I was doing a Yahoo! search and much to my surprise, I see my blog is being plagerised. At first I didn’t believe it, I thought this is funny. This person had been to the Italian island of Elba, it is quiet a small island and not frequently visited. 

Even stranger is being on Morcone Beach, a very small beach on a small island before returning to Zurich. Then it was hang on, this is my story, this is the break-up of myself and my then girlfriend. 

What really annoys me is if I do a Yahoo! search, this plagerised material is further up the search rankings than the original material that was clearly published before. What piece of shit search engine is Yahoo? This is why a google search is used and Yahoo! is now a shell of a company. I have contacted Yahoo! to report and these losers did nothing. Yahoo! was once the leading search engine, now this crap product is a relic of history. Poor management, useless marketing and a product that is dated and past its use by date is just embarrassing.  

I worked in a toxic environment, or I did anyway and I was so happy to leave. This was a workplace filled with angry nasty people who displayed a jealousy of anyone who was even remotely successful.

Needless to say, I had and continue to have little respect for these fools, they thought they could all gang up and bully me, they found out that whilst this tactic worked on the majority of people that didn’t fit into their little toxic circle. This brought them more stress than they ever imagined – they lost big time.

I would like to say this never affected me but that would be incorrect. However, what I can say is I made sure I served up three to four times the stress I received – returned with interest. I was one of the few who took a pay cut for this job; the vast majority received a large pay rise as they had never received before remuneration like this previously.

They have no options, they are well aware they will never get a job like this again, it is fair to say they are holding for dear life and never letting go. Unlike them, I have options, I took a pay cut for this job and I know I can perform in the private sector. Even worse for them, I was paid at a much higher than they were – this really annoyed them

A large number of these guys have spent their whole working life in government employment, they complain how little a pension they receive after twenty years in the military. There was nothing to stop them gaining suitable qualifications and training to become an officer – their lack of ambition cost them. Apart from this organisation dominated by former military personnel and church officials, there is no chance of improving the culture without leadership. They are institutionalised, they can’t cut it in the private sector where both output and accountability are measured.

We are all heavy duty diesel mechanics by trade, but I know I will never return to swinging spanners again as a mechanic. Mine is a leadership position, I am a technical advisor on an international contract paid in US dollars with a net income in USD higher than their gross AUD income. Oh yeah, I made sure they know all about that as I was always paid significantly better than them when we worked together, so this step up in pay would really sting – ouch. That’s how professional jealousy works.

It was a sad day a year ago I learned Jollibee purchased the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, this horrible fast food company taking control of one of my favourite coffee chains – surely, it can’t get any worse. Jollibee is a fast food chain from the Philippines, Filipinos love the chain, they all head off to Jollibee and eat this sub-standard fast food that they dish up. It isn’t much to get excited about, I try to avoid their outlets at all costs, I suspect there is more national pride in the Jollibee franchise than just about any other institution.

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on the other hand is an excellent chain serving decent coffee, cake and food. My concern is the Jollibee management want to get in and mess around with the concept, marketing, product or service in a vain attempt to display their leadership and make changes for all the wrong purposes. If they leave it alone then great, I care little about the ownership of the business in that regard or where the profits go. This is a good business, they have a premium product, a certain ambience, a loyal customer base and a quality consumer experience – I hope they don’t mess with a successful business model.

If the church you are visiting asks you to not take photographs, then you should respect their request and not take photographs in their church – it really isn’t difficult.

Then why then do people insist on pulling their camera out and snapping these fine works of art? At the very least it is disrespectful, at worst, the flash fades the priceless artworks adorning the walls. I just can’t understand the attitude of some people, they are so arrogant. Generally speaking, the quality of the shots are poor anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to actually purchase the books on offer with professionally shot photographs using lighting techniques that don’t damage artworks?

To make matters worse, I can’t believe it when I wander around the inside of these beautiful works of architectural art to see people walking around with hats on their heads, this is the ultimate sign of disrespect. As a bald 50 year old, I have to wear a hat to prevent sunburn but I am more than happy to carry my hat around in my hand whilst visiting a church. If I can do this, taking a hat off your head is a simple task, why can’t other people show the same respect.

I was having a conversation at work in our open plan office about watches when a colleague who overheard me then informed me he owned a Rolex.

He had my immediate attention and I had a ton of questions of model, age and cost. The next day he brought in a slip of paper with some details scribbled down and I was straight onto the Rolex website searching for details. I had his DateJust all speced up and printed off a picture when I showed him and he confirmed to me that this was indeed the watch he owned. I asked him if he wanted to know the cost of a new DateJust and let him know that the going rate was $10,800 for a brand new purchase.

