running low

The days when we all had brand new plasma screens funded by flogging off stuff dug up in Western Australia to China already seem long ago.

Now it seems we’re running low on a number of fronts.

Eastlink, the whiz-bang new freeway that opened a few months ago is already deeply in debt and fending off the creditors. Apparently it already owes 1.9 billion. Gosh. It’s only been open a few months.

I have my own theories about why this is so. There’s a pretty fundamental problem with the road that’s never been addressed, namely the start and finish. It starts up near my place at Ringwood and finished down somewhere in Frankston, from what I’m told. Now, I live in Ringwood (Ringwood East to be precise) but I’m not at all keen to pay money to drive there, and I’m certainly in no hurry to PAY to drive to Frankston.

As a guide, up until a few years ago, thousands of people used to pay upwards of $100 to run AWAY from Frankston. They called it the Melbourne Marathon, but I know better.

Now, if they had have extended the freeway a touch on either end, things would have been far more appealing:

“Fancy a trip to the Yarra Valley for lunch darling?”
“Sure, we can have lunch at a winery!”

Or:

“How do you feel about a trip down to Portsea darling?”
“Sounds divine! Let’s take that lovely new toll road. Spare no expense!”

See!

On a slightly different topic, we’re rapidly running out of water, so our friendly lords and masters in Spring Street are encouraging us all to use no more than 155 litres per person per day. That shouldn’t be too hard, as long as it doesn’t include beer.

Running
Something of a low run this morning too. It was only a VERY INSISTENT alarm clock that got me out of bed this morning. I ended up with 13.7km in an hour, but it didn’t feel good. It was one of those runs when you can’t wait for a traffic light to go to red so you can have a rest, or possibly a quick nap.

Oh well. I can take the smooth with the rough.

grumpy

I don’t have much in the way of light-hearted frivolity to impart today. I’m in something of a grump.

To give you something of an idea, I almost flew into a terrible rage in the queue for an ATM this lunch-time.

Right in front of me was an old-ish woman who took, I kid you not, FIVE WHOLE MINUTES to make a withdrawal. I assume she was making a withdrawal although she had enough time to plan out her whole investment and retirement strategy.

I need to take a chill-pill.

Running
11km this evening. A beautiful night, and the Mullum Mullum creek was looking quite golden-sunset-y. Nice. Not enough to make me happy, but s’okay.

liars crooks and hysterical fools

I try to avoid writing too much about the stockmarket, mainly due an almost pristine level of ignorance on my part, but also because it seems generally about as dull as dishwater.

The thing is, lately you can’t open a newspaper or turn on a TV without images of line graphs veering vertically up or down, depending on the day. So, I reluctantly feel I should point my increasingly blurry attention in the directions of things fiscal.

I’ve come to a couple of conclusions.

1. If you thought you were getting rich on the stockmarket a year ago: you weren’t
2. The whole thing is completely irrational
3. There are an awful lot or crooks out there, and they’re not crooked used care salesmen, they’re the biggest, most powerful people there are

Sorry, if that sounds a bit cynical, but can you blame me? Last week the stockmarket lost over 1 trillion bucks in a day. The following day it “rallied” and suddenly was worth $500 billion more. Eh? Where did that money come?

This week has been more of the same. Congress votes against a bail-out package – the bottom falls out of the floor and you can’t move for bankers jumping out 35th floor windows. The following day, someone makes a statement that sounds good – suddenly everything’s okay.

In the meantime, nothing’s happened. It’s just irrational. Hysterical.

And the crooks, I’ll say it quietly, they’re the banks. Consider this – yesterday the Reserve bank cut official interest rates by 1 percent. The banks decided they’d only cut their rates by 0.8 percent. Why the difference? Presumably they’re short of money. So, why is it today we see the Commonwealth is about to splash out $2 billion on Bankwest.

Not so short of money eh????? Crooks.

Running
I’ve actually managed 4 days in a row, almost unheard of this year. It feels good. I’m only now starting to feel fit. It was about 9km with AM at lunch-time.

money, money, money

I’ve never claimed to be a financial genius. Hell, I can barely manage a household budget. That being said, I think I could give Wall Street a few pointers at the moment.

If, as appears to have happened recently, someone has no job, no income and no assets, don’t give them a home loan.

If you see a bank is making those sorts of loans, don’t buy their shares or go into business with them.

If, as happened overnight, the share market loses 1.2 trillion dollars in one day, you have a problem. Particularly when no-one seems to know where it’s gone.

I don’t understand that. Today you have 1.2 trillion dollars. Tomorrow it’s gone. Where did it go? the back of an all-mighty couch? Did someone hack into the US credit card and buy 400 billion plasma screens to watch the grand final?

I have to come to the conclusion that it was all a big house of cards. All those financial geniuses telling me I should invest my money in stocks and bonds rather than running shoes were full of hot air.

Incidentally – if you were wondering, a trillion is 1,000,000,000,000 dollars. That’s a lot of money. If you had a trillion dollars and you spent 1 dollar a second, it would take you 31,600 years to spend it all. The US stock market spent it all in one day!

John Gray, from the Guardian says this is “a shattering moment in America’s fall from power“.

GOSH!
Running
12.75km this lunch-time. It cost me nothing.

money

As if the state of my bank balance wasn’t proof enough, I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that I don’t understand money.

Consider this:

A few weeks ago, the world’s financial markets were in disarray because a whole bunch of banks in America turned out to be giving out loans to any Tom, Dick or Harry with or without a job, assets or any means of support.

I believe they call it “sub-prime mortgages”. The mortgages were sub-prime in the same way Simone Warne’s marriage was ie. you can pretend it’s okay if you really want to, but anyone with any sense can see it’s not gonna last.

The inevitable results were:

• banks going broke,
• stocks heading into subterranean territory and
• stockbrokers leaping from 8th floor windows.

Today I hear, Shares have hit another high:

The Australian sharemarket is in unchartered [sic] territory, having risen to a record of 6490.7 points.

What’s changed? Why was the world coming to an end two weeks ago, and now we’re richer than ever before? I don’t understand.

How about this:

France is a perfectly good country in Europe. You may have heard of them: they make cheese, they’re rude to foreigners, host the Rugby world cup and have a little bike race in July. Anyway, it turns out the entire country is broke. This is from their Prime Minister!

So France is down at the World Bank begging for an overdraft while Myer, whose shops are going up in flames like so many overpriced Joan of Arcs, is raking in the profits.

How does that make sense, I ask you?