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Monday, January 11, 2021

Australian pensioners are alarmed

Anyhow, in our last blog, we talked about that Australia can do better in the future, if the politicians put people first. But look what has happened, to make the Australian pensioners alarmed and upset.

Australian pensioners alarmed

As we have said, for Australia to do better, the politicians must put people, but this man above did the opposite, and even so, he keeps getting rich, while the rest of us on a pension struggle to make ends meet. This is not right.

Now, let us start from the beginning

Today the Australian pensioners are alarmed, because their pensions can be cut, and some of them may even lose the government pension. So, let us talk about the man that brought in this disaster, that the Australian pensioners didn’t deserve. Anyhow, this disastrous budget was delivered from the then treasurer Joe Hockey, the 13th of May 2014, today we are still finding how terrible this budget was. Because the 1^st of January 2017, some Australian pensioners have lost some pension payments. But first let us see how the expert have described this budget at that time. So, here I quote:

The grim budget faced widespread criticism and was overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian public as reflected in all opinion polls after its release. Opposition to "unfair" budget measures came from the opposition and crossbench, pensioners, economists, the union movement, students and welfare, community and disability groups with some taking to the streets in protest. The budget included changes which were contrary to pre-election commitments and promises made by the Liberals in opposition. Critics argue that every one of the following pre-election commitments made by Tony Abbott were broken in the first budget: "No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS." Echos of the "dead and buried" Fightback! policy package from the 1993 election occurred with proposals to defer unemployment benefits for six months for under 30s and the removal of GP bulk billing. Most proposals have since been shelved, dumped or modified.

End of quote.

Anyhow, Joe Hockey, has moved out of the Australian politics, but the politician have given him a good job, with a very good pay. Meanwhile the Australian pensioners are hurt from those changes to the assets test that he proposed. Here we want to ask, if he wanted to save money to the government by cutting the pension, why he didn’t propose to cut his own pay and the other politician pay, at least the same amount that the pensioner will lose, just to be fair for everybody, since they receive a ridiculous high pay for their services. We think that to cut the politician pay is only fair, since we are all in the same boat of Australia. Now, let us talk about the Australian pensioners, because they are alarmed and worried.

(But before we do that, please note that these articles now have been regrouped, so they may not follow each other closely.)

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Pensioner are alarmed

Yes, dear readers, today the Australian pensioners are alarmed, they are alarmed because they feel that the Australian government is ripping them off. They feel ripped off because the changes that are taking place from the first of January 2017 are unfair to them. We believe that they are right to feel alarmed, worried and upset, because some of them will be forced to live with less than the minimum government pension.

Therefore, we will talk about the Australian pensions, since most of us must be interested about. I admit that I am not an expert in politics and government matters, however, when we use our common sense and things don’t work out, we want to have our say. So, let us talk about the Australian politics and what affects us directly. So, the Australian Pensions are changing, from the first of January 2017. This change is hurting people that rely on the Australian government pension.

Here we are talking about retirees, that have not got enough of their own funds to retire and live a modest decent life, so, they rely on the Australian government pension, for a full pension or part pension. Most of the people that will be affected from this change, are the part pension retirees; some of them will receive less pension, and some of them will lose the government pension altogether, because of the changed in the assets-test.

Now, what hurts most these pensioners that are losing pension money, is that the people that have got no assets, because they have never worked hard and tried to save money, they will still receive the full pension from the government, but those that have worked hard, payed their tax and saved their money for rainy days, hoping to have just a bit extra cash when they retied will have the pension reduced and in some cases completely cut off. We believe that this is not right, because it is the people that have worked hard and saved their money, are the people that have paid most taxes in the past.

Anyhow, here are some figures that have been published on the net.

About 330,000 Australians will find their pension cut from the 1^st of January- 90,000 will be losing it entirely, because of the tighter assets test. I believe that it is not fair, because it is already hard for pensioners to live a modest life peacefully.

So, if the federal government loses next election, because of what they have done, they deserve to lose. Anyhow, let us look at some possible outcome, and how people can react to these pensions cut. Here we are going to write about some imaginary case, about what some people can do, because they feel that they are being discriminated and punished for being good honest citizen.

