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A Time To Think
30 Friday Sep 2011
Posted in Link Information
Monthly Archives: September 2011
FIAT Money
28 Wednesday Sep 2011
Posted in Link Information
Do you want to know why your pensions buy less every year, and why the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and bankers take home a big annual bonus ?
Click on the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx16a72j__8
The Flying Fijians
26 Monday Sep 2011
Posted in Grey Power Editor, Letters
The Flying Fijians never took off. There is no shame in losing to a better side, if one has put in the hard yard, works as a team, and plays with a passion to win. Sadly this is not what happened at Eden Park on Sunday 25th September.
Our team never got out of first gear, they lumbered instead of running, they failed even to jump or lift in line outs, on more than one occasion they ran into each other when receiving a simple pass, in fact their first half performance was so bad and so slow one wonders if they had sat up all night drinking Kava.
On their performance at Eden Park they would not have won an Australian First 15 Schoolboy competition.
As to the Fiji coach Domoni mumbling about emotion getting to the team, what about the emotions of enthusiasm and passion to win, has he considered that?.
He and the selectors should keep in mind they were given $2.6 million dollars of Fiji taxpayer’s money for the team to compete in the RWC, and from the selected teams performance they clearly left the best team and the best coaches in Fiji to watch in horror.
Greybeard
Senior Segments
26 Monday Sep 2011
Posted in Daily Humour
$33.5m write back on FNPF assets
25 Sunday Sep 2011
Posted in Articles & Reports
WHILE the write back on the Grand Pacific Hotel was $4.5million, it is understood the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) sold its 75 per cent shareholding in the property at a much higher price.
This week the fund through its chief executive Aisake Taito announced a $33.5m write back on assets for the year ending June 2011.
The write back was also because of the revaluation of the Natadola InterContinental Hotel to $133m, an increase of $29m from the last valuation which had resulted in a $301m write -down on the property.
The FNPF sold 75 per cent of its shares in the Grand Pacific Hotel Limited to its new joint venture partners from Papua New Guinea – the National Superannuation Fund and Lamana Development Group.
“FNPF has recovered $4.5m from what was written down earlier in 2009 and the value of our 25 per cent shareholding in the new project should increase in future,” said Mr. Taito.
Mr Taito said the rehabilitation work for GPH was a two-staged process. The first, was the partial sale of the shares to the joint venture partners and the second was the redevelopment work for the new hotel which would commence soon.
He said that the outcome of the investment achievements was in addition to the other major reforms currently undertaken by the fund.
Ross McDonalds Response:
An article in the Fiji Sun of 15 September 2011 “$44.5m write back on FNPF assets” following an announcement by FNPF CEO Mr Aisake Taito deserves comment.
According to the article FNPF have written back $29m on the Natadola Intercontinental Hotel following their previous write down by $301m. The write down was in line with a “valuation” of the property that had valued it at significantly under the FNPF book value.
This raises questions about the “valuation” FNPF obtained. Presumably FNPF are using fair market value.
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Smile
23 Friday Sep 2011
Posted in Daily Humour
A Valued Explanation
22 Thursday Sep 2011
Posted in Grey Power Editor
The question is what value are we talking about. There is market value, insurance value, written down value, estimated value, book value, historical value, unimproved capital value, second hand value, realisable value etc etc ……………..and so the list goes on and these are all different values for different purposes. Valuations may be a crafty calculation, one based on statistics, or purely an estimate, or best guess at the time. There are many many ways to value, the list is endless. These values are used for a variety of different purposes, consequently the long list of values for this, or value for that.
A good example is market value which most of us think we understand. Whist you may get a market valuation from a valuer for your property which is his best estimate based on what is happening in the market, the real market value is what you can sell the asset for, that is what someone will pay you for the property, which may be very different from the valuation you have been given. It can be more, it can be less, it may depend on who wants to buy, or it may depend on how hard you bargain, it also depends very much on whether you are buying or selling and a myriad of other reasons..
