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Fiji Pensioners

~ GREY POWER

Fiji Pensioners

Monthly Archives: September 2011

Tender Moments

16 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Daily Humour

≈ 1 Comment

A woman’s husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet she had stayed by his bedside every single day. 

One day when he came to, he motioned for her to come nearer …..

As she sat by him, he whispered, eyes full of tears, ‘You know what?
You have been with me all through the bad times. 

When I got fired, you were there to support me. 
When my business failed, you were there. 

When I got shot, you were by my side. 
When we lost the house, you stayed right here.
When my health started failing, you were still by my side…

You know what Martha?’

‘What dear?’ she gently asked, smiling as her heart began to fill with warmth.

‘I’m beginning to think you’re bad luck…

 

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Scotch with two drops of water

15 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Daily Humour

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A lady goes to the bar on a cruise ship and orders a Scotch with two drops of water.  As the bartender gives her the drink she says, ‘I’m on this cruise to celebrate my 80th birthday and it’s today..’

The bartender says, ‘Well, since it’s your birthday, I’ll buy you a drink.  In fact, this one is on me.’

As the woman finishes her drink, the woman to her right says, ‘I would like to buy you a drink, too.’

The old woman says,  ‘Thank you. Bartender, I want a Scotch with two drops of water.’

‘Coming up,’ says the bartender.

As she finishes that drink, the man to her left says, ‘I would like to buy you one, too.’

The old woman says, ‘Thank you.  Bartender, I want another Scotch with two drops of water.’

‘Coming right up,’ the bartender says.

As he gives her the drink, he says, ‘Ma’am, I’m dying of curiosity.  Why the Scotch with only two drops of water?’

The old woman replies, ‘Sonny, when you’re my age, you’ve learned how to hold your liquor.  Holding your water, however, is a whole other issue.’

Pensioners ‘bear brunt of rises in cost of living’

15 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Articles & Reports

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Economists say that the elderly face a higher rate of inflation than younger people, this is particularly true in Fiji where Pensions are not cost of living indexed.
As a result they are NEVER increased, regardless of devaluations of our currency and consistent increases in the cost of food, power, gas, fuel and water.

Not only does the Think Tank (term used very loosely) of the FNPF fail to take this into account, they continually compound their error by wasting money on full page colour advertisements in the press, attempting to justify a cut of 64% in existing pensions, which is a blatant misuse of the pensioners funds.
Greybeard 

“FNPF to Write Back $33.5 Million through Investment Rehabilitation.”

15 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Letters

≈ 8 Comments

Mr. Aisake Taito goes on to state in the FNPF website news release dated 14th September 2011 : 

FNPF Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Aisake Taito, said the write-back is the outcome of two major investment rehabilitation projects – the revaluation of Natadola Inter-continental Hotel and the sale of majority shares in Grand Pacific Hotel Limited. 

One must be extremely desperate to make such a claim. Is it to win back lost credibility and convince members (including pensioners) that the FNPF, CEO and Directors are doing a fantastic job in rehabilitating the troubled investments? Claiming credit where it is not due is extremely damaging to one’s credibility 

$29m (or 87%) of the $33.5m write back is related to the Natadola Intercontinental Hotel, golf course and residential development. 

  • Has the residential development contributed to the write back? It is unlikely that any work has commenced that would add value. 
  • To claim that investment rehabilitation has taken place in regard to the Natadola Intercontinental Hotel, we need to ask what work Mr. Aisake has performed to remedy, cure and restore to effectiveness. 

I presume that he or his subordinate would have signed a purchase order to contract the two consultants (one is not sufficient but two is a waste of money) to conduct a valuation of the hotel. If one considers that this is rehabilitation, it is a joke.  

The valuation report is a bi-annual requirement normally spelled out in most bank loan agreements. In addition, it is an International Financial Reporting Standard that requires that assets shown in financial reports are at market value. 