He then informed me he purchased his in 1991 when he was working in Karachi for $2000 off a dealer secondhand but in new condition. Apparently, back then locals were having difficulty getting their hands on hard currency so they would purchase precious commodities such as Rolex watches only to sell them to dealers for US dollars.

I share a desk with a guy and he was exasperated on how anyone would pay $10,800 for a watch, it was just a watch he said, he could buy two mountain bikes for that type of money. My first thought was who would pay $5000 for a mountain bike? Ok, if I was good enough I would if I was competing and I’m not. A luxury watch is a work of mechanical art built by watchmakers who are skilled in their fields and deserve to be adequately compensated for the skills.

I believe a mechanical watch is a work of art in both aesthetics and engineering. As we are both engineering tradesmen, I thought he would appreciate the level of engineering precision required to ensure this series of springs, sprockets, drive mechanisms and balance wheels work in unison to accurately measure time.

As a business student, I loved researching the business of the Swiss watchmaking industry. Watchmaking companies such as Rolex, IWC, Breitling, Heuer and Omega produced timepieces for occupations, these roots in occupational timekeeping developed a heritage of utility. The industry had to reorganise and rebrand, the quartz revolution destroyed their business models and the luxury watch industry was created.

The Rolex Submariner and Sea Dweller were standard issue for commercial divers, Breitling produced timepieces for aviators, IWC supplied the Luftwaffe during the second world war, Omega supplied NASA timepieces and Heuer produced timepieces for motorists and racers. During the 1970s, the quartz crisis nearly derailed the Swiss watchmaking industry with cheap products forcing the industry to reorganise. The Swiss watchmaking industry reinvented itself seeking the upmarket luxury goods sector.

Heuer was purchased by TAG Industries in 1985 to form TAG Heuer before being sold to luxury goods manufacturer Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton in 1999, Omega is now owned by the Swatch Group and Rolex remains an independent company. The art of watchmaking is not limited to solely the mechanical specifications, the beauty of the art of the watch cannot be underestimated. How do you value art?

There is a market for fine art from Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso that could be described as simply as just oil on canvas or watercolour and paper. Likewise, Tchaikovsky created the masterpiece of the 1812 Overture, Vivaldi created the four seasons and then there was Beethoven and Mozart.

Can the sum of the parts be simply calculated in terms of value; Van Gogh, a man who couldn’t sell a painting within his own lifetime is now strongly represented on the list of highest prices paid for art. Artists like Willem de Kooning, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Rembrandt or Jackson Pollock fetch outstanding prices.

The brilliance of Rolex is their marketing; their relative rarity creates a market as people are willing to place an order and wait two years for timepiece – that’s pretty special. This also supplements their design that doesn’t change much, the Rolex Explorer I is pretty similar to the 1953 design. The Cosmograph Daytona only just upgraded from a manually wound movement to an automatic movement.

The 1957 design Speedmaster Professional still utilises the 1861 manually wound movement and is pretty much identical to the watch worn on the moon by NASA astronauts. For a reasonable price, the average citizen is able to purchase identical hardware that not only traveled to the moon, NASA still issues the Speedmaster Professional to the current crop of astronauts.

A balanced investment portfolio includes a percentage of fixed interest securities, this is considered a conservative portfolio structure – but is it really? Fixed interest markets are the largest capital markets in the world, a true diversified fund must consider fixed interest investments.

With Australian equities comprising between 16% to 25% and international shares from 20% to 30% of an investment portfolio, equities are viewed as the more volatile investment class offering greater returns albeit at higher risk. The definition of fixed interest is an income derived from a pre-determined payment allocated by the issuer at regular intervals with the principal returned after a set period. As such, fixed interest is a debt instrument allowing no ownership in the firm ranking in front of equities in the case of liquidation.

Whilst government issued bonds are the most common form of fixed interest instruments, corporate bonds form secondary fixed income sources. Differing levels of government from federal, state and local issue debt securities raising cash to finance both day-to-day operations and projects. Fixed-income investors receive a set interest rate of return in the form of interest in exchange for lending money to the enterprise. Investors are repaid the principal, the original sum at the maturity date. I reckon 15% to 25% is the correct ratio depending upon the degree of conservatism investors require.

2020 was looking to be a reasonable year for both equity and bond markets, international financier George Soros spoke after a recent Sri Lankan economic forum and spooked markets with his prognosis that we will be faced with a similar financial meltdown to what we experienced in 2008.