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We are pleased to report…..
22 Thursday Sep 2011
Posted in Grey Power Editor, Letters
We are pleased to report that Grey-power was able to pull a string and somebody, not without influence, took a copy of the Vodafone ad offering an appalling game titled ‘Suicidal Squirrels’ to a Vodafone big-wig who was extremely unhappy about it.
Vodafone will now ‘investigate’ the game and withdraw it. But this begs the question of who is ultimately responsible for game sponsorship. A Vodaphone employee found and promoted the game. It was advertised for downloading.
That game, and doubtless countless others, promoted cruelty to animals and suicide – that is the bottom line. And it is not we, the silver surfers of this world who are responsible for the violent games and movies available to young people today. It is supposedly sensible, educated people within the workforce of the game invention organisations who are promoting this mindless mayhem. Young people take it on board because they assume it is ‘cool’!
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Vodafone Sick Promotion
19 Monday Sep 2011
Posted in Grey Power Editor, Letters
Saturday September 17th 2011, I was reading the Sun newspaper. As I was turning page 23 from right to left the word ‘suicide’ caught my eye. I turned the page back, and this is what I saw. A full page Vodafone ad.
‘Suicidal Squirrels They’re cute! They’re adorable! And they’re having enough of it all! Your mission is to help lots and lots of Squirrels kill themselves.’ The ad is not even good English!
Apparently this is one of many ‘Top Java Games’ and you can download it by texting its code to 4444.
Grey power people, please – we need to use our hard-earned wisdom to fight this kind of child abuse and all other kinds of child abuse. We need to add the fight against this abomination to the fight for our rights to respect, self-reliance and dignity. While we fight for our right to a dignified old age, we must fight for the right of the child to innocence. It is our duty to protect our grand-children from the mindless profiteering of mobile phone and video gaming interests.
Young people world-wide are committing suicide. Kids as young as eleven years old are killing themselves!
Oh – so it’s only squirrels? What about respect for innocent animals? It is a well documented fact that kids who kill animals for pleasure grow up to kill their fellow human beings.
Enough is enough! We, the older generation, the intelligent and wise, need to put an end to the current mind-set of gratuitous violence.
Copy-cat killings are on the rise. Copy-cat suicides are common. Our young are disenchanted enough already with the way we are running the world, without being invited to join in a game to help squirrels commit suicide.
We must demand that Vodafone withdraw this download immediately
‘No decision yet on pension review: FNPF’
16 Friday Sep 2011
Posted in Articles & Reports, Grey Power Editor
Greypower Commentary on the Fiji Sun article 15 September 2011 ‘No decision yet on pension review: FNPF’
Greypower supporters of the Burness v FNPF and AG case currently before the courts read the Fiji Sun story report on 15th September that there had been ‘no decision yet on pension review’ with absolute amazement.
In one breath, in the same article, not to mention consistently in expensive advertisements, FNPF states that ‘no decision has been reached yet’ and FNPF has ‘undertaken pension reform’. Now what does this mean? Either FNPF has not taken a decision (which means it may not happen) or they have ‘undertaken reform’ which means that it has happened already.
We cannot blame the Fiji Sun reporting for this contradictory information in the same story (editor Peter Lomas is a journalist so he is not likely to have got the language and expression wrong in his newspaper- or is he?).
Greypower gives a very clear message to FNPF- Do not say that you have ‘not reached a decision’, and at the same time say you have ‘undertaken pension reform’. Such inconsistent statements make you sound even more incompetent than normal.
Greypower also thinks this is a very sinister type of reporting. This type of news released by FNPF is to try and influence the court in the Burness case that his and other pensioners’ applications should not be heard.
FNPF and Government must really think pensioners are stupid and cannot see through their subterfuge. Worse, through these repeatedly contradictory articles, what are they telling the court through the back-door method of employing the media? What a bunch!
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Fiji Pensioners 