This article was originally published as 'Feelings' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 15/6/2013.
CIPL's chairman is an expert regarding the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and my association with him has led to a heightened interest in aspects of psychological type. While Extroversion and Introversion are traits commonly discussed, it’s Thinking vs. Feeling that I want to explore here.
This article was originally published as 'No Economics' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 21 March 2013. Image taken from http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-education-books-economics-image6746579
Some months ago I learned that RGS was abandoning its senior economics offering, making (I understand) our region totally devoid of the discipline at high-school level. As a trained economist, such news is incredibly disappointing.
This article was originally published as 'De-amalgamation' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 21 February 2013. Image taken from http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/news/debate-may-determine-future-deamalgamation/1775058/
The region is still shackled by small minded politics and bureaucracy. I was chastised for bringing to public light endemic problems with RRDL, generally related to conflicted and unsustainable reliance on Council funding. The end result - no chamber, no RRDL, no mayor and no change. Behind the scenes, the same people with the same outdated and ill-informed ideas prevent the region's growth
This article was originally published as 'Livermore' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 1 December 2012.
Many will be elated at Kirsten Livermore’s decision to step down at the next election, but I’m not one of them.
This article was originally published as 'Fast Train' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 8 September 2012.
Many claim that the rail track between Rockhampton and Gladstone is at capacity. It is not - QR National’s own data shows that, and with most infrastructure already in place, the service could probably be run with a modest subsidy.
This article was originally published as 'Wacademia' in The Morning Bulletin in July 2012
Flinders prided itself on was an interdisciplinary approach to learning streams. As part of my economics degree I studied statistics, demographics, politics, history and even had the opportunity to enrol in “death dying and bereavement” and other subjects in the medical school. More experienced, it’s almost uncomfortable to realise that I only now understand what they gave me back then.
This article was originally published as 'Rundown on CIPL' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 21 July 2012.
Of the $150 million or so our business looks after, about $90 million originates from Central Queensland. That’s a lot of money, but think about it this way – that’s only money entrusted to our firm - one of probably 30 financial services firms in the area.
This article was originally published as 'Borghetti' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 14 July 2012.
The frequency to Brisbane is excellent. The revamped cabins, and crew-wear are classy and the staff are on the look-out to make the time in the air memorable - for me it's about using that quiet time well. New planes, and routes are in the offing.
This article was originally published as 'The Grand' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 16 June 2012.
Passers-by will notice that the Grand Hotel and the house next to it has been demolished, with only Legacy house still standing. The combined land parcel comprises more than 1,700 square metres of prime commercial land, snugly situated between City Centre Plaza, The Edge and the new Empire apartment hotel (to be started in January).
This article was originally published as 'Assessment of Value' in The Morning Bulletinon 21 April 2012.
It strikes me as odd that people will happily fork out $38 for a carton of beer every week, but will balk at spending the same amount on upgrading their car. Or they will happily buy a can of coke each week, but persevere with a clapped out washing machine.
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leader under the heading, 'Check your face' on the 31st of March 2012.
Financial advisers don’t follow a ‘face code’ (I hope!) – exclusivity should not be a barrier to receiving financial advice. Some advisers may charge more than others, but you shouldn’t be discriminated against based on the balance of your bank account. This is related to a question I am often asked: how much money do you need to have before you see a financial adviser? Many people think that there’s no use getting financial advice unless they have a spare couple hundred thousand dollars lying around. The truth is that you don’t need to have money to justify seeking out financial advice; you just need to be interested in making the most of your financial situation.
This article was originally published as 'Port' in http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/ on 24 March 2012.Image borrowed from http://www.queensland-australia.com/gladstone-image-tour.html
If the benefits to the region from mining and LNG construction start to wane, what will drive growth? It won’t be tourism, education or exports, the high $A will see to that, and retail will be hit as the high income tradies and operators drift away. How will you feel when your house price drops by 30 per cent, and your kids can’t find jobs.
