I absolutely love the petite second hand with no date, this is my winter watch as I wear a long sleeved shirt to work. The Petite Seconde fits well under my sleeve, the only issue is it spends most of the day under my shirt, I also wear a jacket as it is winter so my Petite Seconde is under two sleeves during the winter months.

The dial is minimalist, the heritage Tissot logo is the only text on the dial, the fine leaf hands add some elegance to the dial. The sub-dial at the lower section ensures a symmetric dial, I am typically dismissive of too much text on a dial, this is perfect. The largish printed Arabic numerals work well, the numerals do not cut through the seconds sub-dial, I have never liked that look. The fine vertical brushing on the dial that has a slightly tanned colour.

I am a big fan of the hand-wound movement, the Calibre ETA 6498-1 is a pretty movement to view from the exhibition caseback, the movement is from a pocket watch and fills the case. The movement is decorated with Côtes de Genève finishing and blued screws, this micro-scratch style machining removes the base machining marks during the manufacturing process and provides an aesthetic finish viewed without hindrance of a winding rotor.

The superannuation industry is undergoing change, the Royal Commission into banking is accelerating that process along with the uptake of people fed up with high fees and low returns starting personal Self Managed Superannuation Funds (SMSF).

Whilst I do have a SMSF and a state government superannuation fund, this was because when I began employment in the state government it was a requirement to join this fund. I’m glad I did, I was in the final year of intake where no contributions tax was deducted allowing the retirement balance to grow quicker before the fund closed to new members. The tax is deducted when member withdraws their retirement benefit.

Naturally, a prudent person would not retire from this fund as it is governed by special conditions that were specifically reserved for government employees that were not open to the general public. In order to attract talent to work for state government organisations that were unable to match private sector salaries, reward systems were devised to increase benefits and conditions.

What industry funds offer the general public that for-profit funds offer is low fees that result in higher returns for members. The outrageous commissions paid to financial advisors, aka known as salespeople generating personal income streams that benefit themselves and not the people investing their retirement savings.

The Citizen Watch Company offers an extremely affordable integrated bracelet 1970s inspired watch in bright colours. Clearly the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak is the design standard for this style of watch. So along comes Citizen with a brightly coloured offering that looks great in summer and I’m in.

Shiels Jewellers was running a major promotion nationwide, so for $449 I have myself a Citizen Tsuoya to wear around. Whilst I have plenty of high quality watches in my collection, the Tsuoya is a cheaper integrated bracelet version of a highly popular reincarnation of a winning design formula. As I selected the yellow dial NJ0150-81Z, this version is surprisingly similar to the Rolex 124300 Oyster Perpetual. So, the Tsuoya will be a casual daytime summer watch for wearing out.

So the Miyota Calibre 8210 is a simple automatic movement, this is viewed through the exhibition caseback, this is somewhat unusual as this is an unfinished movement. Still, this is what designers are delivering these days and it does make sense if this is the only watch in your collection, or the only automatic you own. If you have some other automatic watches, then this display caseback will be a bit underwhelming.

The power reserve is approximately 40 hours, this is sufficient as I do not comprehend the obsession with extended power reserves at the sacrifice of accuracy. The movement has a +/- 20 second accuracy, sufficient for a watch in this price bracket. The Calibre 8210 beats at 21,600 vph, so this is pretty much what you would expect. This will appeal to budget minded collectors who cannot afford an Oyster Perpetual, Seamaster or Carrera and want a racy contemporary styled watch.

The dial is remarkably similar to the Oyster Perpetual with baton hands, single index markers and double index markers at the 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock positions. There is a small date window at the 3 o’clock position that does not have a date frame in an attempt to make the date window look larger. There is a cyclops over the date window, not sold on this feature, but I see why they included it. The crown at the 4 o’clock position is a little difficult for me to set as it is recessed in the 40 mm case, still, I like the different design here. What is interesting in a watch of this price range is the sapphire crystal, I did not really expect that.

Citizen Watch Company is one of the biggest watch manufacturers in the world, they own a number of watch manufacturers from Bulova, Alpina, Accutron, Frederique Constant, and Arnold & Son and are an excellent budget choice. There is discussion that Citizen will take the mantle of affordable Japanese quality away from Seiko, especially since Seiko has raised their prices without the quality control improvements and movement accuracy.

