Murdoch and the media

I always laugh when people complain that Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation control the media and hence make and break governments and Prime Ministers. Yes, News Corporation has vast media resources; that also means that Murdoch does not have the time to dictate to editors and journalists daily editorial content.

In terms of media ownership in Australia, News Corporation publishes 23% of newspaper titles in Australia - somewhat below the 70% as claimed by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. However, as newspapers are highly localised, News Corp accounts for 59% of daily published newsprint and is thus pretty influential.

Phillip Adams, socialist, writer and Labor Party member is employed to write in Murdoch's flagship newspaper The Australian, the only national newspaper in the country.

So now, these people are saying that Rupert has direct input to what Adams writes, he is also employed by the government owned ABC, that is the left leaning Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The editor-at-large Paul Kelly was formerly married to Roz Kelly, the Keating Labor government minister; hardly a right-wing conspiracy here. 

That is a sledge on Adams and his professional ethics; if you have read any of Phillip Adams' work, you will quickly conclude that Murdoch has had no input into the tripe he puts out - it is that bad. But if you are an ultra left leaning person, you will probably love the highly offensive nature of his writing.

Skipping buddy checks - you bet I do

I read so many articles on why divers should never skip buddy checks, I dive with experienced divers whom I have mostly just met on dive charters and I just about always see nobody doing buddy checks with no adverse effects. I am responsible for my own dive, I set up my own equipment and don't like people messing with my gear.

I begin with a negative entry so I don't need people playing with my inflator putting air in my buoyancy jacket, I have seen ribs broken by people over-inflating other people's buoyancy jackets. I have integrated weights, by messing around with what you don't know about, my weights just became less secure.

Likewise, I don't want people playing with the releases or settings on my gear. I have seen people turn off an air supply that was already on - my gas/my problem, every diver has to know how to oral inflate as per training requirements. Then there is the technical divers, getting stage cylinders turned on that were intentionally switched off, messing around with rebreathers - just leave it alone.

The Omega Seamaster Diver 300

The current Omega Seamaster Diver 300 wristwatch does not resemble the old style vintage Seamaster dive watches first released way back in 1948 - it is similar in name only. One of my friends owns an old style classic Seamaster that is more similar to the Aqua Terra range watch than the Diver 300.

As Omega is culling its retailers to maintain pricing structures, I really need to make a decision reasonably soon. I am interested in the 212.30.41.20.03.001 reference with stainless steel bracelet, blue lacquered face and bezel.

The calibre 2500 co-axial escapement movement features a self-winding chronometer with a rhodium plated finish that has a power reserve of 48 hours. The Diver 300 movement begins with a base ETA 2824-2 movement and is fitted with George Daniel's co-axial escapement to reduce friction and increase service times through a 25,200 Hz.

The 41mm case is water resistant to 300 metres and features a screw-in crown, a uni-directional ceramic bezel, a helium escape valve located at the 10 o'clock position and a scratch resistant sapphire crystal. Unlike current tastes, the Diver 300 does not incorporate a display case back and retains the Hippocampus symbol.

This is everything you would expect from a Seamaster professional series, although the helium escape value is not required for non-commercial diving operations. The screw type helium release valve isn't too large that it distracts from this timepiece.

Technical specifications aside, the Omega Seamaster Diver 300 is a serious watch and I would certainly like one one on my wrist if I am able to secure the necessary discounts from retailers. This takes a fair degree of negotiation but they have a little latitude to move on price and they want to make the sale.

The Insead MBA

In what would be considered a robust 10 month program, the Insead MBA incorporates thirteen core units and four elective units with each period running for a duration of eight weeks.

There is no doubts about the quality of the Insead MBA, I would have to question the time-frame and required workload - this must be a brutal workload.

One imagines the goal is to get candidates back in the workforce as soon as possible as opposed to the 2-year full-time model.

