Inventive minds on the NSW North Coast

Phillipa at Our Patch reports that:

Two innovative local companies, Axis Cranks of Lismore and Metal Science Technologies of Alstonville, have each received a $64,000 funding boost to launch their products into the commercial market.The grants have been awarded as part of the Federal Government’s $3.6 million Commercialising Emerging Technologies (COMET) grants, designed for Australian small businesses with great ideas that haven’t yet attracted investors........

The Federal Member for Page, Janelle Saffin, visited South Lismore’s Axis Cranks Factory today to congratulate managing director Mark Fisher (pictured) and his wife on being one of 57 small businesses nationwide to receive the grant.
Five years ago, Mark came up with the idea of developing a technological device for measuring force that can be applied to the pedals of a bicycle, giving riders crucial data to optimise performance and bike set-up. He had his company up and running three years later.........

The second local company to be awarded a COMET grant is Alstonville-based Metal Science Technologies, which has spent three years developing a mobile electropolishing machine for post-weld finishing of stainless steel.The machine recently was featured on ABC TV’s New Inventors program and won its particular episode.

Remember when?

Remember years gone by when you were often told that it was best to "neither a borrower or a lender be"?
How many heeded that warning?

Barack delivers up a mess of misdirection

These days I mostly ignore the endless flow of emails from Obama for America which turn up in my Inbox.
However this one sent after the Town Hall debate between Obama and McCain deserves a mention:

I thought the differences between John McCain and me were pretty clear tonight. I will fight for the middle class every day, and -- once again -- Senator McCain didn't mention the middle class a single time during the debate. [my emphasis]
If you agree that we need to cut taxes for 95% of working families, reduce health care costs, and end the war in Iraq responsibly, then I need your help right now.
And if you heard John McCain push more of the same discredited policies, including tax cuts for the wealthy and giant corporations, tax increases on health care, and continuing to spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, then now is the time to act.
Four weeks from tonight, we'll know which of us will be the next president.
The time to make a difference in this election is running out -- please make a donation of $5 or more right now.
https://donate.barackobama.com/townhall
Thank you,
Barack

Sounds good doesn't it? A heartless McCain ignoring the plight of the American middle class.
Problem is McCain did mention retirees, home owners, workers, small business, taxpayers - all components of the broadly inclusive American definition of middle class.
For heaven's sake Senator Obama, if you are going to attack (as is your right) at least make it believable and stop treating the voter like a prize idiot.
Didn't Harvard teach you anything?

Polling:

• DEMOCRAT Barack Obama has soared 11 points ahead of Republican rival John McCain, taking a double-digit lead in a Newsweek poll amid deep concerns about the economy.
  Senator Obama leads by 52 per cent to 41 per cent among registered voters, compared with a Newsweek survey carried out a month ago - before the economic crisis began to bite - in which the two candidates were tied at 46 per cent.
  The magazine reported 86 per cent of the 1212 voters polled said they are dissatisfied with how things were going in the United States. The economy was the biggest concern with 48 per cent. When asked which candidate would better handle a number of issues, Senator Obama topped every category except national security and terrorism. [The Canberra Times,12 October 2008]


• Public interest in news about the presidential campaign reached a new high last week, though the national news was dominated by coverage of the faltering economy. Fully 57% of the public followed news about the election very closely and another 31% followed developments fairly closely. [Pew Research Center,9 October 2008]

Click to enlarge

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and carbon credits as property

The Essential Role of Law in Facilitating an Effective Carbon Trading Scheme

Author: Nicola Durrant

Date: 01 October 2008

There appears to be a broad consensus that an emissions trading scheme is the best political response to climate change. But as Nicola Durrant points out, in this article, there is still much work to be done in establishing the legal foundations of such a scheme. Without such foundations, she argues, carbon trading will simply not work.

The innovative legal instrument of the tradeable emissions scheme, within a capped carbon trading system, promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and minimise the impacts of climate change in a swift and cost-effectively manner. The allure of this cost-effective approach to solving a global environmental problem led to the adoption of market mechanisms to assist in the reduction of global emissions under the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and, subsequently, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. This, in turn, acted as a catalyst for the Australian government's decision to rely almost entirely on the implementation of a carbon market to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions through the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (the CPR Scheme).

However, the effectiveness of the proposed Australian trading scheme could be seriously undermined by the absence of adequate legal reform to ensure the optimal operation of the future carbon market. In order for the carbon market to achieve its core objective, and facilitate cost-effective emissions reductions, it is critical that the trading scheme is supported by an appropriate legal framework.

Such a framework must be designed to enable the effective implementation, administration and enforcement of a legally enforceable regime to reduce emissions. That legal framework must include, first and foremost, the adoption of an appropriate emissions reduction trajectory and associated targets for Australia and the imposition of a regulatory restriction on the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The scheme must establish clear, transparent and consistent legal rules for participation in the carbon market, with minimal restrictions on trade, and an open flow of information to the market. There must also be rigorous monitoring and reporting procedures to enable instances of non-compliance to be identified and addressed through the imposition of both stringent penalties and provisions requiring liable entities to 'make good' on any shortfall in retired permits.