I already have a Citizen Promaster in my collection, so I changed out the rubber strap for a TAG Heuer S/el style bracelet. I also have a quartz chronograph with a really rattly bracelet. What is interesting is the President style bracelet, this was made famous on the Rolex Day/Date, I have never been a fan of the fluted bezel design of the DateJust and the Day/Date models, so I am interested in the wearability of the Citizen bracelet.

I watch with interest what is happening at not only Australian universities but internationally as well. There is really an anti-semetic movement gaining a fair degree of traction. My view is very simple, if you want to end the Gaza war, then put pressure on Hamas to release the hostages abducted on October 7 – it is not that difficult.

The Queers for Palestine movement is the most interesting development. Hezbollah is clear here, homosexuality is a sin and homosexuals must be killed. Hezbollah has form, they target gays in Lebanon, their rights are under threat and they really back up their hatred of homosexuals by killing them. I guess the gay community somehow identifies with this cause, they believe they are downtrodden and misaligned in a free society. They are right, they are misaligned, they are supporting a terrorist organisation that rapes women and engages in sex crimes, what reasonable person supports sex crimes?

Technology – not tax is the key to meeting emissions targets. A tax is such a blunt instrument that generally has the opposite effect of what governments are trying to achieve. This is such a negative policy, innovation and technology is the key here.

I believe in meeting emissions targets, this will require the development of new technology and should be instigated with tax incentives for business enterprises willing to invest in technologies and processes to reduce emissions output. We all live on this planet, we all have a duty to employ environmentally sound actions that benefit the community as a whole.

The idea is to create an environment that is conducive to long-term investment in emissions reduction. What businesses do not want is government policy constantly changing causing disruption to their long-term planning and implementation.

The purpose of governments is to create policies that reward investment that leads to long-term goals. We need to move away from the short-term policies that are not in the best interests of any parties. The role of government is to create the conditions for investment and monitor compliance, the role of the private sector is to seek opportunities and apply scarce capital to projects that earn superior returns.

I am appalled at the rhetoric coming from US president Donald Trump, there is no art of the deal coming from this bloke, we are seeing a Putin aligned Trump trying to carve up Ukraine with the aid of Putin. Trump is attempting to gain access to rare earths in Eastern Ukraine and is willing to sell the Ukrainian people out in a transactional deal with Russia.

We all know thin skinned Trump has a fragile ego, so it is not in the interests of Zelensky to engage in tit-for-tat accusations as this would make Trump even more hostile to both Zelensky and Ukraine. Trump attacked Zelensky stating he had failed to make a deal. Seriously, how could Ukraine make a deal when Russia massed troops in Belarus under the guise of war games to invade Ukraine.

The failure of Russian forces to gain control of Hostomel Airport in the early days of the war really led to the failure of the Special Military Operation. Had Russian forces secured Hostomel Airport and used that as the staging point for the siege of Kiev, then this 10 day special military operation would have been successful. Then, the convoy to Kiev was thwarted by a determined and desperate Ukrainian military fighting for their lives.

I am no Trump supporter, that is for sure, what I do try to do is analyse multiple viewpoints to see if Trump is trying to play both Putin and Europe. Firstly, Western and Central Europe has had the opportunity to increase military spending in the post-Soviet collapse and this has been an abject failure. With the exception of Poland, European nations have not invested in defence, instead allowing their militaries and military base to deteriorate to such a state that they are now inept.

Furthermore, Europe has had three years of the Russian and Ukrainian war to ramp up production. Once again, with the exception of Poland, there has been no action to build up military capacity. Is Trump’s rhetoric designed to force Europe and NATO to take greater responsibility for European security. The possibility always exists, however I am not seeing the level of sophistication from the US president.

Trump has begun a tariff dispute with neighbours Canada and Mexico expanding the tariff dispute with allies including Europe, Japan and Australia. Where should tariffs be targeted? That is clearly China, this is the nation that has undercut American manufacturing. So what Trump is doing is antagonising the country’s allies. One suspects this is going to be four long years of the Trump Administration. We will also see if this government is characterised by the dysfunction of the previous Trump term.

