BFCSA Blog

The case for NO NAMES and NO addresses on the actual document.   Never truer words spoken..........the only way to prevent data breaches from occurring is to not hold the information in the first place. I will send a letter in with the form to say my name and address has been whited out and I am conscientious objector due to this debacle, my vulnerable age, disability and living alone.   I do not wish for my name to be in the same file as the data due to incompetence of the department.  In any case ABS still has the code on the document of being delivered to my home by hand, as it was in the "older versions."   Is the ABS turning Census data into a hacker's honeypot?  By Allie Coyne  Apr 19 2016 6:54AM   http://www.itnews.com.au/feature/is-the-abs-turning-census-data-into-a-hackers-honeypot-418280   In a short, innocuous press release that went widely unnoticed last November (except at iTnews), the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced it was looking into...

Puts the mediscare lie into perspective...it was the Liberals who lied How average income earners will be pushed into private health insurance by 2020 July 23 2015 Caitlin Fitzsimmons http://www.theage.com.au/money/saving/how-average-income-earners-will-be-pushed-into-private-health-insurance-by-2020-20160722-gqbuzl.html   Scott Morrison's super warning    video Courtesy ABC News 24 It would cost half-a-billion dollars to abandon superannuation changes announced in the budget - and the ratings agencies are unlikely to react well, warns Scott Morrison.   By 2020 average income earners will be forced to buy private health insurance or pay extra tax after the government quietly extended a freeze in the threshold for the Medicare Levy Surcharge. The income threshold, where rebates start to phase out and taxpayers without private cover are charged the surcharge, will stay fixed at $90,000 for singles until June 2021.  The Medicare Levy Surcharge originally targeted high-income earners and was indexed to average weekly ordinary-time earnings. However, the first Abbott-Hockey budget in 2014 paused indexation...

Australia’s neglected fed up with being neglected by policy makers How the July 9 2016 Grace Collier http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/grace-collier/australias-unprotected-fed-up-being-neglected-by-policymakers/news-story/dc0ad62f940e1c8f5037c5c73cc7418a   Here, now, we are seeing the rise of the “unprotected”, as defined by Peggy Noonan, a columnist with The Wall Street Journal. In February, Noonan wrote a piece under the headline “Trump and the rise of the unprotected”. In it, she sets out to explain the defiant political mood rising across the Western world. Noonan says that in the US, and much of Europe, the political elites cannot make sense of the world they created. The theory is deeply insightful and has real relevance to our present political predicament. Noonan says the terrifically intelligent types who “do politics for a living” seem to be the only ones who cannot see what is right in front of their noses. “In America now only normal people are capable of seeing the obvious”, and normal...

How bad are things in Europe???   Italy passes decree to speed up recovery of bad loans   29 April 2016 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-banks-decree-idUSKCN0XQ2BK   Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gestures during a news conference in Rome, Italy, April 7, 2016. Reuters/Remo Casilli Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government on Friday passed a decree to speed up the recovery of unpaid credit in a banking system saddled with billions of euros in bad loans.  Italy's lenders have some 360 billion euros ($410 billion) in bad loans on their books, which could take years to recoup, but the decree aims to accelerate the process in the future. "This will reduce the time it takes to recoup credit from six to eight years to six to eight months," Renzi told reporters after the decree was passed.  "This decree aims to resolve... definitively the problems of our country's banking system," he said.  The government is seeking...

Young people today are overqualified, underemployed and swimming in debt: report Sydney Morning Herald June 15, 2016 - 2:47PM Kelsey Munro   Young Australians are more educated than previous generations, but they are struggling to turn higher qualifications into paid work. And they are paying considerably more for an education that is not properly equipping them with the skills needed in a rapidly changing workforce, according to a new report that paints a grim picture of intergenerational inequity. In the middle of an election campaign where key youth issues have struggled for airtime, the report by advocacy and research group the Foundation for Young Australians suggests this generation may be the first to contribute more to government coffers than they receive, due to the ageing population, higher health costs and a shrinking tax base. "Sometimes we tend to blame the individual young person - sometimes they blame themselves," said the foundation's...