The valuation of a hotel is normally based on discounted cash flow analysis and capitalization analysis. The hotel has been trading for some two years and the operating results (occupancies, average room rates, food and beverage revenues and efficiency) have improved, hence increased earnings and cash flow resulting in the increased valuation of the Hotel. 

If we are to assign credit, it should be to past management and directors that have decided to invest in the hotel industry that Mr. Aisake has so often and vigorously maligned. 

Returns on this type of investment are long term. However, if Mr. Aisake really wants to get involved with rehabilitation, please role up your sleeves, progress and complete the Momi hotel development (as the asset is corroding and its value deteriorating rapidly instead of earning an income ) and the golf course and club house so that the freehold residential land can be sold. This is rehabilitation and it needs balls! 

So please stop wasting FNPF time and money on needless paid advertisements/news releases and earn back your credibility by honoring your contract with pensioners and perform some real rehabilitation work. 

By an Apolitical Dying Pensioner

Planning Outside the Box (Coffin)

14 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Articles & Reports, Link Information

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Taking into consideration the fact the the Mighty Muppets who currently control the FNFP (albeit questionable appointments made by Mightier Muppets) wish to decimate the incomes of retired pensioners, we refer you to the following Link which describes actions by others who found themselves faced with dramatic change:

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/113482/retirees-living-good-life-cheap-cnnmoney;_ylt=AqRxxul5Afxw7F5Wpog2F9S7YWsA;_ylu=X3oDMTE1dTdxMWh0BHBvcwMzBHNlYwNmaWRlbGl0eUZQBHNsawNyZXRpcmVlc2xpdmk-?mod=fidelity-livingretirement&cat=fidelity_2010_living_in_retirement

Seona Smiles Humour

14 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Daily Humour

≈ Leave a comment

“Wub,” said my friends.

What did she mean, I demanded to know. 

Wub, she insisted.  As in W U B.

Ahah, WUB!

I still didn’t know what it meant but at least I knew I was dealing with an acronym. 

For those of you not lucky enough to own a paperback titled ‘Port Out Starboard Home’  by Michael Quinion, I can tell you all he says about acronyms.

Posh, for instance, supposedly came from the first letters of the words in the phrase ‘Port Out Starboard Home’ , referring to the position of the cabins upper class folk booked when travelling between England to the colonies.

Posh came to mean upper class fancy, but was nothing to do with the P and O shipping line and more probably some sort of London slang for money.

Mr Quinion said that we are now surrounded by an absolute alphabet soup of acronyms these days, such as FIFT (Gamete Intrafallopian Transfer), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisations), SARS (Sevre Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and my favourite — POTUS (President of the United States).

We get so used to using the acronym in some cases that we forget where the word actually comes from, for instance radar is from Radio Detection and Ranging, Laser comes from Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation, and scuba from Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.

Mr Quinion says the fashion for creating acronyms was actually a military one dating from the time of the First World War, which is extremely recent compared to the origins of most words. 

An example of an early military acronym is awol, Absent With Out Leave, although it wasn’t consistently used as a word until the Second World War. 

The very word acronym to describe these words made of initials wasn’t even coined until 1943.

Although Mr Quinion doesn’t say so, they have become a blight on the modern wordscape and are particularly beloved of management and all sorts of organisations from banks and government departments to universities.

Say you make a tentative inquiry about where to pay some charge or want to know some sort of information.

The acronymist will say something like: You need a Pfls 2B for that, get it filled and take it to Temd Poc in MSxvb and after its approved, go to YAB.

Sometimes you get the information but you can’t understand it anyway because you don’t understand what the Rept UDnOg is or where the SLURB is located, let alone what it does.