This article was originally published as 'Productivity' in The Morning Bulletinon 03 March 2012.
Economists have not been good at explaining productivity, and consequently most people think it involves closing factories and cutting heads. That can happen, but more powerful sources of productivity improvements do exist. While employing better machinery and other equipment is obvious, it is the legion of small things that interests me most.
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leader under the heading, 'The Music Did It' on the 03rd of March 2012.
It’s remarkable how sights, sounds and smells can jog our memories, instantly reminding us of places or events long past. Music in particular is very effective at transporting you back to a certain time or place. When I hear Ennio Morricone’s classic theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, it immediately takes me back to the late 70’s, sitting on the shagpile rug on the lounge floor while my parents listened to the soundtrack on their vinyl record player, eating Swedish meatballs and a cheese fondue. On the other hand, a power love ballad from Whitney Houston reminds me of teenage parties where we hung out with our acid wash jeans, leather jackets and big hair, furtively sneaking sips from a can of beer we’d stolen from Dad’s fridge.
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leader under the heading, 'The Toilet Tip' on the 18th of February 2012.
People often lump gambling and the stock market together, believing that the risks or chances of success in both are of equal magnitude. In fact researchers have found that there is a difference: gambling in casinos or on pokies means you will only ever lose in the long run, due to the nature of the odds against you. The stock market however, is more like the racetrack, where the more informed investor (or punter) can succeed at the expense of less well informed players. The message is that successful investing, like picking winners at the track, means talking to somebody who knows what they’re doing. It’s just that good investment advisers are hopefully easier to find than hanging around the toilets at the racetrack.
This article was first published in The Northern Daily Leader under the title 'Shopping is not a movie' on 04 February 2012.
It struck me then that choosing a movie was not unlike investing in the stock market – I had a choice between very different alternatives, just as you do when you select any investment. One of the choices, The Hangover, was clearly high-risk (my wife was not going to be happy when I showed her my selection) but also high-reward (I was going to be much happier watching it than the movie about shopping). Sex in the City however, was the complete opposite – low-risk (my wife was going to be thrilled with my choice) but also low-reward (I would have to try and keep awake for two hours watching Carrie and her friends go shopping and talk about their feelings).
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leader under the heading, 'The Robot Says Stop' published on 10 December 2011.
I was thinking about the different names for traffic lights as I was stuck on red at Tamworth’s newest set of traffic lights (at the intersection of Bridge Street and Belmore Street). As I waited for green, I wondered why we had swapped a perfectly good roundabout for a set of traffic lights.
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leader under the heading, 'Who's this Jason guy'?
Given my regular message that most investing behaviour is driven by our cognitive and emotional states, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that the same failure to act sooner rather than later is also prevalent in how we manage our investments. Researchers have given it the fancy name of the ‘disposition effect’, but really all it means is that when it comes to share investing we tend to hold on to our losers and sell our winners. It’s not so much the selling of the winners which is a problem (as they say, nobody ever went broke taking a profit), it’s holding on to dud investments for far too long, when they should have been sold immediately when things started to go downhill.
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leader under the heading, 'Hi Mum I've won the lottery' on the 15th of October 2011.
Unfortunately, your real chances of winning the lottery are slim – winning Powerball is a 1 in 55 million long shot. However your odds of having to deal with a windfall of a different sort are quite high – every one of us has money in superannuation and many of us will need to decide what to do with our lifetime savings when we retire. While not quite on the same scale as a lottery win, you may still be required to decide what to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leader under the heading, 'Jumping off a cliff can hurt' on the 1st of October 2011.
The wild gyrations we’ve been seeing on global stock markets are largely because there is no certainty that Germany and France will make the right decision, or even if saving Greece is the right decision. With any luck the outcome is more positive than when I paid my US$90 to experience the ‘death drop’ a little over a decade ago. On that occasion I blacked out on the way down and nearly threw my back out – here’s hoping Greece avoids the same fate.
