Great info

During the Great Depression the mattress industry was hit hard.

Fireworks 2

By 1962 the Municipal Association of Victoria was calling for stricter enforcement of the Police Offences Act 1958 in relation to the use of fireworks in public places, and in 1963 new regulations were gazetted by the State Government, limiting the size and power of fireworks. A decade later the Public Health Commission recommended a total ban on small fireworks, and while exploding fireworks such as bungers and crackers were banned in 1974, it was not until 1982 that all shop-goods (as opposed to display or novelty) fireworks were banned, as a result of pressure from the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists and the Australian and New Zealand Burns Association.

Fireworks

Reflecting back on things, I think the monolithic blood sucking nanny state started in 1970 something, with the banning of fireworks.

This flash of genius by some evil cunt set the agenda that led Australia into the sterile cul-de-sac that we now fund ourselves in.

At the time, if we had just collectively stood up and said “fuck off, we like fireworks”, things might have turned out very differently.

But they pulled the tearjerker; “every year some kid gets blinded” and we bought it.

Fucking idiots!

There was nothing better than bungers. Variably we blew up post boxes, outdoor dunnies and cats. Oh, glorious days…

Kath

Met another one; a distressed ex-spouse that has been left. As usual the demon leaving party has an undiagnosed psychological issue (in this case Narcissism), is a bloke, and (on paper, at least for a little while) had most of the privileges that society can offer.

Why is he a nutter? The story-teller is unwilling to face the fact that:

(a) He didn’t like being with her, but

(b) Had so much empathy that he couldn’t face telling her this, so

(c) Left via the back door, forever blackening his name in the view of her confidants.

Better still, the confidants, being weak minded as they usually are, extrapolate this data point to the whole humanity, or at least half of it. It’s the same sort of heuristic that leads to racism.

Not one of them questioned the story as told (e.g. what did she do, or what did she not do to make the marriage a happy blissful place, even tolerable?). They don’t have the capability to critique, an art form that is being lost.

Basic rule of thumb; distrust a story where the teller is the victim. Or at the very least, use your imagination to see how the stated facts could fit an alternative ethical construct.

Sequence of events

The stock price of companies used to be underpinned by their ‘inherent value’ but that has changed for a number of reasons:

1. Complex financial systems has enabled people to make money off all forms of derivatives, many of which are not tied to actual company value. Otherwise known as gambling.
2. All that global productivity has ironically lead to an excess of capital available for gamblers

Put these two factors together and you have a formula for chaos in the markets. God help those poor CEO’s who just want to strategize, plan and report their good efforts. No one seem to cares.

Who cares about dividends when one gamblers gain is another’s loss. Of course all these gamblers think they have a special angle, tools that give them a % edge of the rest.

Query is whether the average return of all players is negative or positive? It depends on the cost of money, which is pretty cheap the the moment since the US has discovered it can make as much money as it likes, without destroying its economy. Surely a short term proposition that!