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.

---

---

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]

---

WRITER'S LINKS
Absolute Write Paypal donation button:

Absolute Write is one of the leading sites for information on writing and publishing, especially the scam versions thereof. It has a broad, deep online community with an enormous message base going back years. Now it needs help. See the details and discussion here
Preditors and Editors
Everything you wanted to know about literary agents
On the getting of agents
Writer Beware
Miss Snark
Writer's Net

---

(and my Wish List)

---

 
Yet Another "I told you so"  

Average workers miss out on PM's wages bonanza

www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/28/1125167552299.html (text version)
www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/08/28/1125167552299.html
Date: August 29 2005
By Nick O'Malley Workplace Reporter

The massive wage increases generated by Australia's prolonged growth spell have gone largely into the pockets of the rich, challenging the Prime Minister's claim that average workers have enjoyed a real 14 per cent pay rise since 1998, research shows.

Mr Howard made the figure a central point of the last election campaign and has used it to justify his planned industrial relations reforms.

But research by the University of Sydney's centre for industrial relations research, acirrt, has found that only the top 10 per cent of wage earners saw a rise of anything like that, enjoying an increase of 13.8 per cent between 1998 and 2004.

According to acirrt's research, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures and commissioned by Unions NSW, the average wage rise has been 3.6 per cent, while the median is 2.6 per cent.

The bottom 20 per cent of income earners had an increase of just 1.2 per cent.

Some workers in highly-skilled and well-paid occupations saw their pay rates rise but their earnings fall as they lost working hours. Casuals experienced far higher wage rises than permanent staff.

John Robertson, the secretary of Unions NSW, said the research revealed that those who had received the lowest real wage increases were those most dependent on minimum wages and collective bargaining. "In this context the proposed industrial relations changes will only add to the disparity between the winners and losers," he said ...

Other research, conducted by John Shields of Sydney University, found that over the same period the incomes of the 50 highest-paid Australian chief executives had increased by 194 per cent between 1999 and last year.

Dr Shields said it was likely the executives' pay had increased by up to 230 per cent if earnings from share options were taken into consideration.

Also see Ross Gittin's column in the same publication:

Why labour market 'flexibility' can be bad

Date: August 29 2005
www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/08/28/1125167552433.html (text)
www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/08/28/1125167552433.html (fancy)
[permalink] posted by Mez at 1:01 pm