Woe betide Aussies investors conned into making investments into slices of farm paddocks!  Funny how ASIC chases the tail of UK decisions OR is the truth the order is reversed with our record of world firsts!  All we ever export are ponzi schemes with instrutions on how to do and how to get away with it! FCA wins landbanking  case, but investors still likely to lose out Asset Land’s appeal rejected by supreme court but City regulator says investors likely only to get fraction of money back     21 April 2016   https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/apr/20/fca-wins-landbanking-case-investors-likely-lose-out   The City regulator has won its case against those behind a land investment scam first highlighted by the Guardian in 2009. It is, however, a bittersweet victory for the investors who sunk money into the scheme because they might only get back a tiny fraction of the cash they handed over.  The case in the supreme...

And this is what the Liberals want to bring in here...$100,000 degrees and means tested student loans when most of them can’t find a job after they graduate!   USA Debt Slaves are the Government’s Largest Asset Class, and it will Haunt the Economy for Years by Wolf Richter • June 13, 2016   http://wolfstreet.com/2016/06/13/debt-slaves-student-loans-government-largest-asset-class-to-haunt-economy-for-years/   “One of the biggest threats to our economic outlook.” Endless discussions of how important inflation is to the US economy, and how there hasn’t been enough of it in recent years, and how more inflation would be a godsend, has become the standard. The threat of lethal deflation is being brandished to rationalize all kinds of absurd monetary policies. And we know why: inflation is good only for debtors, in an over-indebted country. But that’s not true either. Because a lot of debtors, particularly those who funded their education with loans, are being strangled by...

We were right...peas in a pod!   Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT LOCATION: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1730220.htm Broadcast: 31/08/2006 Court case reveals Primelife boardroom drama Reporter: Greg Hoy http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1730220.htm   KERRY O'BRIEN: It would have to have been one of the most colourful boardroom dramas to have emerged from Australian business. The battle for control of the retirement and aged care corporation Primelife, involving some of the most famous names in business - has spilled into the Victorian Supreme Court, revealing publicly, in candid detail, how bruising and brutal boardroom politics can be. Now as a Supreme Court judge quietly considers his verdict in the case, control of the long-troubled corporation is again about to change hands. Greg Hoy reports. GREG HOY: The Victorian Supreme Court must now decide. Having heard the evidence in a corporate power struggle for control of an aged care empire - evidence including video of board meetings taken...

If this was all planned it explains why they went after ARIP’s enticing them to release equity and spend the kid’s inheritance... That is how a lot of members got roped into buying into investment properties and why they used spruikers to do the dirty work     Transcript Business identities buy into aged care Date : 03/08/2003 Reporter: Alan Kohler   http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/content/2003/s916052.htm     ALAN KOHLER: One in four Australians will soon be of retirement age and providing them with a place to live is becoming good business. That's certainly what two of Australia's best-known business identities, Robert de Crespigny and Ron Walker, have decided - buying into one of the country's aged care developers, Primelife. Trouble is, someone else got there first - Ted Sent. He may not be as well known, but he's just as tough. Greg Hoy reports. GREG HOY: What warning would you give to Mr...

What other nasties are hidden in the budget? Budget signals the 'beginning of the end' of community radio A tiny line item in the 2016 budget -- $1.4m gone from community radio -- could devastate the sector, writes freelance journalist Denham Sadler. 3 June 2016 https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/06/03/budget-signals-beginning-end-community-radio/ While Treasurer Scott Morrison was delivering his budget night address a small band of dedicated community radio advocates had already launched into campaign mode.  Buried deep in this year’s federal budget was a small funding cut — an “absolute pittance” to the government — that could mark the beginning of the end of Australian community radio. Community radio advocates quickly jumped into action to rally an increasingly disenfranchised array of mostly young people to make yet another stand for a service they say plays a crucial role in diversifying Australia’s media and giving a voice to those who are usually ignored.  The government’s Community Broadcasting...

