For me, this is pretty much what leadership is all about, when the Russians invaded Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was offered evacuation by the US, he replied “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride”

This claim was countered by Russian soldiers on September 12 who collectively told the world, “I don’t need ammunition, I need a ride!!!” as they dropped their weapons and ran away. We need to remember, back not so long ago, when the Russians invaded Ukraine and massed their troops and equipment at the border and headed towards Kyiv, a defiant Zelensky stood firm.

It was a great defense by the Ukrainian troops, they held out against Russian aggression and in the early days of the invasion, we thought they held out for a few weeks and at least put up a fight against an overwhelming invasion force. Had Zelensky fled and returned once the city was defended, he would have lost all moral authority. There is no doubt, had Kyiv fallen, Zelensky would have been captured and killed. Yes, Zelensky is the face of the Ukraine resistance, but he is showing the required leadership with actions and simple messaging that Putin lacks.

The Russian Nazi lie didn’t suck anyone in, well apart from conspiracy theorists and Putin apologists, probably some card carrying members of the flat earth society are part of that club too. The Russian propaganda machine has worked overtime to paint the Azov Regiment as right-wing nationalists and classified them as a terrorist organisation. We all know who the fascists are though.  

So this will infuriate the Putin apologists, the prisoner swap with Russia included 215 Ukrainians, many who had been captured after the fall of Mariupol. In return, 55 pro-Russian prisoners including Putin puppet Viktor Medvedchuk were traded for the Ukrainian prisoners. Pretty much the only victory the Russians can claim, the eventual surrender of the Azov Regiment after the siege of Mariupol Steel Plant has been returned via the prisoner swap. 

I scanned the list to see if Lieutenant Illya Samoilenko was among those involved in the prisoner swap. I watched the Sky News interview with him as they were deep in the Mariupol Steel Plant, he really impressed me. He spoke calmly and was defiant despite hanging out for 68 days against an overwhelming Russian onslaught. For all the silly talk of a terrorist organisation, the members of the Azov Regiment are returned, if they were really terrorists – that wouldn’t happen. 

In what was an interesting couple of nights waiting for Felix’s attempt, I tuned in late every night but conditions required postponing the attempt. That was good news, I would hate to see his team feel the pressure and make reckless decisions.

It was amazing to watch Felix ascend in the Red Bull Stratos helium balloon, a skydiver in a pressure suit ascending to the edge of space in a balloon in 2012. When Felix was cleared to jump after the pressure in the capsule equalised, he moved to the edge of the jump platform and performed his final checks, it was very intense.

If he had an issue moving or jumping clear where he damaged his helmet or pressurised suit – this would have been disastrous. He would have depressurised and suffered extensive injuries from depressurisation. Felix is no longer a base jumper or sky diver, he is a space diver after making his stratosphere jump from 39 km above the earth’s surface. 

Even during freefall, they were concerned he may rupture and haemorrhage his eyes. What a freefall, with little to no air resistance, Felex tumbled around out of control. As it transpired, the Red Bull Stratos balloon took longer to stabilise on ascent and exceeded the calculated height, so Felix jumped from 8000 feet higher than planned. 

Felix exceeded the speed of sound becoming the first person to break the sound barrier during freefall. Whilst a skydiver normally reaches a terminal velocity of 200 kph in a chest down position, or 250 – 290 kph in a head down position, instead hitting 1,357.6 kmh with a freefall height of 36,402.6 metres. 

Despite having a drogue parachute that could be deployed during his spinning freefall, Felix decided to not activate this brake, he regained control and maintained his freefall. Interestingly, the scientific data for high altitude bail-outs was collected for the commercial space industry. No one really knew if it was feasible to pursue this bail-out strategy, it is being further researched.

A field of dead Russian troops from Chechnya in the Donbas region of Ukraine, it is hard to feel pity for these lost lives once we saw the routing of Russian troops around the Kharkiv region and the torture chambers and mass graves. 

