Adventure Ausrama Blog

Australians on welfare cannot afford to pay rent even with the $67 weekly subsidy. They get a job which is usually part-time, but they find that they are no better off. Fuel for their car, if they have one, or transport costs are at least $100 a week. With Centrelink now docking payments when recipients do the slightest thing wrong in their job applications, they are being pushed onto the streets. The number of homeless is going through the roof. It is rising at an alarming rate. Not only single people are affected. Parents with large families are in hardship as well. Of more than 65,000 houses surveyed just 10 could be secured by those on Newstart. Homes are available; though they can be taken only by renters on a good income. Buying a place to live will never be possible for low-income citizens. It is out of the question for all of them. Indeed, many families who successfully rent are having to make do with one and two bedroom residences. They need help now. Rents have...

Aussies make technology firms hand over their cash to state coffers. blog Australia makes multinationals pay more tax. An audit by the the OECD brought to light how much money the big companies owed. With countries toughening up the rules, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the tax avoiders to keep all the profit.  ⎳ Australia a Hits a Multinationals a With a New a Tax a Rules ⎳ The OECD recommended ways to stop the cash going to tax havens. Nations have taken notice and passed new legislation. Australia's rules are clear: if you earn in Australia you must hand over the tax.  Large businesses will have no choice.   ⦿3 Australia b Hits b Multinationals b With b New b Tax b Rules ⦿3 Messing around with intercompany transfers between international branches to artificially reduce income will also face obstacles.  The mother conpany providing overpriced inputs to outlying branches will end.  Microsoft, Apple and Google have had their wings clipped. ...

The United States debt has reached massive proportion. Something has to be done soon. ◘1 united up states we massive at am paid it aged massive it united news massive an nursing ◘1 How much longer can the U.S. keep accumulating debt? There has to be a day of reckoning.  What happened to Greece surely is a warning. When it does eventually take place there will be a world recession, even a depression.         ◙2 massive ok united in states to Using or paid massive ◙2 Two-third of the debt of $20 trillion is held by foreign governments, companies and the American public. They hold bonds, notes and bills. A third is owed to government departments and trust fund such as Social Security. Unfortunately,  this "surplus" is payable to baby boomers in just a few years.   ⦿3 paid up states united debt ⦿3 The US owes more than the EU. Indeed, it is the highest in the world. Moreover, it equates to a year's GDP. This has doubled since 1988 when i...

The Coalition Government's intention to bring in a welfare card tied to a specific bank account for welfare recipients is immoral and unworkable. Stopping those on unemployment and disability support from buying alcohol is absolute hypocrisy. Politicians drink the best spirits, wine and beer that money can buy. Incidentally, much of it is paid for by the taxpayer. They do not have the right to prevent others from consuming what they want. . The Coalition Government's intention to bring in a welfare card tied to a specific bank account for welfare recipients is immoral and unworkable. Stopping those on unemployment and disability support from buying alcohol is absolute hypocrisy. Politicians drink the best spirits, wine and beer that money can buy. Incidentally, much of it is paid for by the taxpayer. They do not have the right to prevent others from consuming what they want. getting rid of cash in a submission to government it is cheaper and easier to administer the healthy ...

The invention of the polymer banknote was a disaster for Australia. Costs involved in continually replacing them are enormous. Let's face it paper and cloth are quite substantial materials. They can stand up to a lot of wear and tear. The main problem with polymer is that once folded it cannot be straightened out - a permanent crease prevents stacking of notes by banks and neat storage in consumers' wallets. All ATMs give brand new notes. It is impossible to do otherwise because they need to be tightly stacked. You would be wasting your time just trying to put used fifty dollar bills into an ATM.  Replenishing ATMs is a major cost in the modern age.  Government should be looking to save costs here. Considering the saving from fewer forgeries is a pitiful A$50 million, the extra cost is not worth it. Anyway, if people get a forgery they always pass it on, as giving it to a bank results in nothing in return.  Government should take the loss for forgeries....

Everyone thought that bitcoins would remain untraceable and out of the reach of national revenue collections. This belief has proved to be fairyland. The Australian Tax Office now values bitcoins as assets to be included on your yearly income tax form. If you have millions of these things when there value increases you will have to give part of it to the Australian Tax Office (ATO) if you reside in Australia. Don't think that this is the end - it is just the beginning. Other countries are looking at making bitcoins taxable income. BitPos an Australian company which arranges an exchange and purchasing service for people dealing in bitcoins say owners have to pay the Goods and Service Tax (GST) on the full value of coins not just on the fee. This is when buying the actual "currency" itself. Because dealers say bitcoin it is not a currency it opens the door for countries to interpret it as they like. It is possible some jurisdictions will class it as c...

Everyone is spying on everyone else. This is a matter of fact. Life has changed so much since the advent of the computer. Trojans are easy to create and even easier to spread. When you log on to just about any site trojans flood onto your system. Even if you delete them they are immediately put back on your computer again. They do their work as soon as you start work on anything, sending information back to the target source. PCs, tablets and mobile phones are all vulnerable. New trojans are created daily in their thousands. Some are very damaging. The presence of the Hesperbot banking trojan doubled in two weeks. They spread li ke "wildfire". Emails commonly contain phishing bugs that look like real banking communications. They are after your username and password so they can empty your bank account. When you are working on your PC have you ever had a txt file mysteriously open on it own? This could indicate keystroking where what you type is being wat...

There is clearly something wrong with the Australian economy. We seem to in the same position of Indonesia several decades ago when it had oil and the high price was pushing up the value of the currency. A high currency makes it difficult for those producing "non-boom" products to export. That is why the US is printing more dollars to weaken the currency, improve the economy and create more jobs. Nothing much is happening for it though because the US dollar is the major international currency as gold used to be. Just why Australian shopkeepers are crying fowl is more difficult to understand. A strong currency means imports are cheaper. Australians are very import dependent in their spending habits and buying cheap imports is what they like to do. They buy such imports over more expensive Australian made products, but this shouldn't hurt the bottom line of retailers. They claim Australians are spending less. Though figures show this to be the case, spendin...

Whether we like it or not, many people do not carry cash. While the older generation draws money from ATMs and banks to go shopping, young people prefer to carry just a credit card. Most debit cards are held by the aged who do not like to go into credit card debt. In Australia 86 per cent of transactions are made with a card. This puts Australia 6th in the world in the cashless country list. Developing nations still use cash for about half of all payments. Using cards for payments is safer than cash. If felons know a person is carrying cash they could be theft targets. There is another side to a fully cashless society: the taxman will be able to trace all transactions, business and private, if suitable laws are passed to gain access to bank data. At present only the police can view data on a person's financial affairs if they are investigating a crime. This will probably be extended over coming decades to social security and the tax department to make sure people ...