This article was originally published as ‘Theories’ in The Morning Bulletin in September 2011.
The Chinese do know what they are doing. Once fragmented, four or five companies now control much of the commodity market, making prices much less volatile. High prices are not evoking the supply response of times past, and therefore prices are remaining “stronger for longer”. Such an outcome is consistent with microeconomic theory - big consumers will want to bypass the problem by owning the resources directly. Not keen on economics? Watch the movie “Dune”.
This article was first published inThe Northern Daily Leaderunder the heading, don't just do something, sit there.
Unsurprisingly, these are the sort of questions that scientists love to answer, and a 2007 study by a group of Israeli researchers found that when facing a penalty kick, goalkeepers have an ‘action bias’ – which means that they tend to dive left or right more frequently than was useful. The study showed that goalkeepers went left or the right 94% of the time – meaning they stay in the middle for only 6% of the kicks they faced. However, the penalty shot went straight at the middle of the goal 29% of the time, so it turns out that goalkeepers could increase their chances of saving the penalty kick simply by doing nothing.
This article was first published in The Northern Daily Leader under the title 'Take That' on 06 August 2011.
Psychologists found that most of us suffer from ‘confirmation bias’, which means that we tend to favour information that confirms our views, regardless of whether the information is true or not. Another discovery is the ‘house-money’ effect, which found that people tend to gamble more recklessly with money from a windfall (such as a profitable investment or a winning scratchie). It’s no surprise why casinos are happy to give you free chips when you join their loyalty club.
This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin under the heading Electricity dated 16 July 2011.
Electricity is the ultimate perishable good - It has to be used as it is produced. Coal fired power stations are at their most efficient when producing constant amounts for long periods of time. This is at odds with demand patterns, which fluctuate throughout the day, and in particular, with the weather. Industry says that power stations have to be built to meet peak demand, but coal fired power stations frequently lose money selling electricity in the off-peak, when demand is low. When demand is very high, wafer thin links between the states mean generators can’t even buy in from elsewhere, and in any event the wastage from transmission is high. Further, much distribution infrastructure is not set up to handle the two-way electricity flows necessary for a smart grid.
This article was first published in The Northern Daily Leader under the title 'Bubbles in Paris' on 09 July 2011.
Too often we see ordinary Australians being duped by the modern-day equivalent of John Law and his exciting yet ultimately worthless investment opportunity. So whenever a ‘John Law’ comes your way, be a sceptic first and a believer second. The Mississippi Company wasn’t the first speculative bubble to collapse, and it certainly won’t be the last.
This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin Titled (The Show) dated 11 June 2011.
The show has moved with the times, but not so our region. These initiatives were all driven by individuals who want to achieve something. None relied on Government, and consequently avoided the squabbling and do-nothing mentality that we are saddled with. After more than 10 years back here, the problem is clear. There is simply too much politics – bring back Brophy.
This article was first publihed in The Morning Bulletin dated 21st May 2011. Federal Budget Undoes Our Buffer Against GST
Is the recent Commonwealth budget boring? Perhaps, but it is important because of what it has failed to do. It is an embarrassment to the party that through Whitlam, dragged Australia kicking and screaming into the 20th Century, and into a liberal financial mainstream through Hawke and Keating. In fact, it seems to sow the seeds of undoing much of the great work that has led to Australia’s ability to withstand the GFC, and the nation’s current prosperity.
This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin under the heading Income Returns dated 18 September 2010.
The future growth in our region is not in mining or in oil and gas per se, but in servicing and making investments in those growth industries. This is Rockhampton’s history. There are many reasons to choose Central Queensland as home, but unless the thinking changes, notwithstanding the resources boom, our communities will fall further and further behind. In a fly-in, fly-out environment, much better commuter transport links between employee residences and the “coal face” are key to Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast becoming a viable alternative to Brisbane for mining workers.