The five core courses of the first period includes financial accounting, organisational behaviour 1, business ethics, financial markets & valuation and uncertainty, data and judgement.

The first three units are fairly self-explanatory with financial markets and valuations exploring fundamental concepts in corporate finance and capital markets.

Uncertainty, data and judgement incorporates probability and statistics for data analysis and decision making maintaining the analytic outcomes of the course.

The six core units of the second period incorporates corporate financial policy, managing customer value, organisational behaviour 2, managerial accounting, process & operations management, principles of strategy analysis and practical wisdom in business.

The third period requires the core units of international political analysis and macroeconomics in the global economy plus four elective units. The fourth period four electives and the fifth period requires a further three elective units, there are 76 elective units to select from allowing a highly tailored course and outcomes.

Whilst visiting Singapore I dropped into the Insead campus for a meeting with the admissions manager but as I had already began an MBA with an Australian university with Insead unwilling to offer any credits for any units undertaken. Whilst I would be unwilling to start again, I was interested in their much shorter executive education courses. That's of course if they would even accept my application.

Bain & Co

American management consulting firm Bain & Company has built an enviable reputation as a global consulting firm with 53 offices in 34 countries employing more than 5000 people.

Bain & Co is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts allowing a close relationship with business schools to recruit the brightest and best MBA graduates from the region.

The Massachusetts area is famous for sixteen notable top notch business schools including Harvard University, MIT Sloan, Dartmouth and Northeastern D'Amore-McKim School of Business.

Bain & Co is one of the big three consulting firms, established in 1973 by several former partners from the Boston Consulting Group; the firm suffered a period of non-competitive business practices that was later corrected and the firm has reestablished itself as an industry leader.

It could be strongly argued that a management consulting firm that has filed for bankruptcy protection possibly shouldn't be charging for business advice when they can't make their own business work.

Notable former consultants include presidential nominee Mitt Romney, current Hewlett Packard CEO and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Jetstar CEO Jayne Hrdlicka and former Harvard Business Review editor Suzy Welsh.

Needless to say, human capital is the major asset of any business and high flying former consultants enhances the reputation of Bain & Co.

Executive pay, it's just outrageous

Golden handcuffs, golden parachutes and share options - the language of high flying executives. I am a capitalist, I believe in free market economics and a lassiz faire approach to markets.

I believe it is business owners and entrepreneurs who generate wealth and jobs, they are the ones who shoulder the extreme personal financial risk and should be adequately rewarded.

The CEO, commissioned by the board implements the vision and strategy to achieve strategic outcomes. But what is a fair reward for a CEO who has no financial risk in the organisation?

Sol Trujillo, the American businessman brought in to lead Telstra is a case in point as his tenure at the former national communications company was a dismal failure. His $11 million annual salary was an affront to ordinary working Australians and mum and dad investors with Telstra capitalisation declining $25 billion in value during his tenure.

The share price under performed by 25% and complaints rose 300% during that period. Taking his golden parachute, his parting gift to Telstra shareholders and all Australians was to describe Australia as "racist, backward and like stepping back in time."

Paul Simon, the former Woolworths CEO ensured Woolworths executives were limited to 30 times the lowest paid worker at the company. So, a worker earning $50,000 per annum would result in $1.5 million for the highest paid employee - note the term employee.

In the United States, top CEOs, who in the late 1970s made 30 times more than the average worker, today make close to 300 times more than the average worker. This worldwide trend needs to be reversed, Paul Simon had the right idea.

The TAG Heuer Aquaracer Calibre 5

I first became interested in TAG Heuer timepieces more than 20 years ago after viewing my friend's 2000 series gold and stainless steel watch. I ended up purchasing a S/el after being impressed with his collection of TAG Heuer watches and decided to get on board too. So whilst my old S/el is still going strong, I decided to also get myself a later model - after all, you can never have enough watches.

