Garage Sale

On the weekend I was assisting at a garage sale.

It was noticeable that the majority of enduring items were ceramic, glass, metal and leather. The plastic stuff was usually brittle and or tatty.

People came and went and some found something desirable. A lady found a masonite suitcase it was over 60 years old - older than me - and she wanted it for her suitcase collection. Several people found something to turn into a xmas present. One man went away with a box of xmas decorations.

It did not raise a great deal of money but maybe the purpose of a garage sale is to create happiness.

$ - Unit of measure for Emergency

Extract From The Guardian website:

Emergency = R × U = p × D × τ / T

In a comment article in the journal Nature, Schellnhuber and colleagues explained that to understand the climate emergency we needed to quantify the relationship between risk (R) and urgency (U).

Borrowing from the insurance industry, the scientists define risk (R) as the probability of something happening (p) multiplied by damage (D).

For example, how likely is it that sea levels will rise by a metre and how much damage will that cause.

Urgency (U) is the time it takes you to react to an issue (τ) “divided by the intervention time left to avoid a bad outcome (T)”, they wrote.

Then looking at the units of measure:
      p is a number - no units
      D (Damage) is in dollars
      τ and T are time and cancel each other out.
So an emergency is measured in dollars.

That is something politicians can understand.

$uper $uper

I worked for numerous employers over the years. I am now able to be retired because I took care of my superannuation. Three employers failed to pay my super:
1) A family company that fell behind because they did not have the cash flow and never managed to catch up. When the Tax Office chased them for payment, the principals made re-payment arrangements. Then they went bankrupt when it was time to pay.
2) A family company that failed to pay voluntary superannuation deductions into the superannuation fund.  The Tax Office will not chase voluntary superannuation deductions.
3) A one man company that  did not have proper accounting procedures. The superannuation was eventually paid after the Tax Office intervened. But he went out of business soon afterwards.

Some companies elect to only pay superannuation at the end of the quarter, then they have a month to pay and the Tax Office will not chase up for a month. So some of the superannuation may be 5 months old before you realise it will never be paid.

The lessons are clear
1) Do not work family companies or one man companies.
2) Do not work for companies that pay superannuation only once a quarter.
3) Do not make voluntary salary deductions to your superannuation until the company has paid compulsory superannuation consistently.