Anyhow, here we are going to talk about a case or two, as an example. You see, before this pension was cut, this couple had accepted that the government would give them only a part pension, so, they tried to live with that, but now that pension is being cut, they don’t know what to do, because it is going to be hard for them to live a decent modest life.

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Other pensioners’ concerns

Here we cannot use real names, so, the name that appear are not their real names.

Mr. John Day and Mrs. Ann Day are two pensioners, they have received a part pension for years, as they are both over 70 years old, so, they are aged pensioners.

Anyhow, let us describe how this change will affect Mr. and Mrs. Day.

Mr. and Mrs. Day own two houses, they both live in the same house, even though they are not on the best terms with each other, and it is said that they will end up divorced soon. Anyhow, they are still living under the same roof as husband and wife, so, they receive their pension as a couple, which is less than if they had the pension paid as single people, so, they start thinking if they are doing the right thing, or they should do other things to improve their financial position. So, let us compare what is happening to their pension.

As we have said, Mr. and Mrs. Day have two houses, one they live in and another one they rent, so, the house they rent is calculated as an asset, the value of the house is set at 520,000 dollars, add to that a few more things they have, they have 550,000 dollars’ assets, so, their pension is calculated on these assets, as it was before they told me that they were getting from the government about 450 per fortnight each, from the 1^st of January, they are going to get about 350 dollars per fortnight each. This is not enough to live with even if you try hard to save money.

The house they rent, today it is rented at 400 dollars per week, because they could not rent it any higher, now, that is not net money, because they must pay all the fixed expenses, like the rates, the water and other urban utilities, the insurance, the maintenance. But that is not all, because sometimes the house is vacant for several weeks until a new tenant is found. So, there are times when in a year, they can average from the house rent, about 200 dollars per week.

Here one needs to ask, where and how the government people work out this new law, about the assets and how much you earn. I believe that it should be worked on a real possibility that you can earn at least as much money as the full pension, before they cut the pension.

Anyhow, at this point of time I believe that this article is becoming too long, so, the facts and figure about this example will be discussed in our next article, assets and pension cuts.

See you soon.

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This blog, Australian pensioners are alarmed

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See you soon in our blog, assets and pensions cut.

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Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Australia can do better in the future

WELCOME TO MENFRANCO GENERAL BLOG. Today we continue posting a few posts about Australia, we started with the drought issue that is affecting the farmers, and continue with other issues that affects the Australian public, and other world issues.

ANYHOW, IN OUR LAST BLOG WE TALKED ABOUT WORLD ISSUES, BECAUSE WE WANTED TO SAY WHAT WE SEE HAPPENING IN THE WORLD, HAVING DONE THAT NOW WE CAN GO BACK TO TALK ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN ISSUES. This is a group or articles that we have written in the past, and now we are publishing them in blogger.

Australia Can Do Better

But the people in power need to put people first

Welcome to our article, Australia can do better in the future

Dear readers, this is another article about the Australian political parties. We believe that the Australian government can do better, if the politicians in power think about the people first. Therefore, whichever party is elected from the people to form government, when they budget or make new laws, they must put people first, because that is their job, since that is the reason they have been elected to parliament. Of course, the political parties have their own beliefs, so, they help some groups more than other groups. So, let us look which political party is better for which group:

The Labour Party helps the workers and the have-not. They also have idealistic ways to help all communities; so, it is like the communist party, in the sense that they don’t like the rich and the large enterprise. They like the government to be the big spender, which is good, but they easily run out of money and that is their biggest problem.

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Now let us talk about the coalition. The coalition like to make laws and budgets to helps the rich; they also help the poor and the have-not, but they are not their priority.

In this article, because the coalition is in government and we want to say things that they have done, let us talk about them a bit more than the Labour Party.

The coalition likes large enterprises and the rich people, they are more willing to help the employers, the self-employed and those that own properties, in the belief that these groups will employ people gainfully, which will help run the country without asking help from the government; so, the coalition government let the country run on its own, as much as they can from these self-driven people; which when the coalition is in power, they are more willing to use their own money to run their business. But even this system misses a few things, because there is no help for a large section of the community.