Fears of large-sale evictions when investors leave Ireland   25/04/2016 Shane Phelan and Peter Flanagan   http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/property-mortgages/fears-of-largescale-evictions-when-investors-leave-ireland-34656300.html   Families renting properties owned or controlled by large investment funds are facing huge uncertainty over the future.  Several of the largest investment firms, who have swooped in to buy swathes of Irish property loans in recent years, are refusing to give assurance about how long they will continue to operate here.   Their silence will fuel fears for large-scale evictions, such as those threatened in Tyrrelstown in Dublin and Blackrock in Cork, where properties are being sold out from under tenants.  Many funds operate cycles of five years, or even less before they move to cash in on their investment.   The Irish Independent surveyed the major investment funds who have bought into the property market in recent years.  However, most refused to say how long they would be staying in the Irish...

7-Eleven Head Office has turned a blind eye to wage abuse for years.  Owners made Billions on backs of the poorest people. 7-Eleven creates new public relations disaster Date May 14, 2016 Adele Ferguson http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/7eleven-creates-new-public-relations-disaster-20160512-gou149.html When the opening line of 7-Eleven's press release turned out to be a blatant lie it didn't bode well for what came next.  On Wednesday the scandal-ridden convenience store giant issued a misleading statement that head office and the Allan Fels Wages Panel had agreed to "transition" to an internal unit within 7-Eleven. In other words it wants to do it itself and it wants us to trust it to do it better than an independent panel led by Fels, the former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.  This is coming from a company that is battling a crisis in confidence, and a track record of years of underpayment of wages by its franchisees...

Bank of North Dakota Soars Despite Oil Bust: A Blueprint for California? Posted on May 2, 2016 by Ellen Brown https://ellenbrown.com/2016/05/02/bank-of-north-dakota-soars-despite-oil-bust-a-blueprint-for-california/ Despite North Dakota’s collapsing oil market, its state-owned bank continues to report record profits. This article looks at what California, with fifty times North Dakota’s population, could do following that state’s lead. In November 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Bank of North Dakota (BND), the nation’s only state-owned depository bank, was more profitable even than J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. The author attributed this remarkable performance to the state’s oil boom; but the boom has now become an oil bust, yet the BND’s profits continue to climb. Its 2015 Annual Report, published on April 20th, boasted its most profitable year ever. The BND has had record profits for the last 12 years, each year outperforming the last. In 2015 it reported $130.7 million in earnings, total...

The CDOs That Destroyed AIG: The Big Short Doesn’t Quite Reveal What They Knew and When They Knew It 05/15/2010 05:12 am ET | Updated May 25, 2011 David Fiderer It’s been eighteen months since AIG collapsed, and Congress has yet to seriously focus on the most important questions: What did they know and when did they know it?  “What” refers to the fatal flaws in the collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, that AIG insured. “They” are the bankers that structured and sold the CDOs, plus the AIG executives who took on the credit risk, plus the rating agencies that handed out AAA ratings. “When” harkens back to 2005 and 2006, when those toxic CDOs were first issued. Just before the backdoor bailout of AIG’s banks actually closed, Michael Lewis addressed what they knew and when they knew it in Portfolio. He explained why the CDO market was ground zero for...

Where are the regulators?    Grupo Arcano's fraudulent tale has an Australian chapter 2 May 2016 Jessica Sier http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/grupo-arcanos-fraudulent-tale-has-an-australian-chapter-20160427-gog2vu.html   It's not often that a self-proclaimed multi-billionaire disappears to Malta after his personal history as an early Google investor and Stanford graduate is revealed to be false. It's even rarer for such an elaborate tale of Chilean corporate fraud to reach the office towers of Sydney.  But in the case of Alberto Chang Rajii that is exactly what happened.   Last year, Mr Chang Rajii, 42, was settling in nicely as a jet-set resident: he'd purchased a $2 million Sydney apartment, had opened an office for his private asset management arm and was schmoozing some of Australia's richest families.   But after years of renting a plush new office in Sydney's Bligh Street, it was abandoned. Now, boxes are stacked against the walls and newspapers gather at the door. The same goes...

