My late father’s superannuation was invested in insurance bonds with what was then IOOF. As a result, when IOOF demutualised circa 2002, my mother got 2715 shares in that company. At some point in recent years, they changed their name to Insignia Financial, and two years ago, they sold their insurance bond business off to …
Author Archives: Ernest Zanatta
Investing In Wine Companies Does Not Seem Like A Good Idea Right Now
I know a fellow who has, as his What’s App profile, a photo of the Bentley he possesses via hire purchase. As I discovered when he boasted to me and some others of his acquaintances (he is difficult to like enough to have real friends), a Bentley is far more expensive than a Ferrari or …
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Flying With Angels
I have written in this blog before about how Suzanne Vega has been my favourite singer for a very long time – since 1986, which was one of the most challenging years of my life. Her self titled debut album was released in May 1985, and the first single from that album started to get …
Vox Populi Vox Dei Redux – Takeaways From Last Saturday’s Federal Election
Three years ago, just before the 2022 Federal Election, I made some reflections on the lack of political engagement on the part of the Australian populace, compared to their counterparts in the 1950s: With the 2025 election now all but over, with just a few seats left to count and confirm the winner, it is …
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What A Silly (Democracy) Sausage!
It has been quite a while since I read the classic Mr Men series by Roger Hargraves. I assume it was in primary school, which is now 45 years ago. Hence I am not sure, but I do believe such expressions as ‘you silly banana’ or ‘you silly sausage’ originate in those books. The phrase …
Will George RR Martin Do A Robert Jordan On His Readers?
I do like ‘High Fantasy’, having read The Lord Of The Rings for the first time at age 11. Back in my teenage years, many fantasy series had comments on their cover referencing Tolkien to encourage people to buy those lesser works. For example, The Sword Of Shannara had ‘For those looking for something to …
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Why Do Katy Perry’s Antics Remind Me Of A Don Knotts Movie?
This morning my Facebook feed exploded with lots of commentaries and memes and parodies of the recent Amazon Blue Origin spaceflight starring Katy Perry. It seems that I am not Robinson Crusoe in my reservations about the heroism and nobility of this eleven minute ride to the lower limits of outer space. More than a …
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Should We Really Consider Katy Perry An Astronaut Now?
A former friend of mine liked Star Trek too much, to say nothing of Babylon 5 and other science fiction shows. Whilst he did not mention this to me, he did confide in a mutual friend that one of his dreams was to go into space. I don’t think it would have happened, even if …
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The Apathy Election
It’s now just over two weeks since the Federal Election was called, and last night, nominations closed. I don’t think that it is just me – it seems that virtually everyone does not care two hoots about this election. The level of apathy appears to be much higher than I have ever noticed (or not …
It’s The Economy, Stupid….
It has been an interesting few days since the tariff announcements and retractions by the Trumpster. Share market fluctuations have been sufficiently volatile as to resemble the ‘Big Wednesday’ which that stable of share market commentary newsletters has been predicting. I have been sitting tight though. I know that my ability to predict the market …
Lost For Words! 