Anyhow, what we want to say here is that both parties are not looking after those people that are neither rich and no poor, they are left on their own to do what they want to do, because they are self-employed, are farmers or own properties; but that is not all, they turn to these people only to tax them, and worst still sometimes they make laws or pass budgets that penalize them badly. Anyhow, let us look at what the coalition did, when they did this mathematical heartless budget that has hurt many people.

The mathematical heartless budget

To understand what I am saying here, we need to go back to Joe Hockey budget 2014; this budget must be the worse budget ever made, because it penalizes those people that work hard and look after themselves. If you ask me what I think about Joe Hockey as a politician treasurer, I will say that they made a mistake to put him there. Whoever becomes a treasurer must be somebody compassionate, he must think about how his budget is going to affect the people, especially the poor people, the pensioners and the family man; but Joe Hockey has no compassion in him, he thinks only about the government bank account that is overdrawn, so, he wants to brink the government bank account to surplus.

The then prime minister Tony Abbott did not understand the situation any better himself, he thinks that Joe Hockey budget is good; I remember Tony Abbott smiling and laughing at budget night, when people were shocked at this tough budget. In my opinion the PM should have at least be apologetic to the people that were affected adversely, but he kept smiling and laughing, as if what they were doing was great.

There were many mistakes in Joe Hockey 2014 budget, but in my opinion one of the main mistakes was the change they made to the assets test. Because treasurer Joe Hockey and PM Tony Abbott made a disaster, when they changed it, from $1.50 per thousand to $3.00 per thousand, when people in most cases cannot earn that sort of money from their assets. Perhaps I feel this way, because I have been affected and I have many friends that have been affected by the assets test badly, so, we hate Joe Hockey, because he has robbed us of our fair share of money that we were intitled to have. This is what we want to talk and explain in this article, and if this article is not enough will write another article, to show you what we mean.

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Let us start talking about the assets test

The assets test and the pensioner the way we understand it.

Here we are forced to repeat; people work hard during their lives and save money, so that when they retire, they can use this money or use the earnings from the assets that they have bought to live a better life.

But this does not work right all the time, because politicians introduce laws or taxes that hurt people that have worked hard and saved their earnings, like the change in the assets test of 2014 budget, that has cut off the pension to many pensioners, other had their pension reduced so much that they can hardly live on it, in fact, these people have to live on a budget that is a lot less that the government pension. People that work hard and save money don’t deserve to be treated this bad.

I don’t know why the politician cannot work it out themselves, it is not that hard to add a few numbers together; anyhow, it maybe that they are too lazy to do that, so, we need to write down examples to show them what they are doing, because they need to be explained the consequences of what they have done. So, let me write a short example hereunder on how the assets test has affected these pensioners that own two houses, one is their residence, the other is a rental property.

We are talking about rental properties, because rental properties are at the top of the list of the disadvantages that have resulted from the increased assets test. So, let us talk about some friends of mine that will call, Mr. and Mrs X in a shortened version, we will write a longer version in our next article.

Mr and Mrs X, after the assets test was introduced, they informed me that the new assets test has affected them so bad and in such a way that that they could starve, therefore, they must withdraw money from their savings to live a modest life. You see, they receive very little money from their government pension to live on, because of the assets test. Their pension has been cut to $120 each per fortnight, so, they receive $240 for both from the government pension, plus their house rent that is about $13000 a year net, after expenses. This works out at about $450 per fortnight for both, So, their income is now; $240+450=690 per fortnight for both, which is a lot less than the normal pension, which can be about $1200 for both.

What is wrong with the people in Canberra? Are they blind and can’t see that they are punishing the people that have worked hard during their lives? They worked hard and saved their money to live an easier life when they retire, but now they are punished for having done that; this does not sound right to me, this should not happen, if all citizen were treated equal, but that nasty budget broke all rules, when they changed the assets test. I believe that the government, before they change anything financially, they must ensure that all citizen should receive, or they should be able to earn a minimum amount of money to live on. Therefore, they should not bring out laws or budgets that make it impossible for their citizen to achieve that themselves; but if they bring out laws like that, they must reimburse the citizen for their loss, it is only fair.