When studying marketing management at business school, we worked through a PepsiCo case study reviewing the decision-making strategy Indra Nooyi implemented, it was controversial at the time but ultimately the correct decision. So when her name came up on the Australian Institute of Business graphic, I immediately recognised her background and motivation.

It takes a degree of courage to totally alter strategy direction and a whole load of leadership currency to guide the organisation through a dramatic change management program. Yes, leadership is difficult to define and even harder to drag people along for the journey. Indra Nooyi successes at PepsiCo included introducing healthy food and drink products, environmentally sustainable practices, and not only thwarting a bid to break up PepsiCo, sales significantly increased. At a corporate leadership level, Indra Nooyi is a person to emulate and study.

I have to go back deep in my memory to my year seven school trip to Kalbari in what I remember as 1981. There were two songs played pretty much through the school trip, one was the complete tape of the Beach Boys from Surfing Safari to Barbara Ann and Surfing USA. The song that was played in between the Beach Boys greatest hits was A Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

It took Donald just six weeks to crash the US economy, Wall Street has reacted with the Dow Jones crashing. There has been a big sell off in US equities, this has reverberated around the world sending international stockmarkets tumbling.

Trump’s mate Elon Musk through the incorrectly named Department of Government Efficiency [DoGE] is offering any but government efficiency. Through large scale lay-offs of government workers, it does not take much foresite to see government services will suffer. The lay-offs have not been targeted, Trump has taken revenge on the departmental heads who he has viewed as wronged him.

Even more concerning is Musk and his newly hired DoGE minions rushing in and downloading the data from secure department servers. This is a huge violation of the privacy of citizen’s personal data. As we are still in the early stages of the Trump insurgency, no one has any idea where this data will end up, what we know so far is the Musk headed DoGE has control of this previously secure data and could well end up in private hands.

The government workers who voted for Trump are now out of a job themselves, the ones left in employment are too scared to speak out, they are just so insecure in their employment. Military veterans are one of the hardest hit groups, we all know Trump has no respect for those who have served their country, he views them as losers. Those who have been wounded in American led wars have been affected, their pensions are being targeted and they have to ask themselves if it was worth it.

Trump and Musk have called Social Security a big ponzi scheme, senior citizens are rightly concerned, their benefits are being not only eroded, they could well lose the benefits the paid for with their taxes. Republican voters are dismayed, but what did they think was going to hapoen? As an outsider, I could see this unfolding and am interested to see what will happen next.

Despite his protests, Trump inherited a strong economy for the Biden Administration and in a period of six weeks has tanked the US economy. Before I even discuss tariffs, the indecision from Trump has rattled corporate America who need to strategically plan their businesses. With all this upheaval, corporate heads are being reactive, Donald changes his mind regularly and this destroys business confidence.

China is an issue, I have written extensively about the threats China poses to not just the United States, but the western economics in particular. So what does Trump do? Donald in his wisdom hits neighbours Mexico and Canada firstly, then targets the EU and Australia. Trump then tries to diminish Justin Treadeau in front of Canadians having the exact opposite effect with Canada preparing a round of tariffs targeting the US industrial base. I am watching on with interest to see the inflationary effect this will have on US citizens. The US economy is headed for recession, this is how I see this playing out.

I am appalled at the attack on the synagogue in Melbourne during December. These pro-Palistinian fools are taking their anti-Semitism too far. I had never believed we had this level of anti-Semitism in Australia, I stand corrected, I was wrong, the level of hatred is high.

What we saw at the universities was just absurd, the attacks on Jewish students and lecturing staff was unforgivable. The lack of response by the university management was just as concerning. The lack of action is a tacit endorsement of these activities. It has been well documented that universities are the last bastion of socialism. What university staff need to do is present both sides of an argument, allow respectful discussion following academic rigor and ensure lively debate.

This is not what we are witnessing, we are seeing anything but these types of learning behaviours, we are witnessing blatant racist views based on historical grudges. We live in the new world, these old world biases and abuse should not make it to our shores. Instead, the recklessness of the Australian Greens political party and the Australian Labor Party are only perpectuating outdated stereotypes. The actions of Australians are being watched by the world, we should be rightly condemned and we need to respond as a nation.