It is said that we are living 1 year more for every 5 years since 1900. Also recent and accelerating medical advances will provide us with an even longer and healthier old age.

That said, and despite an ‘unknowable’ future, it seem likely that we will need to work for many more years in the future, than we do today.

That brings us to the thought, just how long, would one realistically wish to live, given good health, and a reasonable life style?

It seems that jobs are disappearing at an increasing rate. Not only going offshore, (such as call centres, heavy manufacturing and much IT development), but also due to automation. Unfortunately, as we live longer, and as a consequence of that new ageing profile, we seek pension support for longer. To achieve this support, we need to be creating more jobs at the tax payers end, rather than losing them!

Unless in some miraculous ways, technology comes to the rescue, we are in for a crunch time with significantly declining living standards, somewhere later this century.

While ‘thought bubble’ tactics such as reducing business tax, or changing the retirement age, are routinely floated, then, try as I might, I can find no overall national strategy that stands scrutiny, and which will give me any confidence that we will overcome the steadily rising threats to our well being in the years ahead.

A national non-partisan ‘future economy’ planning commission or other,may be worth considering.

If we voted in concert, we ‘Greys’ could probably control the outcome at each and every political seat in Australia!

Most of us seem to vote left, right or other, by habit.. The best people in parliaments are, in the longer term, far more valuable to us, than any party vote catching, election time policies.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if we all decided  to vote on our local candidates qualities, and the range of real ‘issues’, rather than party lines!

Other than knee jerk reactions to pension issues, which can arouse us to think about our vote, it seems that any survey would show that we mostly creatures of habit!

What do you think? It’s time we had another survey, always fun to read the results, and this seems like an interesting topic.SURVEY NOW CLOSED. See results in Coffee Haus

A mid winter grumble!

I think I must have missed something along the way. You can now get a computer printer for $29, with half full ink cartridges, and then pay about $45 plus in due course for replacement cartridges. The plumber charges $2 for the tap washer and $100 for the call. You can get a cheap flight anywhere but beware the endless add ons. You can get a great cheap Hidef TV set, but the sound is so bad that they offer an external sound bar for $450 or more.

The ugly face of capitalism is alive and well it seems.

Have you had any similar experiences?

Ace Electric Vehicles have announced that they are branching out from solar farm production into being probably the first electric car manufacturer in Australia.

Their first vehicle, it seems, will be a YEWT as they call it!  It is planned to be available late this year, sell for under $40 000, and have a range of about 300k per charge.

We wish them well, and hope that the Federal Government supports such job and technology creation efforts, against future perhaps ‘dumped price’ imports, until our home grown efforts are self sustaining.

I am tired of the ‘big end of town’s’ bad behavior and, at times, grossly inflated salaries and perks. Now it’s the Banks turn to be exposed by Royal Commission. I have no doubt that a sorry story for the rest of us will unfold over the year ahead. The eventual punishments no doubt, will primarily be fines that simply come out of the Banks profits.

Maybe it’s time we had a true Federally owned ‘Bank Australis‘ to keep them honest? They have had their chance.

Please, no nonsense any more about their ‘spin’ in saying all of us sharing in bank profits via indirect super or personal shares or whatever.

As was quoted in George Orwell's Animal Farm, “Everyone is equal, just some are more equal than others”!

Perhaps too we should look at us having a genuine share of the pie, via a Federally owned ‘watch keepers stake’ in other major areas too, such as telecommunications, energy, and transport?

It seems to me that we are unduly swayed by the very few extremists in our country who find a cause, and and create a disproportionate amount of social noise seeking to have their view accepted by the rest of us and to act in their interests (right or wrong).

Maybe we could have a FedGov, continuously running on line questionaire/poll, on various ‘big’ issues, so those so many of us who have a considered and perhaps private opinion, can post and see where we all sit, and not think that if 2000 march loudly, or seek to swamp an event, that they represent the views of the population at large. What do you think?

It is hard to believe that it’s now 2018! Who thought we’d live to see it? It seemed so far away in 1990 or so. It’s a bit too late for New Year resolutions for our lot, so lets just make sure that, with our great good fortune to be living here in the Land of OZ, that we are as happy as we can be, and that we try and make as many others as we can, happy too.