Birth-rate Crisis coming out in October
Set for a big release with maximum publicity.
We are really hopeful on this one. People all over the world are panicking but don’t have a solution.
We do.
We know why people are no longer having children, and exactly what to do about.
Can you do a review for No Other Success?
My business autobiography, No Other Success, is free through ebook retailers for a limited time.
We’re looking for people to read it and post a review on Amazon, Goodreads, and other retailers.
Same if you’ve already read it. Our goal is 200-300 reviews on Amazon.
This will help us promote Birth-Rate Crisis when it comes out.
Here’s the link https://books2read.com/u/38jd5d
Shoe Dog, about Nike
This is a truly excellent business book, about how Philip Knight started Nike on a shoestring by importing athletic shoes from Japan.
So many close shaves with disaster. Absolute page turner.
Katherine Graham, Personal History
This is the lady who took over the Washington Post after the suicide of her husband.
Nobody expected her to succeed, but she did. Fascinating personal story.
Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime
Successful long-term CEO of Disney.
Very different lessons from the above, but quite absorbing on the subjects of creativity and management.
To succeed in business and life: read and listen
There are a million good ideas out there. And even if we’ve heard them before, repetition drives in the message.
I changed my diet for the better in recent years, no so much by any grand resolution as by listening to a series of books on healthy eating.
Gradually, it became part of my thinking.
7-Eleven rip-off
This huge multinational terminates franchisees, refuses to let them sell, and then grabs the businesses as company-owned stores.
Small business owners robbed of their life’s work.
Our pathetic, spineless government is happy to bury franchising under a mountain of red tape and useless disclosures that nobody reads.
But has no problem with what amounts to outright theft.
We’ve offered a free Jim’s franchise for anyone ripped off in this way.
The first candidate finished training this week.
He’s coming into Building Inspections, and he’ll be a great franchisee.
If you owe a million dollars…
If you owe a million dollars and can’t pay, you’re in trouble.
If you owe a billion dollars and can’t pay, the bank’s in trouble
If you owe a trillion dollars and can’t pay, you’re the treasurer
Australia now has a trillion-dollar government debt.
To put this in perspective:
Interest on federal and State debts: $48 billion
Medicare benefits: $35 billion
All our police forces: $18 billion
And in Victoria…
Since 2014, the Victorian State government has employed an extra 22,000 bureaucrats, costing $3.5 to $4 billion a year.
This much money could hire 20% more doctors and nurses for our badly strained health system, and give every doctor, nurse, police officer and teacher in the State a 10% pay rise.
Plus, this legion of bureaucrats is working day and night to cripple businesses and force up the price of housing and rents with their red tape.
The civil service was already bloated and destructive before 2014. It’s worse now.
How about a government that uses our taxes for the services we really need?
In November, Victorians will have a chance to send a message.
If we choose wrong again, then heaven help us.
The Perils of Racism
Jason Arday, appointed to a Cambridge chair he was clearly unsuited to for ‘diversity’ reasons, outed for plagiarism and then committed suicide.
Three little girls, left with an abusive mother despite multiple pleas from their grandmother.
Left, because the authorities feared being seen to break up Aboriginal families.
And then she killed them.
All these people would be alive if we had followed Martin Luther King’s doctrine that people should be judged by their character rather than the colour of their skin.
To treat people differently because of their race is racism
Why are rents going up?
1. Getting rid of negative gearing, which let investors subsidise rents with tax benefits
2. Strangling red tape, taxes and zoning restrictions to stop people building
Fine to stop negative gearing, IF you leave people free to build. Disastrous if you don’t.
High rents = homeless
Interesting study in The Atlantic showing that the richest areas in America have the most homeless people.
Why? Because these areas also have the highest rents.
This is a far bigger reason than mental illness or anything else.
Though it’s also true that when restrictive zoning denies people housing, it also increases the risk of mental illness and death.
That’s it for this month; we will do a video version of this newsletter as a podcast soon, so subscribe to the ‘Conversations with Jim’ podcast to hear it.
High rent = homeless
Writing to you today as a deeply concerned Australian to draw your attention to the escalating housing and homelessness crisis in our States and Territories.
There is a clear, undeniable correlation in our current economy: skyrocketing rents are directly driving increased rates of homelessness. When the cost of basic shelter outpaces wages, our most vulnerable community members are forced out of their homes / units.
Unfortunately, this issue is deeply rooted in systemic wealth inequality. High rental prices are heavily driven by asset-rich individuals and families who hold significant portfolios of real estate, shares, gold and cash.
The tax rate for a low income person is 33% on earnings per annum.
A wealthy individual or family should pay the same 33% tax rate per annum on assets held.
Most wealthy folk don't show a large personal income per annum for tax reasons.
When housing is treated primarily as a wealth-generating asset or investment vehicle rather than a fundamental human need, regular working people and families are priced out of the market.
1) Low income people are effected by inflation. The wealthy are not.
2) Low income people struggle to save up for an asset, home or unit as rent is high.
3) When we have Billionares in OZ worth over $680 Billion, earning a modest 8% on their assets
per annum RESULT, $55 Billion Dollars.........$55 Billion Dollars......
NOW THAT MONEY NEEDS TO BE SPENT OR INVESTED EVERY YEAR $55 BILLION.
What are they Buying? Assets and more Assets every year.
4) We also have 1.6 million, Millionares in Australia.
5) Something has to change.......... this inequality is dangerous.