AN INTRIGUING QUESTION

Many prayers contain the phrase "world without end".

Does this refer to time or space?

LISTED COMPANIES AND e-MAIL

Companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) or on exchanges in other countries enjoy a valuable privilege. The quid pro quo for this should include making it easy for shareholders and customers to communicate with them by e-mail. The companies should therefore put the e-mail addresses of appropriate personnel, including that of their chief executive officer, on their web sites.

To prevent harvesting by spammers they can, of course, disguise these addresses - for example, by typing "@" as "AT" or by using a more sophisticated device such as that used on this web site.

AUSTRALIAN SHAREHOLDERS' ASSOCIATION MATERIAL

OUT NOW!

UNDERSTANDING ESTATE PLANNING

A Simple Guide to Wills and to Saving for Retirement while Minimising Tax

Using a spreadsheet to calculate the return on active portfolio    

A Penrose Tiling Art Movie by Nick Renton    

A very disgraceful abuse of parliamentary privilege occurred in the Australian Senate in 2002 when a Liberal senator made serious charges against a sitting High Court judge based on a forged document.

Senator Heffernan, in a carefully crafted speech, detailed his allegations for about 15 minutes, without naming the judge, knowing that Senate standing orders meant that he would have to sit down if he named any current member of the judiciary.

But after making his false claims that the judge "regularly trawled for rough trade" at a notorious pick-up spot for male prostitutes, the senator finally named him in the last five words of his speech: "The Honourable Justice Michael Kirby."

An excellent report of the incident and the subsequent apology is available on Channel Nine's web site.

Various statements by the former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, and the then Federal Treasurer, Peter Costello, were to the effect that borrowing by State governments for infrastructure purposes is wrong, but paying for these out of budget surpluses would be correct. Actually, as shown below, this view is back to front.

The capital cost of any infrastructure which is expected to benefit the community for many years to come should be financed by loan funds and not by taxation. Only interest and amortisation charges each year, being recurring revenue items, should be paid for out of taxation.

It is most equitable that the costs of such projects should be borne by the persons expected to benefit from such assets during the lifetime of such assets, rather than solely by the persons who happen to be taxpayers at the time of construction.

Borrowing for capital works by the Commonwealth government or by a State government, or for that matter by a local government body, is sound. It is quite different from borrowing for consumption purposes. Using loan funds in this way is quite common for companies in the private sector and governments should use the same principles.

Furthermore, loan securities issued by government borrowers tend to be very attractive to some fixed interest investors in the private sector, thus creating a "win, win" situation.

Paying for infrastructure out of budget surpluses, while superficially attractive as an anti-inflation device, is not a desirable procedure either. Such surpluses are derived from taxation revenue and not from capital sources. Therefore from a moral perspective budget surpluses should be returned to the generation that provided them. They should not be used to benefit mainly future generations.

Whether infrastructure per se is inflationary or not is not a function of whether it is funded out of taxation or out of loan funds. Rather, it is a function of the human and material resources needed for large projects. If, for example, skilled labour is in short supply then wages will rise and this will feed into inflation, unless the demand for this can be satisfied by migration and/or training.

DID YOU KNOW?

On 1987-06-30 the All Ordinary Index was 1764.1.
On 2007-06-30, 20 years later, it was 6310.6.

This represented an average growth rate of about 6.58 per cent per annum, for a period which included the October 1987 crash.

Q. What would the Index be in 100 years' time at the same rate of growth?

A. About 3,700,000.

TELSTRA

Telstra thinks that it is all right to hang an occasional innocent person as a by-product of hanging guilty persons. Do you agree?

See Telstra and Censorship.

THE FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA ASKED A QUESTION

Question by the Hon. John Howard MP: Who do you trust?

Suggested Answer: Only people who know when to use "whom".

NICK RENTON HAS BEEN AN ACTUARY FOR 50 YEARS

Click here

RECENT BOOKS - IN GREATER DETAIL

RENTON'S METAPHORS - A BARGAIN AT 3.6 CENTS PER PAGE

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS about Chairmanship and Meetings Procedure

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS about Family Trusts and related taxation and investment matters, but only to the extent that they relate to Australia (over 200 questions)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS about Style and Good Writing

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS about Investment Terms and Acronyms

Supplementing his prolific output of conventional books, Nick Renton has now produced his first four ebooks. These are aimed at international audiences. To read their outlines or to purchase the books click on the links below:

This is a book which every CEO of a business should read. The cover shows a colourful portion of the Mandelbrot set, designed to attract attention.