Full article at The Brisbane Line magazine.

Single, living alone, no assets, on a full pension and in community housing? Rudd and Rees want to starve you out

It is rather difficult to find Housing Commission accommodation in regional New South Wales these days. I'm told that most subsidised housing in recent years has come online under community housing management so that state government can save a bit on the cost of regional bureaucracy.

I've had a few phone calls in the last couple of days about this community housing.
With pensions and other income assistance not really keeping up with the cost of living and little hope that Kevin Rudd's increased pension 'promise' will come to fruition as anything more than a token, it was a shock for many Northern Rivers community housing tenants already living in straightened circumstances to recently receive a version of the item below.

Community housing rents changed

The government rent policy determining how community housing rents are set has changed.

Community housing rents for new tenants have risen from July 1.

Most of this increase will be offset by an increase in the tenant’s entitlement to Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA).

Existing tenants’ rents will increase following their next scheduled rent review.

The new rents will be calculated based on a combination of 25% of ‘assessable’ household income, 15% of Family Tax Benefit, and 100% of Commonwealth Rent Assistance Entitlements (as long as the new rent is not more than market rent).

The new rent will mean a net increase in housing costs (after taking the increase in CRA into account) for most current tenants.

This will be phased in over a number of years.

While the Federation welcomes the general approach to ensure stronger income streams which will allow associations to provide more housing opportunities for future tenants, we have expressed strong concerns to government about the impact on current tenants.

As far as I can tell, an average single pensioner living alone in community housing will be losing around $31 to $33 dollars minimum a fortnight due to this change in policy.
In practice this would mean at least an extra $23 to $25 dollars less on pension day as community housing already takes 25% of any Commonwealth rent assistance.
Even if the community housing company agrees to stagger this money grab to $20 per fortnight in the first year, this is twenty dollars more than most single pensioners (or for that matter the single unemployed without family) can afford.

NSW Premier Rees and Prime Minister Rudd should be ashamed of themselves - they have quite literally endorsed taking food out of the mouths of the elderly, widowed, disabled and carers.

It's a low dingo act, from two pollies who have forgotten what the Labor Party once stood for.

Both these men had better hope that their next respective election dates do not fall in the second week of the pension payment cycle - voters with empty bellies tend to feel a mite uncharitable when faced with a ballot paper stuffed with well-fed candidates.

Oh, and by the way Rudders, don't think that single pensioners in community housing haven't noticed that you are willing to back Aussie investors, as well as home-grown and foreign banks to the tune of around $600-708 billion while you've agreed to help Rees snatch the food out of the mouths of many of those who wouldn't have more than a dollar in the bank as 'savings'.

Rudd & Rees family pic came from Google Images

Update:

Link to list of Australian and foreign banks/financial institutions whose deposits and certain debts the Rudd Government has pledged to guarantee here.

Best quotes found in the mad, mad week that was

Because news doesn't wait for dead trees.
Bartholomeusz quoted on the Business Spectator online banner 7 October 2008

In wartime, truth is so precious she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Attributed to Winston Churchill, whose dead words are still applied daily in the political and business spheres

All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties.
William Hewlett in Quoteopia

Fortunately executives of ‘rescued’ outfits realise how important it is for them to reassure the rest of us by showing us that life goes on and we should continue to lead it (as best we can in our newly straightened circumstances) as usual.

Nicholas Gruen writing in Club Troppo, about the fact that a week after government 'bailed-out' failed insurance giant AIG its executives splurged on seven days of $440,000 worth of sybaritic pleasure.

The Budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Bruce Whitney quoting Cicero in The Daily Examiner letters to the editor column 9 October 2008, thereby reminding us that the more things change......

"I know Mr Turnbull thinks that the whole world revolves around his ego," Swan said before jetting off to the IMF meeting in the United States. "But there are some events in the world which are much bigger than Mr Turnbull’s ego."
Well, that’s not literally true about the Zaphod Beeblebrox of Australian politics, but it’s a good line.

Bernard Keene writing in Crikey about the Leader of the Opposition's boast that he personally has the Australian banks on the run.

But the IMF doesn't have a network of purpose-built Australian spies to feed its impressions of the Australian economy. Its World Economic Outlook report is written using information obtained from member state economies themselves; from the Commonwealth Treasury, in our case.
So in effect, when Kevin Rudd quotes from the IMF, he is quoting himself; at the very least, he is quoting Wayne Swan.

Anabelle Crabb writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday takes a jaundiced view of the Prime Minister's assurances concerning the stability of Australia's economy and financial institutions.

NSW North Coast artist

Arthouse Australia is now showing the Men's Business exhibition, featuring the art of Curtis Edwards and Anthony Nugent.

Here are three of Anthony's pieces:

Riverbend Knee [oil on linen]

Golden Left [oil on linen]

The Three Sisters - Mt Chincogan V [oil on canvas]