Now that Putin has mobilised 300,000 more troops to surge into Ukraine, we know they will be under-equipped, under-trained, poorly led and thrown in to defend an area where they will be out-thought, out-maneuvered and out-played by highly motivated Ukrainian forces. One expects the body counts to rise for the Russian invaders. The fascists are losing, their unbelievable claims that they are fighting to denazify Ukraine is funny if it wasn’t so serious. The best plan for these war criminals is to drop their weapons and get as far away as they can and maybe escape with their lives.

It was a surprise to us all, the Ukrainians had announced that they were planning an assault on Kherson in the south. This was a little strange as they had not previously announced their plans, so was this a classic diversion? No doubt they built up troops and equipment in the area, maybe some shelling in the area to add some authenticity. 

What we do know is the Russians believed this and pulled troops out of the Kharkiv region to bolster defences in the south. At the time of writing, I am a little unsure how many Russian troops had been redeployed, it appears they had a choice to make, defend Kherson or Kharkiv and they chose to strengthen Kherson leaving Kharkiv exposed.  

As the offensive began, there was little news getting out so we really were not sure what was going on. What we did know was Ukraine had some pretty decent technology allowing them to concentrate firepower and I was guessing the US was supplying intelligence to the location of Russian weaknesses. Then after a week of fighting, the news of the Ukrainian successes started to filter out and apart from the African pro-Russian bloggers, Russian bots and the brainwashed, everyone was surprised and extremely happy. Let’s hope these gains are consolidated and Ukraine pushes on.

The Tissot Petite Seconde is an interesting watch, I am interested in Tissot, that’s for sure. However, the style of the Petite Seconde is similar to the IWC Portugieser 40, a clean dial with a sub-dial at 6 o’clock. The 42 mm 316L round stainless steel case has 20 mm lugs, a thickness of 11.4 mm and has a display caseback. The polished case looks like it may scratch easily, I do like the bezel, it is a little different to most designs with the step design.

The movement is an ETA 6498-1, this is a  hand-wound engine, this is what really interests me. I am looking for a timepiece with a hand-wound movement. With no rotor to impede the view, the mechanicals are on display with solid finishing and 25 jewels. The Tissot rotor is generally not to my tastes on their automatic movements, the finish isn’t great. The movement of this hand-wound movement through the display caseback looks great, the finish is excellent for the price point.

The dial is what sets this timepiece for me, the small centrally located minute hand at the 6 o’clock position is symmetrical, the no-date is another positive, this unbalanced the dial. The only date windows that interest me are the oversize date windows of German watches from the Saxony region. I have walked into a number of boutiques and I have been unable to actually handle the Petite Seconde. Actually, I do not see many of their vintage pieces in most boutiques. To be fair, they want to hold fast moving watches, they are not collectors, they are retailers. So if a model isn’t moving, I can hardly expect them to hold a timepiece in inventory, that is understandable. 

Learners who lack the required knowledge generally lack the ability to assess and review their limited competence. Due to their incomplete and incorrect self-assessment, they are highly unlikely to apply strategies that assist them with the acquisition of relevant knowledge. 

This effect is known as the double curse of incompetence. These learners lack the ability to engage in self-reflection, they do not take a nuanced view of study, instead they seek to complain about assessments, the facilitator or the facilities instead of reviewing their actions and abilities objectively. They are just old style complainers with little to no ability to engage in meaningful self-analysis. 

In essence, they under-perform, then blame others for their failures. So, poor performers lack the expertise to recognise the factors that caused their personal failure. The failures include mobile phone use in class, poor behaviour, dismissive attitude, lack of general interest or an inability to apply themselves. Instead, they seek to blame others, the problem is not them – in their mind anyway. 

Individuals with expert knowledge tend to know they possess this knowledge; however, they make a different mistake. Instead, their perception is that everyone is knowledgeable too, if it is easy for them, then it must be easy for everyone. They don’t think their abilities are exceptional, they think if they understand the concepts, then everyone is at the same level. It is ironic really, the more gifted are mostly unaware of their gifts. 

