Banks profit as fools and their money are parted

Banks are implicated in the adage that a fool and his money are soon parted.

A cursory look at the present success of Australia’s banks suggests this country is populated by fools as those same banks sell nothing and yet they profit by exploiting a paradigm we endorse.
The banking industry is a human construct pre-dating the invention of money with initial deposits being grain, livestock and various goods.
Temples, being safe, was where gold and early coins were first stored and so the priests and monks were the first to empower traders by lending that resource.
Today’s banking benchmarks might seem sophisticated compared to that ancient trading, but stripped of its finery little has changed – there was, is and has always been a lender and borrower, with those providing the advance mostly enjoying the profit.
Evolution is more than just dinosaurs and apes, rather, it is a social dynamic happening right now to impact on both you and I and if watched closely can trace measurable inter-generational changes.
The banking business is not free of such changes and although its fundamentals are intact, its behavior has evolved, and along with societal addiction to economics, to the status of virus.
Most everything in the developed world is judged good or bad through the prism if economics and although they have evolved to dominate modern life, that is not an indication of their worthiness.
Evolutionary biologist at Binghamton University, Professor David Sloan Wilson (above), has said evolution is not about niceness, rather helping us understand the good, the bad and the inconvenient.
Your place on the ledger probably determines your opinion of Australia’s banking system, which is now entangled, wrongly, in the world’s commercial milieu from which it should stand apart.
This is not a lament for socialism or its ilk, instead a plea for the breakout of good sense – banks are little more than a reservoir for public money and so human ingenuity should be applied not to making profits for a few, but the enrichment of all.
Banks pitch their public persona to suggest the earlier mentioned adage doesn’t apply, but record profits argue its truth.

Considering the power of language

Language used inappropriately, and inaccurately, can completely derail projects and ideas.

However, even if language is used correctly and as intended but interpreted incorrectly, similar damage can be done.

The danger of words and their misinterpretation was discussed by a speaker at a Melbourne conference about walking some four years ago.

He was expanding on the idea of making communities walkable arguing that the first and most significant hurdle to be overcome was that of language and so that perception and interpretation of what was actually meant.

An understanding of what is a walkable community is not is not what is sought here, rather we need to have a sense of what we are saying and what it really means.
Superstition and our cultural upbringing can distort a word’s intended meaning to such an extent that friendships wither, business relationships dissolve, the world’s religions debate right and wrong and countries go to war – all over a misplaced, or misinterpreted, word.
A word is a word and its meaning, or meanings, expands of shrinks as we knowingly, or unknowingly, add religious or cultural implications, or technological emphases.
Interestingly it was Lewis Carroll (above right) writing in Alice in Wonderland – Through the looking glass who explored the meaning of words when one of the characters said: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
That was in the 19th Century, but just recently somewhat aggravated discussions were happening in Malaysia over the use of the word “Allah”.
As that conversation collapses into violence we should remember what American poet, Mary Angelou said – “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning”.
Thinking about what Humpty Dumpty said, the views of Mary Angelou and what is happening in Malaysia, we need to respect a word’s independence, the fact the no one actually owns it and, in fact, it is only us who give it meaning.
My advice, use the appropriate language and avoid embellishing it with cultural implications.

Those moments when patriotism is really just nationalism of another colour

Distressing international attitudes sometimes find expression in the behaviour of some Goulburn Valley people.

Such insular views are described, mostly, as patriotism, but they are really just nationalism of another colour and contribute nothing, or little, to the wellbeing of a community.

Just recently an emerging star of American conservatism, Marco Rubio (right), won a Senate seat for Republicans in the American midterm elections and said the US as "simply the greatest nation in all of human history".

A sweeping statement that cannot be proved or disproved because of its subjectivity, but at its core is the cancerous-like germ of nationalism, a fanatical belief that your way of living is supreme and so evident that others should, must, embrace it.

There seems to be an assumed sense of rightness about the embedded values and in some discussion about what is presently happening in the Murray Darling Basin a similar insularity emerges.
Many arguments are supposedly for the greater good, but when disassembled they really are about the preservation of a local scenario and in their small way evoke similar nationalism.
What is envisaged for our basin demands that people consider life beyond the farm gate, beyond their business boundaries and beyond the extent of their immediate communities.
Success for the basin plan has no room for Marco Rubio-like sentiments, rather it is an international resource, troubled by international human behaviour and we are simply the caretakers.
History illustrates that man’s attempts at controlling, or managing, nature to his advantage lead, almost with fail, to decided difficulties, especially when water is involved.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that we do nothing, rather we should explore the idea of a steady state economy, one in which human prosperity is not linked to growth and profit.
The Goulburn Valley, and by implication Shepparton, is linked to national difficulties as it sits at the foot of the rich Murray-Darling Basin and because of bountiful water has become Australia’s food bowl.
Instead of searching for monetary growth, we should attend to enriching the human experience and not be so concerned about Gross National Product, rather ensure we contribute to Australia’s Gross National Happiness.

Climate change complexities better understood following Prof Karoly lecture

More than 60 people now have a clearer understanding of the complexities of climate change after listening to a lecture in Shepparton on Tuesday night.