So it didn't take long to decide on my new TAG Heuer; the Formula 1, nope, just not for me. The Monaco maybe? Nah, the square watch even if it is a Steve McQueen classic doesn't suit me; I am not a fan of the Carrera as I prefer a simple and elegant design. The link series, just a later version of the S/el so there was only one choice for me - the Aquaracer.

Where to start, the 41 millimetre diameter stainless steel case is a nice size for my wrist, I find some watches a little small, this one rounds out nicely. The chronograph version was 43 millimetre diameter but as I already have a few chronograph watches, I decided to select a simple face and I really liked the ceramic bezel. The three row band is big and chunky in a H link design.

After upgrading the rounded and smooth finish of my S/el; I was looking forward to a totally different style of watch and this is exactly what I wanted. It is ironic insofar as I was originally looking at the 2000 series 20 years ago before deciding on the S/el and ending wearing a descendant of the 2000 series.

Needless to say, the face is scratch resistant sapphire crystal with an angled date window at the 3 o'clock position to identify the automatic watch. The Calibre 5 automatic movement is Swiss made; the Calibre 5 was an ETA 2824-2 in the Aquaracer series but I believe the later Aquaracer now uses the Sellita SW-200 movement which some people dislike.

I am informed Sellita has now improved greatly, that is in the last 20 years although some are unconvinced. As this timepiece is new, I will have to determine over time if the movement remains as accurate as they advertise.

The case is water resistant to 300 metres with the time adjusted by a screw-in crown, I learnt about the screw-in crown the hard way with my S/el when I couldn't get it to work the first time I attempted to adjust the time. The face of the timepiece is horizontal streak pattern whilst the quartz version with luminescent index and number markers, I was originally not a fan of the streak design but the face has really grown on me.

An evening in Brotzeit

I am sitting in Brotzeit, a German themed bar in the Philippines at the Shangri La Plaza alone waiting for my friend with a German wheat beer on my table and my Galaxy tablet in hand. I am seeing staff running around serving customers and what springs to my mind is the dedication of the staff. They have remembered me from previous visits and have been very polite and accommodating, this is the type of service that keeps people coming back.

The hospitality industry can be brutal on staff, retail and service is now the mainstay of the domestic economy with so much outsourcing the main strategic weapon. None of this worries me right now, I am enjoying a German wheat beer waiting for Mecky who is spending time with a high school friend returning to Canada the next day. Until late 2016, I hadn't had a beer for close to twenty years until no options were available and I had a Tiger beer on Clarke Quay in Singapore and actually liked it. Now when I am at the Shangri La Plazza in Edsa, I slip over to Brotzeit for a quality beer on the sidewalk watching people wander by.

MBA in a day

Of course, you can’t gain MBA level knowledge in a day, although many I have worked with think they can. What you learn from this book is an overview of an MBA program without actually spending two years of your life and anywhere from $30k to $200k on a program to see if you should invest in an MBA.

Reading this book will give you some insights into MBA programs; it is then up to the individual to undertake further research on each subject area to gain a deeper knowledge. Stralser has written a fairly broad overview on MBA curriculum that while light on detail makes for a pretty decent read on the train or bus whilst on the way to work and back.

The Longines Conquest

The Conquest series by Longines is a sports watch evidenced by the screw-in case back, screw-in crown and 300 water depth rating, yet I purchased my Conquest automatic as a dress watch. As a diver I prefer dive watches but I thought I had a pretty good dive watch and something a little more formal was warranted.

I decided on the L3.677.4.58.6 sporting a stainless steel case and 41 mm in diameter, when we looked at the catalogue at the jeweller, this confirmed a 41 mm case but on my return home a similar watch indicated a 39 mm case - this is getting confusing so more research was needed. 

The hour markers have painted Arabic numerals and indexes with a Super-LumiNova ® coating along with the indexes. According to searching the Longines site, the Caliber L633 is a self winding mechanical movement beating at 28'800 vibrations per hour giving 38 hours of power reserve. 