As politicians on their cosy defined benefits retirement structure now dictate to the rest of us what superannuation benefits we receive, we are now at the political mercy of people with only their interests at heart.

The purpose of superannuation in Australia is fairly simple, our employer pays 9.5% of our gross income into a retirement account to provide future income for our retirement. This system was based on foregoing current pay rises for future benefits. What we need to remember is, this amount was based on 40 hours per week and not the 60 to 80 hours I was previously working. Financially I would have been better off receiving immediate pay rises over the period and investing the funds myself.

There needs to be tax incentives for people to save future income for an event a long way into the future. The plan was to make the investment attractive so more people would top up their accounts and remove the social security burden from future generations. Instead, there are now caps and so many provisions, many are unsure of what to do. Superannuation only benefits those who will retire at age 60, if you have too many assets then you do not qualify for the government pension regardless of how much tax you paid in your working life.

Likewise, a person who has paid no net tax their whole working life is able to draw a government pension at age 67 regardless. So a reasonable person would conclude that there is no incentive to save for retirement, instead enjoying that money throughout their working life and drawing a government pension on retirement.

The other strategy is saving for retirement and retiring at age 60, they draw their self-funded retirement accounts down for the first 7 to ten years and draw either a full or partial pension from the government. There are other issues too, a pensioner enjoys financial rebates and cost of living allowances that a self-funded retiree doesn’t. So, if you are self-funded, retire early and enjoy the early years of retirement drawing down your account while you are fit and active enough to enjoy fully.

Rolex is a very marketable brand, what they have done is nothing short of amazing from both a consumer perception and perceived value perspective. When the rest of the Swiss watch industry was in rapid decline, Rolex reinvented itself as a luxury brand and they have been on an upward trajectory since then. 

What Rolex is known for is being conservative and traditional, they are not a risk taking business. This is somewhat at odds with the strategic decision to reposition the brand during the upheaval brought about by the quartz disruption. The Air King was discontinued by Rolex in 2014, released in 1945 to honour the RAF pilots of the Battle of Britain. 

So people were surprised when the redesigned dial of the Air King 116900 was released. The Air King was originally released for pilots but had apparently strayed from that design. Rolex became involved in the Bloodhound SSC project, the dial of the 116900 matches the instrument face of the instruments. 

I like the dial, it is totally different from the 14000 references or the older 5500 references, this is the time Rolex became less conservative and actually became a little innovative. Moving from 34 mm to 39 mm was more to my style, the 34 mm is just too small and is now a woman’s size. So, at 39 mm most of us will be able to wear this watch, smaller  6″ wrists can wear this as a full size watch, and those of us with larger 7″ and 8″ writs can still wear this without being too small.    

Some of my worst investment decisions have been instigated by a stockbroker. I have myself to blame, never listen to a stockbroker, it is a pretty easy rule to follow. I neglected my own rules and paid a very expensive price. I ask myself why, I know not to listen to a stockbroker – so why do I?

So, where does this leave me? I have had so many missed opportunities, if stockbrokers know the market so well, then their advice will be invaluable – it is not. If they knew so much about market direction, they would all be multi-millionaires and bestow their extraordinary knowledge of financial markets. 

I listen to guys like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, they have consistently engaged in wealth creation and have a loyal following. I am not an investor in Berkshire Hathaway and it is too expensive to buy into now, of course it would have been a great investment at the right time. The Buffett and Munger partnership is legendary, their long-term wealth creation following value investing principles has resulted in a seriously successful business model

So I missed an amazing buy in time during the covid price plunge, I was following the market and asking my broker if it was the time to buy. I had my share purchases I shared with him, he thought they were good but kept telling me to hold off. When the market started moving up I kept asking, he maintained it was a dead cat bounce – it wasn’t. 

So now I have an online brokerage account, I see myself as a loyal customer. However, I have to eventually draw the line, loyalty is a two way deal and I have been neglected as a client. So ironically I have been forced to make a decision and opened an online account. The loyalty I offered wasn’t reciprocated and now I have taken my business elsewhere.