This is a work that contains wonderful quotations on business and investment - ideal material for someone preparing a speech or an advertising brochure. The cover shows a 19th century share certificate featuring a picture of a fascinating steam engine.

This is a plain English guide for businesses and organisations wishing to produce effective newsletters. Its cover shows logos of voluntary associations that are typical publishers of their own newsletters.

Subtitled "a Collection of Controversial Essays by an Opinionated Writer", this book of 32 essays has something of interest for everybody.

These ebooks are designed to be read onscreen, but their font size can be adjusted to give comfortable reading. They can also be used with text-to-speech software.

The necessary reader software is free to users and can be downloaded from the above sites, which also feature free sample pages.

Prices are in US dollars.

Publishers interested in producing print versions are invited to contact the author.

Nick Renton has also produced this promotional movie dealing with the first three books (2 minutes 33 seconds).    

A fascinating experimental two-screen version of this movie is also avaiilable (2 minutes 33 seconds).    

Another promotional movie dealing with the essays book is also worth watching (3 minutes 49 seconds).    

An article on ebooks and their many advantages may also be of interest.

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DEFINITIONS OF "INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR" AND "SHARE QUALIFICATION"

DEFINITION OF "PUMP AND DUMP"

DEFINITION OF "STAPLED SECURITIES"

DEFINITION OF "PRIVATE EQUITY"

DEFINITIONS OF "TRIMMED MEAN" AND "WEIGHTED MEDIAN"

DEFINITION OF "PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP"

DEFINITION OF "MERGER OF EQUALS"

AMENDED DEFINITION OF "RETURN ON ASSETS"

It is proposed to include new definitions of these terms in the next edition of Nick Renton's Dictionary of Stock Exchange and Investment Terms. In the meantime comments and suggestions are invited.

FOOTNOTE:

The ignorance of some professional bodies in Australia is truly appalling.

To illustrate, consider the case of the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA). This organisation describes itself as "the national professional association for the real estate industry in Australia".

In order that an appropriate entry could be included in the next edition of this Dictionary the Institute was asked for a formal definition of the term "sale by expression of interest", which did not appear in its Glossary. Astonishingly, the Institute was unable to supply one.

Astonishingly, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) does not seem interested in educating investors either. Invited to comment on the draft definitions on this site, ASIC responded that it does not give legal advice.

However, it had not been asked for legal advice; after all, this project is a dictionary for ordinary investors, which is being produced in the public interest; it is not meant to be a legal treatise.

ASIC also suggested engaging a lawyer. Actually, the author has acted as a consultant to a number of legal firms over the years and it seems likely that he is much more knowledgeable in this area than most legal practitioners.

Do this sum yourself for your own superannuation fund:

If you want to retire on, say, $30,000 per annum then one way of doing this is to invest $600,000 at 5 per cent.

If you have $600,000 in a managed fund charging 2 per cent in fees then this is costing you $12,000 per annum.

Compare this with going to a doctor on average once a month at a cost of around $40 per visit, ignoring the Medicare refund. This would cost you $480 per annum.

WEALTH VERSUS HEALTH

Ask yourself: Is your fund manager really worth 25 times as much as your doctor?

And all this in a system where the government confiscates 15 per cent of superannuation contributions and where fund members can suffer from poor or even negative investment returns.

See also the Gravy Train and are "free" Wills really free?

• Bas Publishing
• Crown Content
• Federation Press
• Funtastic
• Information Australia
• John Wiley & Sons Australia
• Kangaroo Press
• Law Book Company
• Pennon
• Warner Books, New York
• Wrightbooks

Unfortunately, the creator of this site, Nick Renton, is not immortal (except in the metaphorical sense that all authors live on through their works). Sooner or later this site will disappear.

However, all is not lost. The Wayback Machine maintains an archive of most pages on this site. Interested readers might like to bookmark this wonderful facility at this stage (and also explore it for its vast material).