Top Ten tips to the newly retired in order of importance

14 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Articles & Reports

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10. Relax for the first few days

9. Get out of bed at the same time as you did when working

8. Get washed every day and clean your teeth 

7. Don’t get into conversations with the tele-marketers and Lowy pollsters

6. Don’t start going to church if you didn’t go when
you were working. This will only depress you.

5. Get to know your neighbours again

4. Don’t join clubs set up for retired people (depressing)

3. Stay physically active

2. Don’t lose your sense of humour especially when FNPF tries to take your pension away

AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST – AFTER TWO WEEKS

1. Get off your lazy backside and go look for a part-time job. You will need to. 

Pensioners Hilarious Letter To Her Bank

13 Tuesday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Articles & Reports

≈ 24 Comments

Many years ago Australian Business Week magazine front page asked “Why are the Bankers Bastards ?”, a year later to the day the same publication had “Why are the Bankers Still Bastards?” , having recently had to pay the latest bank levies at the Supermarket checkout for using a debit/credit card I have come to the conclusion that Business Week should have found space for the word GREEDY.

Enjoy the following story which is about a 98 year old woman from the UK who apparently wrote this to her bank after being hit with a bank charge for bouncing a cheque.
The story goes the bank manager found it amusing enough and sent it to The Times who published it.
True or not, it’s still pretty funny.

Greybeard.

Dear Sir,
I am writing to thank you for bouncing my cheque with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honour it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my Pension, an arrangement, which, I admit, has been in place for only thirty eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account £30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.
My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally attend to your telephone calls and letters, when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become. From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. 

My mortgage and loan payments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank by cheque, addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offence under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact Status which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative. Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Solicitor, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.
In due course, I will issue your employee with PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modelled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on yourphone bank service. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further. When you call me, press buttons as follows:
1. To make an appointment to see me.

2. To query a missing payment.
3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.
4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping.
5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.
6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home.
7. To leave a message on my computer (a password to access my computer is required. (A password will be communicated to you at a later date to the Authorized Contact.)
8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through to 8.
9. To make a general complaint or inquiry, the contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service. While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.
May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous, New Year.

Your Humble Client

Can you please be fair and reasonable Frank?

12 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Letters

≈ 2 Comments

Dear Mr Kodagoda and associates 

I refer to my email of 19 August 2011 to which I have not received a reply. 

For the past four to five weeks  I have been reading your full page advertisements placed in the media   and noted the comments you have made concerning the proposed FNPF Reforms.  At this point I will not make any detailed response to the points you raise, even though they are filled with contradiction and uncertainty and simply raise further questions  about  exactly what FNPF intends to do in these reforms, as your intent is far from certain, and clearly you are undecided on the way forward. 

It is good that you publish these comments so that pensioners and members are able to have an understanding of the cuts in pension   FNPF will make in implementing these reforms and also to see the confusion and uncertainty of your intent. 

Unfortunately this has become a one sided argument as whilst FNPF is able to publish its views in the media, pensioners, members and other interested parties who have a vital interest in these reforms are unable to have their views published in the same way. 

Thus I am unable to respond to your comments by taking a full page advertisement as these are being refused publication by the censors. 

This to me seems to be very unreasonable and unfair as the media is not able to publish a balanced discussion on the proposed Reforms expressing all points of view  which is the very essence of any open debate and good journalism…….….to have both sides of the argument.
Continue reading →

The Essential National Industries (Employment) Decree:

11 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by fijipensioners in Press Releases

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The Essential National Industries (Employment) Decree: AG’s Media Statement on 10th September is a Mis-use of Human Rights Principles and Law

Press Release by Dr Shaista Shameem
Former UN Special Rapporteur and Human Rights Expert; former Director and Chairperson of the Fiji Human Rights Commission.

 The enactment of the Essential National Industries (Employment) Decree No 35 of 2011 on 29th July is fundamentally inconsistent with the foundations of the Employment Relations Promulgation 2007 (ERP), and jettisons the comprehensive public consultations and consensus-building that the Employment Relations Bill involved. By so doing Decree No 35 also has the effect of expressing the State of Fiji’s disregard of the International Labour Organization’s Conventions 87 and 98 which it has ratified.
Continue reading →

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