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From the last exhibition at the White Rabbit Gallery, Chippendale / Blackfriars, Sydney. Sorry, I’ve misplaced the artist’s name. Stay tuned……
And You Thought the Bank Never Had a Heart
15 Monday Oct 2012
Posted in Emmjay
15 Monday Oct 2012
Posted in Emmjay
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From the last exhibition at the White Rabbit Gallery, Chippendale / Blackfriars, Sydney. Sorry, I’ve misplaced the artist’s name. Stay tuned……
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
I am amazed how many bank branches are about, far more, from memory, than when we were last in Europe. They must still employ lot of people despite ATM.s and use of cards. Australian banks are hugely profitable and with dividends at around 6-7 percent, shares are a good buy. If you are a retiree (depending on income) the franking credits gets returned as well (tax on banks profits)of around 30% brings the return closer to 10%. Anyone who got their super or retirement income ‘managed’ by funds would have either lost or made very little over the last 5 years.
I find this a very scandalous area of government mismanagement, all under the banner of ‘freedom of choice’. There should be a government guarantee on all income for retirees and all retirees should not have to pay at all for their savings to be ‘managed’.
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Don’t get me going anybody about banks with the sore point raw about the amount of money I paid in fees when I was travelling and couldn’t find my way sometimes out of a paper bag. Travelling can get so disorienting and the first two days away I think I was starting to feel like swearing volubly at the noise levels of commercial interests screaming out of shop doors and conflicting music, being taken advantage of every time I drew breath, but having the bank suck away my precious little money was an eye opener. There are the dead and the greedy I think.
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I think it was in eighties that us, four couples used buy and sell and sometimes even renovate houses in Balmain, We called ourselves Balmain improvements, work and profits were shared.
Walking around in Darling street, eating a hamburger, our bank manager, a lovely big Aussie bloke with a big heart spotted you, put his hairy arms around you and asked: Hi Helvs ( Gez), do you need money for your what’s it again……Balmain improvements?
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Nice artwork, by the way!
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These ATMs of which you speak, Therese, were introduced in a deliberate effort by the banks to move their customers outside the banks and therefore off bank premises, where if they were robbed they would not be covered by the bank’s insurance. This was a great saving to the banks, not only on their insurance premiums, but also on the cost of labor since they now had fewer to deal with face to face.
For saving the banks so much money, and for braving the bandits in the outside world, we, their customers were rewarded with… the introduction of a $2.00 fee for each ATM transaction…
Now what was that about boiling frogs…?
😐
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Oops! ‘fewer customers to deal with’… of course!
😉
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Hi Asty. I agree – the $2 fee is such as scam – especially when you go to use your own bank’s ATM – which is usually free, but the thing is out of order.
The insurance thing might be a bit complex when the ATM is inside the foyer – or the bit between the bank and the road, but behind glass doors.
I personally think that ATMs are a stop gap until everyone is forced to use a credit / debit card and cash becomes as scarce as hen’s teeth. Apart from the banks finding electronic transfers more convenient and cheap to do, the tax man loves a cashless society because it kills the black economy and all the mongrels who don’t pay their fair share will have to cough up. I’ll naively suggest that people who do pay their taxes might then stop subsidising those who currently do not – and then could expect a reduction in rates ….hahahahahah
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Indeed… but I wonder if it has occurred to anyone to think abou what might happen to the regular Austrlian economy if the black economy should disappear; my guess is that it would collapse.
Maybe they meant something different when they were suggesting a ‘cashless society’…
😉
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I think that tradesmen have become progressively disinclined to do jobs as ‘cash in hand’, mainly because BAS statements take into account materials purchased wholesale, vs materials used in jobs.
Having said that, i think there will continue to be a kind of a black market between tradesmen, where ‘mates are just helping mates out’. Sometimes I wish I were a tradesman!
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Big, aren’t you a kind of tradie ? Maybe a rough tradie, but you certainly help little guys out.
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Rough as guts!
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Big M, the little ones coming out to the world think it can’t be all bad out there, that big bloke seems really nice, maybe they are all ok..?
Later on they’ll find out that there an awful lot baddies too… 🙂
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there ARE
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Come on Big, you’re a push over – when you’re not being a pull-out – you know, being a forceps-ful character 🙂
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It was only an embarrassing spate of robberies of customers outside banks that forced them to introducing the ‘foyer’ thing, Therese; they may even have to pay insurance on that I suppose… Even so we’re still being charged for something that already saves the banks money; daylight robbery is not only what I call it; it’s what it IS!
And, speaking of daylight robbery… I had a chat with a dude from the Ombudsman’s office today about my last electrickery bill; apparently there’s little he can do for me about it, though I note that he was very sympathetic and rang me back within a couple of hours even though their office has apparently been recently inundated with calls…
He also explained to me that there had recently been an increase of 18% on the Standard Supply Charge… and this increase is apparently the result of three items; here they are, in no particular order:
1: Carbon tax
2: Funding mainenance on a ’60s grid, and
3: Funding the government’s latest solar subsidy scheme… for those well-off enough to be able to afford the switch to solar!
Now, there’s nothing one can do about the first, which we were told, amounts to 2- 3% on the average bill and perhaps that’s fair enough; BUT I cannot help but wonder if this ‘maintenance surcharge’ is a one off; it seems the rule is that once a tax or fee is introduced it is NEVER repealed or reduced; yet it is the last one I find to be particularly objectionable… to be charging existing electrickery customers a levy to fund subsidized solar panels for those wealthy enough to be able to afford them is rather to ‘rub one’s nose in it’, when I consider that I’m unlikely ever to be able to afford a solar conversion, yet here I am… subsidizing the solar conversions of those who can! Seems the Gillard government has taken a leaf out of the Howard government’s book and is now acting like Robin Hood in reverse… taking money from the poor to give to the rich!
Now, I’m all for subsizing solar panels; but to fund it this way is not only inequitable, it is outright theft! What chance do we the sheeple have when our governments – and all their cronies and hangers-on – can rob us all so easily? How will I, or anyone in a similar position to mine, EVER be able to afford solar panels? Meaning, I suppose, that we’ll just have to keep on paying for everyone else’s!
Yet if I were to steal a loaf of bread from a shop to feed myself, I’d probably be arrested, publicly humiliated, tried, fined and/or jailed… Don’t – PLEASE! – don’t talk to me about ‘justice’!
Land of the ‘Fair Go’? Gimme a break!
😦
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