most badly affected but NSW and VIC have also taken a pounding close to home Castlemaine has been affected. We spent last Sunday preserving fruits to donate to the guys that had their homes flooded in Castlemaine. Part of the growing ambundance project. Below is a video showing the the water. It is incredible after all the drought all the resiviors around castlemaine are now full. However the flooding has caused significant flooding and personal disasters.

ml_king

Little heard speeches of Martin Luther King

by with No Comment Behind the News

I have been listening to a podcast episode on Democracy Now where they played two speeches from Martin Luther King.

Nearly 48 years ago Martin Luther King (wikpedia page) delivered his optimistic and hopeful “I have a dream speech“. I’ve heard part of that speech before but never any others. The podcast played two other remarkable speeches from Martin Luther King. The speech “Beyond Vietnam” is still very relavant today. The second “I have been to the mountain top” is from a man who know his time on this earth is limited.

“Beyond Vietnam”

Exactly 1 year prior to his assasination he made a speech “Beyond Vietnam”
calling the U.S. government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. He also spoke about international aid “true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar….it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring”. It was slammed in the media and Time Magazine called the speech “Demagogic Slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi” and time The Washington Post declared that King had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”

“I Have Been to the Mountain Top”

In April 3, 1968 he made a speech called “I Have Been to the Mountain Top”. Towards the end of the speech he talks about the time he was stabbed and almost died. In hospital he received many letters of support and out of all the messages he received there was one that he’ll never forget. The excerpt below is from the end of that speech starting with that letter. In the speech he seems to foresee his own early death.
The next day he was shot dead.
Continue Reading

coins-225x300

Banks need no money to lend you money

by with No Comment Behind the NewsDisastersEconomics

I went to my bank to get some money to by my new car the other day. I needed $4000. They told me that officially I needed to give 24 hours notice for cash withdrawl over $2,000 however they had enough today so they could give me my $4000. Now my bank is probably a bit smaller than ANZ but I found this quite startling. It got me wondering about how much money banks have in reserve.

A note about Reserve banking . Banks don't need $100
dollars to lend you $100.The US has a requirement that
the banks have to at least own equity worth 10% of the
total loans outstanding. So if Citibank only actually
owned $10 then the sum of all the loans they could
make could not exceed $100.

So I did a little investigation and what I found (with a quick look on wikipedia) concearned me somewhat. I knew that the US had a 10% requirement I didn’t know though that the UK and Australia does not require any reserve requirement whatsoever. So they can make money loaning money they don’t have. I wish I could do that. A tabe showing the reserve requirements by country can be found here wikipedia.

castlemaine06-254x300

Castlemaine Goldrush

by with No Comment entrepreneurshipPersonal

Background

Established during the gold rush of 1851
The Home of the Castlemaine XXXX beer

Hot Rod centre of Australia

Robert O’Hara Burke – leader of the Burke and Wills expedition, was stationed in Castlemaine as police superintendent from 1858 to 1859.

Frank McEncroe – creator of the Chiko Roll which is a sausage in batter on a stick

Climate

600 mm of rain a year (approx) which is similar to that of Cambridge (where I grew up) but less than Sheffield (1000mm per year). It is much warmer and sunnier than both though.

Videos about Castlemaine and the surrounding area

The easy gold is long gone but there is still goldmining going on in Maldon 12km away from castlemaine at the Maldon gold project

below is a video from a guy who has been doing a bit of gold mining on his property

Some brit has saved me the trouble of videoing the Castlemeain and Maldon

THeres also the Maldon Folk festival

Just down the Road is Newstead below is a video of race they had there in 2006 on lawn mowers