Professor Gayle Allard guides budding economic students through excellent online course material explaining the basis of economic policy making. This course builds on macro-economic policy taught by the best international business schools. Run by Madrid’s IE Business School, this online course draws on actual course material utilised in her face-to-face economics course taught at the business school.

Speaking to the producer of this online course, he believed Gayle holds the ability to just stand in front of the camera and explain the concepts – such is her grasp of the material and ability to deliver to an online audience. With current economic policies confusing the lay person, this online course gives the average non-financial person a chance to dissect government policy.

When planning a strategy, one expects senior management to acquire advanced planning techniques yet this didn’t happen in my organisation. The state government was offering a severance package to reduce personnel in the public sector, a tried and proven technique – so far, so good.

A severance differs to a redundancy insofar as a severance is generally voluntary and the position itself doesn’t become redundant. As such, a person may accept a severance package and apply for further positions within the organisation that may include the same job under different pay and conditions. Needless to say it includes a pay out of some form.

In their wisdom, our mob stated there will be no severance packages offered as the package includes three weeks pay for every year served capped at seventeen years plus an immediate payout of a further 12 weeks if the package is accepted immediately. Naturally, the strategy was to not offer a package with a pay out instead relying on redeployment to minimise payments so staff can walk away with nothing after six months of redeployment if no other offers of employment are available.

So when the only severance package was offered to union representatives within the organisation one has to question their motives. However, if the current union representatives accept the package then when we reconvene our employment in 2018 there must be union representative positions available.

Naturally I would have to be nominated and then endorsed by a vote by the members but such a group of people require an individual who is well versed in such techniques and unafraid to confront senior management at their level. It didn’t turn out that way, I was nominated with no one else putting their hand up so no vote was required.

So, here we are at an unusual situation where the current union reps are gone but willing to step up into the position is the chief protagonist who is well researched, has uncovered and reported corruption, has uncovered and reported selection and hiring practices that are in breach of the industrial award and public service guidelines.

By denying an individual to fair workplace selection practices, I have the energy to address these issues for all union members to fight for a fair system for all. The rule of unintended consequences is ironic on this occasion, they have provided me with the vehicle to pursue organisational change.

During trips to South-East Asia I am exposed to an array of American products yet to be seen in Australia, this is great as I had advanced knowledge of franchises such as Krispy Kreme, Tony Romas, California Pizza Kitchen and Dairy Queen.

I have to admit, during sojourns to SE-Asia I don’t mind slurping on one of their ice-cream cups mixed with crushed kit-kat or crunchie chocolates. I see the Oreo biscuit mix is pretty popular too but I have never drifted too far from my favoured chocolate kit-kat blizzard drink. I’m sure the major brands are more than happy to support this company as their sales of product would make them a major client with plenty of bargaining power.

I was in one of their branches where a sign informed us that if no receipt was offered then the purchase was free. Bringing to their attention the failure to produce a receipt resulted in no free ice-cream drink. Now while I am not worried about the cost of the ice-cream, they advertised their code of conduct and they failed to deliver. Really, this is pretty pathetic, the cost of an ice-cream is negotiable but the loss of trust is difficult to repair.

I recently read an article about dividend yields and the correlation between yield and share value. Investors such as myself are attracted to shares paying strong and sustainable dividends. It has also been argued that dividend yield is a stronger indicator of value than the perennial price/earnings ratio (P/E) – I do research dividend yield as an important decision-making factor.

Currently, bank deposits are paying between 1.5% to 2% with no capital appreciation, government bonds fare a little better with closer to 3% yields with equities offering reliable and stable yields ranging from 4% to 6% with the possibility of capital appreciation. Then there is the franking credits of dividend imputation, that is a strong incentive to chase high yielding equities.

This strategy is enhanced in the low interest rate environment brought about by central banks to stimulate growth with quantitative easing strategies. One has to be careful as dividend yield may rise as share prices plummet without earnings per share (EPS) and dividend per share (DPS) revaluations. In such a case, share price growth still correlates P/E ratios with rising EPS and DPS mirroring revenue growth.

With more people setting up self managed superannuation funds (SMSF) as baby boomers are nearing retirement, the search for yield whilst protecting capital is a huge consideration. For me, it certainly is as my strategy revolves around generating a future income stream whilst currently reinvesting dividends as a compound interest strategy.

We are tired of fund managers not only unable to beat a market index but also charging outrageous fees to underperform benchmarks. We are able to outperform fund managers although the average SMSF does lack the diversity of retail funds. That is mainly due to the requirement of a critical mass for each investment, yes diversification is good but if each individual investment is so small that even a doubling of capital ensures such a small return that people can’t live on in the future then it just isn’t worthwhile.