This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin under the heading Whats Next dated 21 August 2010.
Australia performed better than the rest of the world through the GFC. The European crisis never got to crisis point. Our local economy seems soft, although car dealers tell me that business is actually quite good. CQ’s economy appears to be very interest rate sensitive, and the rural sector is finding life difficult as banks run tighter lending criteria and restrict access to working capital for seed and restocking. Looking forward, interest rates are unlikely to increase at a rapid rate.
This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin under the heading Cold Comfort on 17 July 2010.
CQ’s future lies in dispensing with wrongheaded ideas and embracing a positive social attitude. Let’s recognise that we are a service town, and regain excellence in that. I say those holding us back have had their turn. Once on our way and not before, we can launch a new slogan – “CQ. It’s Hot!”
This article was first publihed in The Morning Bulletin dated 15th May 2010. The New Town.
The suggestion of a “new town” to accommodate the influx of people that some expect from the mining and gas boom smacks of being dreamt up by people who don’t know the history of urban development in contemporary Australia. Once home to Queensland’s second largest city, our region’s struggle to keep up, is perhaps more a matter of culture than ability. Some civic leaders expound the region’s natural position with respect to the resources boom, but most development of new mines is much nearer Mackay.
This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin under the heading Sucession Planning LN Input on 07 April 2010.
Involuntary incapacitation can be dealt with through a specially prepared life insurance plan so that the business can continue to run, or to purchase shares from the owners if the business must close. But what of pre-determined retirement? A business with free cash flow will probably have value - the trick lies in structuring it properly.
This article was first published in [The Morning Bulletin] dated 7 November 2009.
Over the last 30 years, policy changes including superannuation, the deregulation of banking, labour force changes and the floating of the $A, have exposed all of us to markets. Government policy needs to be adjusted so that everyone picks up some proper economics, finance and accounting at school. School leavers who want to make a difference should get into it boots and all.
This article was first published in The Morning Bulletin under the heading 'Valuations' on the 23 of September 2009.
The point is that the overuse of “return on equity” as a performance yardstick, and the slavish belief that markets at all times value things appropriately, caused overuse of debt and declining asset values, at a time when the economy could least withstand it.
This Article was published in The Morning Bulletin on Saturday 6th June 2009.
Persistent increases in the price of goods and services result in higher interest rates, reduced purchasing power and increased costs for business. Tax bracket creep benefits the Government, but everyone else misses out. How can we avoid a spike in inflation?
This article was originally published in The Morning Bulletin as an article on the 16th of May 2009.
Self sufficiency means having a plan for retirement, and not having to unduly rely on others. Like ants building a colony, we all have to interact to make things happen. But beyond that is a requirement to fulfill our own destiny. Setting up your financial and business affairs in such a way that your ability for self-direction, your negotiating power and your freedom is increased has to be liberating. The absence of these things is probably at the heart of many simmering family problems common on the land.
This article was published in Capricorn Investment Partners Limited's March 2009 Newsletter
The government brings out the chequebook as growth slows. This response may very well be described as the single largest fiscal policy stimulus in Australian history.
This article was originally published in The Morning Bulletin as "Dogma debates show the better times returning" on 7th February 2009.
How does a bank work? Say a bank attracts a $1.00 deposit. It might keep $0.10 in reserve and lend out the other $0.90. That $0.90 goes round in the economy and is eventually re-deposited in the banking system. Of that $0.90 the banks keep $0.09 in reserve, and lend out $0.81. If nothing adverse happens, this goes on and on until there is no more to lend.
This article was originally published as 'Interest rates cuts more certain as Australian growth slows. Brighter times ahead' in The Capricorn Coast Mirroron 7th May, 2008. Image sourced from http://www.flickr.com/search/?l=4&w=all&q=Sunshine+australia&m=text.
Slowing growth suggests an easing in the interest rate cycle and we expect that the RBA is likely to start lowering interest rates early in 2009.
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