Although I am no watchmaker, some extra searching tends to indicate the L633 is an ETA 2824-2 base movement, this makes sense as ETA is an owned subsidiary of the Swatch Group that owns Longines. 

A number of versions of the Conquest exist from the Roland Garros, Horse Racing, Alpine Skiing and St Moritz variations firmly locking this timepiece in as a sports watch despite my thoughts of a dress watch.

I try to match the series numbers with the current Longines website for no joy and I tend to think I don't have the current release so I tend to wonder just how long this watch was sitting in the display case.

The lowest return

There is no return lower than not getting your money back, a capital loss is an absolutely devastating loss of your savings. Therefore, the first and foremost rule of investing is protecting your capital.

We invest our spare cash in order to make a return on investment to finance our retirement, purchase a property or to support a lifestyle. We forgo the short-term benefits for hopefully a long-term gain - but what if we lose our capital? You no longer have the capital to generate a return, first you have to generate an income stream to rebuild your capital or possibly pay off the debts incurred from loans.

This is usually from the sale of labour, we trudge off to work and I think of this as units worked in terms of hours, days, weeks, months or years to get back to zero again. Let's not even calculate the opportunity cost of returning to zero; that is why with every investment my first thought is capital preservation, then and only then do I calculate my potential return.

The vodkatini

The most famous variation of the classic martini is the vodka martini sometimes know as the vodkatini or James Bond martini. Fictional British MI-5 spy James Bond demanded his vodka martinis to be "shaken, not stirred."

The James Bond vodkatini follows the blend Harry Craddock's The Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 prescribing the shaking of their martini drinks. I have it on good advice that gin based martinis are to be stirred and not shaken as the cocktail comes out cloudy whilst the vodka based martini is to be shaken.

The proper name for a shaken Martini is a Bradford; however, Somerset Maugham was often quoted as saying that "a Martini should always be stirred, not shaken, so that the molecules lie sensuously on top of one another." I'm not so sure about molecular alignment but I have always followed the rule of a stirred gin based martini and a shaken vodka based martini. 

Freedom of information

The Freedom of Information Act 1992 as applied to Western Australia gives the public the right to access government agency documents managed by the Office of the Information Commissioner. The FOI Act is designed to protect the public and the Information Commissioner is an independent officer reporting directly to the Western Australian parliament.

I was sitting at home one Saturday evening; sad really, as I should have been out enjoying myself, I was reflecting on workplace issues. Instead, I was thinking about my workplace experiences when it suddenly occurred to me that I could access the corruption investigation documentation.

As I have been the one identified in less than lawful circumstances in regards to the baseless accusations leveled at me - that gives me the right to search for these documents to defend myself. Naturally these accusations were off the record as has happened a number of times previously and strenuously denied when challenged.

My former manager had leveled a number of accusations at me without any evidence and despite my denials, he wasn't listening. This guy has history, a former colleague has been driven out of the workplace after he had been fired when he referred to him as a fat @#&%.

He took action in the Industrial Relations Court of Western Australia winning his case through his union lawyer. He was not only reinstated but he was paid for the time off work; this was a very expensive lesson for my employer and highly embarrassing.

But it gets better, as he was reinstated he wasn't allowed to work directly under the manager who created the issue so he was moved to another work site. This came at a large financial cost to my employer, it was an inconvenience to all involved and also a personal cost as he was not given much space to operate as manager's meetings are really gossip gatherings.

It would have been easier to just move the manager on, he was the guilty party after all but this would never happen due to their arrogance and incompetence. Finally the manager was moved sideways after a Corruption and Crime Commission investigation made by an anonymous source.

I am guessing this delayed action was the net result of the CCC investigation and since they pointed the finger at me, it might just be in my best interests to delve deeper. What this means is they broke the law with fines and possibly prison time for the perpetrator; that now means I cannot be dismissed in retribution unless they want to end up in court.