But there is more to worry about, if this trend of punishing the self-driven hard worker continues, they will be killing the will of the hard-working people to earn and save money and own a second property. You see, once this group of people realize that there is no point to work hard and save money, because they will be put in a disadvantage financial position from the government. They will stop working hard and the looser will be the Australian government, because they will run their business in such a way that they can collect the government pension when they are old. I hope you see what we mean. I believe that Australian government can do better than this, but they need to fix the mistakes they are making, and most of all fix the assets test.

This article is becoming too long, so, see you in our next article, where we will write a few articles, starting with how the Australian pensioners are alarmed, and about how the rental properties have affect the owners adversely, because of the overrated assets test and to what degree. See you soon.

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This is, Menfranco general blog

This blog, Australia can do better in the future

IS TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with; Australian pensioner are alarmed
------------------------------------

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See you soon in our blog, Australian pensioners are alarmed.

See you soon.

-----------------------------------------

Thursday, December 31, 2020

World news and my views December 2020

TODAY BECAUSE I HAVE JUST PUBLISHED ANOTHER ARTICLE World News and My Views Dec. 2020, IT INVOLVED THE ENTIRE WORLD, I AM ALSO GOING TO POST IT HERE IN BLOGGER FOR TWO REASONS, ONE IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING THESE DAYS, THE OTHER IT IS BECAUSE IT IS THE END OF THE YEAR, SO, I WANT TO GIVE MY READERS MY BEST WISHES, FOR THE NEW YEAR. We will go back to write about Australian problems in next post.

The corona virus pandemic has spread everywhere, and has made the world unsafe, so, wherever you go you can have problems, even to get in or out of a country. Sometimes you cannot even leave your home. But you must do this just to keep safe.

World news and my views December 2020

World News and My Views Dec. 2020

The COVID19 hard times we are living

Dear readers, I have started writing this article in December 2020, because I want to keep a record of what is happening these days. I believe that the time we are living today are hard times, and there is no evidence that they will be better soon in the future. Of course, the greatest problem is the COV19 that is hard to control even today. Perhaps on the near future, we will be able to control it with this new vaccine, let us hope it works well.

Anyhow, let me make a list of the corona virus, to compare with the list that we have written last time, and with our future lists. Perhaps we need to remember these hard times, even if most of us one day will try to forget them, as being painful times. But nevertheless, what is happening needs to be remembered, just the way it is happening to tell the story. So, let us write a list like we did last time:

Anyhow, today is near the end of December 2020, the state of Victoria has gained control of the corona virus pandemic, so, it is like the other states. Anyhow, while it seems that we are gaining control, here and there other corona virus cluster start, and people are worried in case it goes out of control again. The prime minister and the premiers of each state do what they can, but whatever they do they cop some criticism, you see people are never happy, when they are asked to do unusual things. But I believe that Australia is doing better that the rest of the world. But let us make a list about what is happening.

Today the 28^th of December 2020, Australia has had, 28312 cases positive and 908 deaths; the state of Victoria has, 20362 positive and 820 deaths; NSW. has 4858 positive and 53 deaths; Queensland has 1241 positive and 6 deaths; WA 855 positive and 9 deaths; SA. 571 positive 4 deaths; Tasmania 234 positive and 13 deaths; Canberra 118 positive 3 deaths; NT 73 positive no deaths.

Now, this is happening in the entire world, with over 80,000,000 people positive, and with USA at the top;

USA; 19,300,000 positive cases, and 337,000 deaths.

India; 10,200,000 positive cases and 148,000 deaths.

Brazil; 7,500,00 positive cases and 191,000 deaths.

Mexico 1,377,000 positive cases and 122,000 deaths.

These are the 4 countries with most deaths.

Looking at this list, we can say that Australia is still doing well compared to these 4 countries above. Because Australia death toll has not gone up much, some other countries it has gone up 30% or more.

