The latest embarrassment for the government is the inability to launch two highly publicised pieces of legislation – the Companies’ Act and part of the Consumer Protection Act.
The musical “Evita” contains a song called “Oh what a circus” which contains a number of lines, apart from the title, that apply to this and other pieces of legislation which were pushed through with undue haste and total disregard for its wider impact:
Here's the quote from that song:
She didn’t say much but she said it loud (reminds me of someone else of the male persuasion who crawled out of the woodwork in the last year or so)
Falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right
As soon as the smoke from the funeral clears we're all gonna see and how, she did nothing for years
That's all they wanted, not much to ask for but in the end you could not deliver
That's a pretty bad state for a state to be in
Instead of government we had a stage
Quoted from Paul Kruger - Monstone compliance
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Unwanted emails
S P A M - Where did the word come from ?
There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…" Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunchmeat Spam:
Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.
I like the lunchmeat spam one - like it says some of these emails could actually be worth something if it came as something you asked for.
A case in question is the following : I received an email from a guy called Trevor Ketler from a company called Trevor Ketler Presentations. They might be good at what they do and reading through an article called "Ten steps to sell you" they go on to promote steps you can take to get people to take you seriously. Great stuff ! Except they did not take anything seriously by sending this to me in a SPAM mail.
O, it was disquised as a serious piece of mailing by inserting the following words:
1. Know the person:
Find out what the needs of the person are and why they want to deal with you.
(How can this happen if they do not even know who their audience is ?)
5. Have the right words for the right person:
Every person dealing with you has different needs – so ensure that you are pitching around those needs.
What needs ?
7. Get the person emotionally involved:
If it ’feels’ good to the person he/she will make the decision to buy-in to your ideas.
The only emotion the mail stirred in me was irritation - This was no better than the guy at the robot wanting very seriously for me to open my window to take his flyer.
Now take note of the following when you send out emails : If you do not know the person on the other side DO NOT SEND AN EMAIL. If you ever want to be taken seriously get to know the person on the other side - preferably in person. How do you do this _ Get involved in business networking - serious ones , not MLM ! Local Chambers of commerce has networking events - collect business cards - I am a serious collector and have around 1000 reasonably recent ones and have met every single person whose card I have. It is now very easy to say : Trevor , I met you at the cocktail on Thursday - here are some more details on what we do............" No offence given or taken - no spam - a personal email !
These and other serious marketing tips and tricks are going to be discussed at our Marketing workshop on the 6th in Centurion. - We have some great names in the marketing world that will discuss these and other serious marketing stuff ! You must be there to experience it ! Send me an email for an invite - Oh and please address me by my first name: JOHN!
There is some debate about the source of the term, but the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…" Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunchmeat Spam:
Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.
I like the lunchmeat spam one - like it says some of these emails could actually be worth something if it came as something you asked for.
A case in question is the following : I received an email from a guy called Trevor Ketler from a company called Trevor Ketler Presentations. They might be good at what they do and reading through an article called "Ten steps to sell you" they go on to promote steps you can take to get people to take you seriously. Great stuff ! Except they did not take anything seriously by sending this to me in a SPAM mail.
O, it was disquised as a serious piece of mailing by inserting the following words:
“You have recently being referred to us from past delegates or our referral system and we take pleasure in forwarding your first Newsletter”.
Now this is Bull... If there actually was such a person why would they not identify him/her ?
Why did they not address me by my first name in the first paragraph ?
Amongst the steps quoted in the article the following caught my eye ( Especially because they did not take cognisance of their own steps) :
1. Know the person:
Find out what the needs of the person are and why they want to deal with you.
(How can this happen if they do not even know who their audience is ?)
5. Have the right words for the right person:
Every person dealing with you has different needs – so ensure that you are pitching around those needs.
What needs ?
7. Get the person emotionally involved:
If it ’feels’ good to the person he/she will make the decision to buy-in to your ideas.
The only emotion the mail stirred in me was irritation - This was no better than the guy at the robot wanting very seriously for me to open my window to take his flyer.
Now take note of the following when you send out emails : If you do not know the person on the other side DO NOT SEND AN EMAIL. If you ever want to be taken seriously get to know the person on the other side - preferably in person. How do you do this _ Get involved in business networking - serious ones , not MLM ! Local Chambers of commerce has networking events - collect business cards - I am a serious collector and have around 1000 reasonably recent ones and have met every single person whose card I have. It is now very easy to say : Trevor , I met you at the cocktail on Thursday - here are some more details on what we do............" No offence given or taken - no spam - a personal email !
These and other serious marketing tips and tricks are going to be discussed at our Marketing workshop on the 6th in Centurion. - We have some great names in the marketing world that will discuss these and other serious marketing stuff ! You must be there to experience it ! Send me an email for an invite - Oh and please address me by my first name: JOHN!
Monday, September 6, 2010
How tax works
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
(Thanking Paul Kruger of Moonstone compliance for this wisdom !)
Suppose that every evening, 10 men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to R100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay R1.
The sixth would pay R3.
The seventh would pay R7.
The eighth would pay R12.
The ninth would pay R18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay R59.
So, that's what they decided to do....... The 10 men drank in the bar every evening and were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said, "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by R20".
Drinks for the 10 men would now cost just R80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men, the paying customers - how could they divide the R20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realised that R20 divided by six is R3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
Therefore, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing.
The sixth now paid R2 instead of R3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid R5 instead of R7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid R9 instead of R12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid R14 instead of R18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid R49 instead of R59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a rand out of the R20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got R10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a rand too. It's unfair - he got 10 times more benefit than me!"
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get R10 back, when I got only R2? The wealthy always win!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists, labour unions and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
(Thanking Paul Kruger of Moonstone compliance for this wisdom !)
Suppose that every evening, 10 men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to R100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay R1.
The sixth would pay R3.
The seventh would pay R7.
The eighth would pay R12.
The ninth would pay R18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay R59.
So, that's what they decided to do....... The 10 men drank in the bar every evening and were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said, "Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by R20".
Drinks for the 10 men would now cost just R80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men, the paying customers - how could they divide the R20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share? They realised that R20 divided by six is R3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
Therefore, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing.
The sixth now paid R2 instead of R3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid R5 instead of R7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid R9 instead of R12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid R14 instead of R18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid R49 instead of R59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a rand out of the R20 saving," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got R10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a rand too. It's unfair - he got 10 times more benefit than me!"
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get R10 back, when I got only R2? The wealthy always win!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "we didn't get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists, labour unions and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
