An interesting article suggesting that the technology is here now for Solar grid parity, if the cost of financing major installations was on a level playing field with the financing of traditional power stations etc. Some interesting stuff embedded anyway. Easy read. http://singularityhub.com/2012/01/21/why-dont-we-have-abundant-solar-power-blame-financing-and-industry-not-science/
Writings from Paul’s friend Warwick, who with wife Gillian inhabits an extremely simple and comfortable passive solar “earthship” home in the South West of Australia. Warwick and Gillian taught me and many others about Permaculture. Lining the walls and stairways of Rockneath is a 4000 item indexed library of a books and articles relating [...]
Here is one where the Government actually gets it right. https://www.moneysmart.gov.au/ I can recommend this as a sound source of reference. Have a look at Publications and the booklet on Superannuation. It is a good starter in very clear language.
As an investor, what might a successful professional relationship with a financial planner mean? What are you prepared to pay for it? What is “Advice” anyway ? Robin Bowerman, Principal, Corporate Affairs & Market Development at Vanguard Investments Australia makes many good points in the following piece. The confusion though, as you will see later, [...]
Fishpond is an Australian owned and operated business started from home and now employing fifty people. Great range. Easy to search. free delivery in Australia. I have just ordered Scott Pape’s Barefoot Investor and another financial book. Go there from this link http://www.fishpond.com.au/about_us.php New to the [...]
Big managed super funds have the difficult task of weighing up sometimes conflicting needs of members. In this case the smoothing out of financial returns or reducing “volatility” has caused a watering down of the ethical specifications. The article is a good one for practical education in how the issues play out in the management [...]
If a fund is labelled as “ethical” that simply means that it uses some sort of set of ethical standards as compared to not using any at all. The article linked here is a good example of why an investor seeking particular ethics must go beyond the label and read the actual ethical guidelines of [...]
Every superannuation “Fund” is a actually a “trust” and it must be governed by a “trust deed”. A trust deed spells out the rules for a trust, about who makes decisions, what it may and may not do, what investments it may make or may not make. Where the trust deed deliberately includes guidelines about [...]
In Australia it can greatly aid your sense of what is going on if you have a little of the history of superannuation. I will keep it light. It is more interesting than you might imagine. Until “the early 1980′s” the only people who had any real superannuation worked on “staff” for large companies or [...]
The main types of Super Funds are classified by who runs them or offers membership in them. Apart from that there are really only very minor differences. Each type of fund may have the same range of investments and the same basic costs and in every type the investments may be managed by people employed [...]
