moon phases

Started this before change to "New Blogger", as backup in case of trouble with digiphoto blog "In a Small Dark Room", or rants & links blog "Hello Cruel World" . Useful - at one stage Dark Room was there, but like the astrophysical Dark Matter, we could't see it ... better now, but kept Just In Case.

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There is nothing. There is no God and no universe, there is only empty space, and in it a lost and homeless and wandering and companionless and indestructible Thought. And I am that thought. And God, and the Universe, and Time, and Life, and Death, and Joy and Sorrow and Pain only a grotesque and brutal dream, evolved from the frantic imagination of that same Thought.
Mark Twain (letter to Joseph Twichell after his wife's death)
[me, on a bad day]

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(and my Wish List)

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Hidden cash stash in secret bank account revealed!  
Subject: RE: Hidden cash stash in secret bank account revealed!
From: Me
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 7:53 PM
To: Diane

Well, you'd definitely NOT want to be a teller or middle management.
They're being squeezed badly.

To get the cream, you need to be in the "upper" levels of management. Then you earn several times the 'average' wage of the usual hard-working 60-hour-a-week stiff, plus getting share options & bonuses that somehow always come through despite poor performance. Then, even if you get sacked for bad work, the contract you've negotiated gives you several years worth of salary. (This has been quite a scandal here over the last few years, where people who've nearly wrecked companies & been forced out have taken 'separation payments' or 'compensation' of up to $13,000,000.)

I've always, personally, put the duties of the company first to your customers, then your (operative) staff, then your shareholders. Legally, however, apparently company directors have to consider their shareholders first, hence my final sentence below. [With the usual cautions; some of our major financial disasters of the 1980s were banks (even State Banks) getting in over their heads following deregulation of what they could do.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Diane
Sent: Tuesday, 1 March 2005 11:37 PM
Subject: RE: Hidden cash stash in secret bank account revealed!

Wow, where do we sign up for a job in banking!

-----Original Message-----
From: Me
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 8:28 PM
Subject: RE: Hidden cash stash in secret bank account revealed!

A couple of weeks ago, in Chris' mail that is sent on to me as administratrix of the estate, a replacement transaction card for an ANZ account I'd never seen before arrived. I went in on the next business day with my usual batch of paperwork (death certificate, letters of administration, driver's licence, medicare card, rate notice, etc.), to either close it or transfer it to the name of the estate.

After the final $5 monthly service charge was taken out, we mutually decided to close the account. Rather than transfer the remaining balance directly to the estate account at a different bank or make out a bank cheque, the lady at the enquiries desk gave me the funds in cash to deposit into the estate account and told me final closing statement would be sent straight away.

Final Statement
Original Balance on 21/12/1995 = $490.10
Total Interest paid since = $6.17
Total Service Fees since = $494.00 (22 x $4; 41 x $6; 32 x $5)
Closing Balance on 21/2/2005 = $2.27

There were no other deposits or withdrawals.

How good a business is banking?

They haven't sent any mail about this account since 2002 (and possibly earlier), had no fiddly administration of transactions and ended up with not only all the original balance, but also managed to claw back $3.90 of the $6.17 interest, 63% of what they paid out.

Buy shares now.
[permalink] posted by Mez at 9:44 pm