The University of Melbourne’s Professor David Karoly (right) explained a little about the science of climatology to those in the lecture theatre at the Graham St School of Medical Health.
Prof Karoly, from the university’s School of Earth Sciences, discussed different perspectives on climate change, talked about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), explored regional changes to the weather and discussed international agreements and the stabilization of climate change.
He emphasized the fact that some 97 per cent of the world’s climate scientists agreed with IPCC findings that among many other things suggest that it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.
The prospects for Australia and in particular the east coast, south east corner (that includes Victoria) and the south-western corner of Western Australia under climate change scenarios are not good, but Prof Karoly was, however, enthusiastic about Australia’s potential to use sustainable energy.
He was positive about solar energy in the Goulburn Valley, a position that no doubt would have pleased the co-convenors of Solar Valley Goes Solar, Yvonne Forrest and Geoff Lodge, who were both at the lecture.
Although Prof Karoly’s predictions about changes to our climate were dire, he was enthusiastic about our potential to create jobs and a life built around sustainable energy, something, he said, in which Australia abounds.
Prof Karoly explained the differences in weather and climate noting that weather was largely localized, coming and going quickly, while climate was global and changes occurred over a long time scale.
Using graphs to illustrate his point, Prof Karoly illustrated the impact humans were having on global weather explaining that the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, and which have already significantly altered earth’s weather, will remain there for another 1000 years.
“Twenty first century anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will contribute to warming and sea level rise for more than a millennium, due to the long timescales required for removal of this gas”, Prof Karoly told those at the lecture.
Lecture organizers were with Prof Karoly’s presentation and community response.

We consider Victoria's future from amid the wreckage of the recent federal election

Looking about from among the wreckage of a recent federal election, we must now decide who we want to best administer Victoria.

Times are somewhat unpredictable, but what has been predictable is the public response to those difficulties.

Most people, understandably, want the good times handed down by cheap and easily-accessible fossil fuels to continue uninterrupted and any disruption to that paradigm is greeted by the embrace of whomever, or whatever, promises the continuation of business as usual.

Subsequently we see a rise of those who pine for the good old days and so vote for those who promise a return to that way of life, ignoring the human and ecological cost, and opposed to those who trumpet a government that puts long-term concerns ahead of short-term satisfactions.
A fellow who understands long and short-term implications – in geological terms long is millions of years, short is hundreds – will speak tonight at Shepparton School of Medical Health in Graham Street.
Professor David Karoly (above right) from the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Earth Sciences will give a free lecture about climate change from 7:30pm.
A Professor of Meteorology and a Federation Fellow with the Australian Research Council Federation, Prof Karoly was involved with the preparation of the Fourth Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He will discuss the world’s weather in general and focus, in particular, on what is happening in Victoria. Issues of why our weather is changing and how, subsequently, we should behave will also be discussed.
Tonight’s lecture is a coup for Shepparton as Prof Karoly is recognised as one of the world most powerful thinkers about the reasons for and the implications of climate change.
Recently, I listened as science historian, American Naomi Oreskes, talked about her new book, Merchants of Doubt, which explains how the same people, a few scientists addicted to growth ideologies, proffered theories that raised doubt in such things as smoking, acid rain, the ozone hole and climate change.
Prof Karoly introduced Professor Oreskes and his naturally pleasant nature pervaded about 300 at Melbourne’s State Library to transform an evening with a rather brutal message into a satisfying encounter.

Racing around Shepparton in the hope of understanding what it is like to live with a disability

Finding your way around Shepparton and attending to your daily needs is generally pretty simple, unless confronted with complications of having a disability.

Come Wednesday, November 24, about 25 Shepparton people will experience those complications when they adopt a disability in the city’s first “Realistic Race”.

Shepparton MP, Ms Jeanette Powell (right), will be among those who will race around the city searching for clues to enable them to follow the race to its next stage, using a pattern similar to that of television’s The Amazing Race.

“Race” may well be in the title, but with their adopted disabilities, the local personalities will be a little lost as they struggle rather than race around the familiar streets of Shepparton with both physical and intellectual disabilities.

Some will be confined to wheel chairs, verbal skills will be absent for a few, others will have few cognitive understandings, hearing might be a challenge for some and all will have to wrestle with the perception of those they engage with during the Realistic Race.
Shepparton Access Chief Executive Officer, Wendy Shanks, said her organization had organized the race with the support of City of Greater Shepparton with the hope of breaking down barriers between Goulburn Valley people with a disability and the wider population.
The November 24 race will start at one o’clock and end three hours later after the five teams of five have explored, and learned something about, Shepparton experiencing it as a person with a disability.
But it was more than that as they also learned something about the alienation a disabled person encounters go about their daily business.
Having been on the periphery of a disability, I understand the alienation, the loneliness and one’s inability to participate in the normal machinations of your community and the sense that you don’t really belong.
The sense of belonging is among the most important of human needs and while the November race might make us aware of many dilemmas facing Shepparton’s disabled, importantly it might also enhance their sense of belonging.
Disabled people need many things, but importantly what they need is your understanding, friendship and a sense that they belong.

Professor Karoly will bring his knowledge of climate change to Shepparton

The intimate and intricate challenges of climate change will be explained in Shepparton on Tuesday, November 23.

Melbourne University’s Professor David Karoly (below left) will talk about the implications of climate change and, in particular, its impact on Victoria.

Prof Karoly, a lead author in the third and fourth assessment reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is currently with the School of Earth Sciences at the university.

All of his research, he says, has confirmed that the main cause of global warming over the last 50 years is due to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

His address on Tuesday will be at the university’s School of Medical Health auditorium in Graham St, Shepparton, starting at 7:30pm. Admission will be free.
Prof Karoly will provide an update on the extensive scientific basis for observed climate changes over the last 100 years and the reasons why most of the observed increase in global temperatures is due to increasing greenhouse gases from human activity.
His address is entitled “Climate change: an update on the science”.
He will also describe the likely climate changes over the next 100 years and what we need to do if we want to slow the rate of global warming.
Prof Karoly will discuss coming global changes and how they will affect Victoria.
Those with any questions about the November 23 lecture should direct them to Robert McLean at 5822 1766 or via email at robed@sheppnews.com.au.