  How one single mum battled a $1billion fraud - Denise Brailey's efforts to win for Comsumers   18 March 2001    http://www.crikey.com.au/2001/03/18/how-one-single-mum-battled-a-1billion-fraud/   She was almost elected to the WA Parliament, now finance broker campaigner Denise Brailey is really prodding the Howard government and ASIC into action as elderly investors could face losses exceeding $1 billion with dodgy finance brokers.  She was almost elected to the WA Parliament, now finance broker campaigner Denise Brailey is really prodding the Howard government and ASIC into action as elderly investors could face losses exceeding $1 billion with dodgy finance brokers.    When the Court Government in Western Australia proved incapable of acting against the brokers and Fair Trading Minister Dodgy Doug Shave was not sacked, Denise decided to stand against Doug in his seat of Alfred Cove in the state election on February 10.   Well Dougie lost his seat to Liberals for Forests...

Mortgage-holders have lost €17.6bn in ‘wealth’ since property crash – S&P Posted on April 29, 2016 by Admin • 0 Comments http://www.castlecountrywide.ie/property-news/mortgage-holders-have-lost-e17-6bn-in-wealth-since-property-crash-sp/ Irish mortgage borrowers have lost €17.6 billion of their combined “wealth” since the property market crashed, new research has found.In a report which said the housing and mortgage markets are struggling even as economic growth accelerates, credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s found that more than 40 per cent of borrowers remain in negative equity. S&P said home loans originated in 2007, just before the crash, have the highest degree of negative equity, at 59 per cent. Buy-to-let borrowers were more likely to be in negative equity than owner-occupiers, it added. Homes in the Border and western regions are more likely than other parts of the State to be in negative equity. “We found that the depth of negative equity in Ireland is severe, averaging €53,900 per property,” said...

Why Iceland reacted so fiercely to the Panama Papers First published:  Wednesday 27 April 2016 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/why-iceland-reacted-so-fiercely-to-the-panama-papers/7357692   https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pelDkxyAO3?play=true Iceland's Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson wasn't the only world leader named in the Panama Papers, but he was the first to lose his job over it. Why is Iceland so intolerant of financial misbehaviour? Keri Phillips explains. It took less than a week for Iceland's prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, to stand aside after the Panama Papers revealed details of his wife's offshore account. His message to the country was more or less that we should all be together, we are all in the same boat, but at the same time he had taken a boat of his own, filled it up with gold and moved it abroad. Guðni Jóhannesson, University of Iceland The leaked documents revealed Sigmundur Davíð had been the co-owner of a company called Wintris Inc, set up in 2007 in...

Hiding behind technology.....   Is the Wall Street Cartel Re-grouping?  Regulator fires a warning shot   27 April 2016 http://wallstreetonparade.com/   Remember the chat rooms dubbed “The Cartel” and “The Bandits Club” that contributed to felony counts against the mega Wall Street banks last May for rigging the foreign currency markets? How about that classic from the Barclays chat room trader: “if you aint cheating, you aint trying.”  Well, apparently, one or more banks are causing concerns in this area again.  Yesterday, the regulator of national banks, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, sent out a severe warning to its flock that there could be a five year jail sentence waiting in the wings for anyone attempting to use technology to block its mandated access to bank records. The letter was authored by Bethany Dugan, Deputy Comptroller for Operational Risk. The statement read in part: “The OCC has become...

What a hoot..... Open letter to Senator Arthur Sinodinos, from Kristina Keneally Kristina Keneally 28 April 2016   http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/29/open-letter-to-senator-arthur-sinodinos-from-kristina-keneally?CMP=share_btn_tw   Woody Allen said 80% of life is showing up. Every single day of my ministerial career I showed up. I did my job. I answered the hard questions. I faced the opposition, the media and the public. Ask any NSW press gallery journalist. As premier I ended every media conference by asking, “Are there any more questions?”, and the journalists answering no. Ask your fellow Coalition colleagues in NSW. Every time they called an inquiry, no matter how politically motivated, I showed up. An upper house inquiry into the murder of Michael McGurk: I showed up. An upper house inquiry into the sale of electricity assets: I showed up. After Barry O’Farrell was elected he instituted a second electricity transactions inquiry, conducted by Justice Tamberlin. I volunteered to show up to...