In Europe, the second wave has caused many more deaths, one of the worst affected has been Italy. Today Italy has over 2,000,000 case positive and 72,000 deaths. Anyhow, at last some vaccines have been made, and soon they will start vaccinating people. We all hope for a good outcome, and this corona virus pandemic may soon be over. So, let us look at other world news.

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The last elections in Queensland and America.

Now just to keep talking about the elections as we did last time, since we wanted to see the outcome, I can tell you this. The Queensland elections were won by the Labour Party and the premier Anastacia Palaszczuk, so, she can continue to do her job and be the premier of Queensland.

Now at that point of time, I was thinking that the elections in America could go the same way and favour the existing government. But it was not so. Because President Trump lost the elections. The greatest difference in the running of the elections was that; The Queensland premier Anastacia Palaszczuk was talking about how to avoid the COVID19 pandemic, but President Trump completely tried ignoring the corona virus pandemic. So, was this the main cause that Donald Trump lost the elections, or was something else, we do not know.

Anyhow, President Trump did not like losing the election and has not conceded defeat, but slowly is accepting he has lost, so, we all hope that the 20^th of January, the president elect Joe Biden will be sworn in as the new President, and Trump will go quietly back to his business life, So, we are waiting for the new direction America will go, under the new administration.

We hope that they can guide America the right way, because the entire world needs America to be financially strong. We also need America to be a peaceful country, and it is up to this new administration to make laws that can solve the problem of racial discrimination, and hatred between the people and the police forces, as it is it seems to me that they hate each other.

Now, this is only my view and I might be wrong, but most time in the past, from this land hereunder Australia, we were hearing President Obama say to the African Americans, I am with you, and we will investigate what has happened. When he could have said something else. You see, when he said I am with you, or something like that, he was siding with the rebellious crowd, that usually would rob and bash other people, when the police came to arrest them, they would fight the police force, and the police were forced to use violent ways to arrest them.

What I am trying to say here is this; President Obama was siding too much with the people, instead of siding with the police force, he should have told the people to be good citizen and do not rob or fight with the police force, because the police had a job to do, and their job was that they must arrest those people that make trouble. So, it is the people that start this chain reaction and hatred.

During the Trump administration these things continued to happen, and Trump did nothing to fix them. So, we hope that the new administration under Joe Biden finds a way how to fix this problem, that most people thing it is racial, when it may not be completely racial, but nevertheless it needs to be fixed. Good luck Joe Biden, if you can fix this problem, you will be a good president.

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The hard times we are living

I believe that most people will remember the year 2020 as one of the worst years of this generation, because of the corona virus pandemic. While I am writing this article, there is some hope that the worst is over, because they have started vaccinating people. So, if this vaccine works the way they believe it will work, then the worst is over, and next year will be a different year and everything can go back to normal. But we must wait and see what happens.

Anyhow, we must hope for the best outcome, we must also think and hope that something positive can come out of this negative experience. You see, we have seen that the governments of the world, can do a lot more to help the people than we thought possible. And the people can be led to do hard things, if they are explained properly what they must do for their benefit; like to stay isolated and at home for a long time, even if some of us did not follow it properly and got in trouble.

After having seen what has happened, I believe that in the future governments, should have policies that would help the people in need more that they do now. So, we may have to have governments that are more socialist and are able to use the people money to help the needy, as they have done during this pandemic. I hope this is not just my wishful thinking, and something can be done in the future.

So, let us leave behind this dreadful year 2020, because it is nearly ended, and hope that next year things will be better, the COVID19 has ended, because of the vaccine, and we are better off because we have learned how to deal with these things.

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I think I have said enough in this article, and because it is the end of this year, all is left to do is to wish my readers, a safe and prosperous new year.

To all my readers. We want to wish you a healthy and safe new year, and a happy one too, also may you prosper enough to regain all the loss that you had last year. That is all for this year. So, will see you next year.

See you soon.

This is Menfranco general blog

World news and my views December 2020

IS TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with; Australia can do better than this
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