Parking World

Long Flight To No-where

I seem to have been too busy to get to the blog over the last couple of weeks, what with putting the next Parking World issue to together and attending the ANPSG meeting in Brisbane last week, amongst other things.

I had an experience on the return flight from Brisbane that would have (and did) anger some travelers, but I simply looked on as an adventure in life.

After a 30 minute delay in take-off due to some technical problems and plane swapping by the carrier, and being promised complimentary refreshments, we experienced some rough air turbulence just as the attendants were starting to trundle out the trolley. This meant they had to returning to their seats and we would have to wait for our meal and drinks.

However, after about another hours flight, the captain came on to say that they could not find a way through or over the line of storms that lay between us and Adelaide. They were going to make for Sydney to refuel and try and fly further south and around the storms, but this idea had to be rejected due to Adelaide's 11pm curfew. We just would not make it in time. Unfortunately there was no option but a return to Brisbane.

So after some 3 1/2 hours on the plane we ended up going no-where!

One particular gent was unacceptably rude to the ground staff, who were obviously under enormous pressure to find us all rooms at very short notice. At a rough guess, they had to find accommodation for some 100 of the 160 passengers. Not an easy task at 10PM.

But they did, and after a night in a local hotel, we ended up on the same plane with the same crew at 8am the next morning for the successful second attempt.

In a light hearted moment, upon landing in Adelaide the passengers all gave a hearty cheer! That old saying "Better late, than never" still rings true.

JP

Thieves or Technicians?

I really wonder about the quality of the people running some local government bodies, not just here but also overseas. A classic example of one needing a clean out is Athens Police Department, the one in Ohio, USA, not Greece.

They have two problems they are struggling with at the moment. The first is that the local university has opened a carpark in competition with the city's, and they fees are set lower than the city's. This has resulted in a loss of around $78,000US in income over the last twelve months. 

So, where do you think people are now parking? It seems the city leaders are at a loss as how to react to this predicament. What the...? The answer is obvious - a review of the fees charged at the city's carpark meters! Or, how about doing away with the meters and implementing a more up to date system, with discounts, etc?

The second problem they have is theft of money from the city's 780 parking meters. Apparently the sum has totaled some $200,000 over the past four years. To quote the Athens Police Department Chief "There is an organized group manufacturing keys to steal from the meters and keep them functional"

Hang on a second, did he say keep them functional? What's going on here? Not only are the thieves making their own keys to access the money, they are actually fixing the broken units so they can keep collecting it? Now that's one for the books!

If you don't believe me, you can read more about it here.

JP

Bright Side of Life

Johns post below has struck a cord with me. We seem to be thinking the same thing about this whole GFC, as it is now called - Global Financial Crisis - for those who may have been living in Outer Mongolia for the last few months.

A number of banks were trying to make more profit than was sensible on the back of rising house prices. Along come the stock market speculators to drive the oil price through the roof and the battlers in the 'mortgage belts' around the world suddenly find they are being squeezed by a rapid rise in prices.

In the US, where a lot of 'no doc' loans where written up to people who couldn't rub two coins together, borrowers simply started walking away from their home loans. The banks took possession of the vacant houses and put them on the market to recoup the outstanding loans.

As the number of defaulters rose an oversupply was created, house prices started to fall, and this snowballed along to a point where there were thousands of homes being repossessed very week, driving prices even lower. 

Unlike Australia, whilst the defaulters try to restart their lives as best they can, the banks in the US wear any losses made in this situation, a their losses were growing exponentially.

As the number of unsold houses on the market grew, the banks found they were unable to repay the loans they took out to finance the housing loans. So, they started going belly up. And as these loans were taken out via a web of financial institutions around the globe, it has had repercussions just about everywhere.

To top it off, the media has been having a field day! They have been dredging the bottom of pools for any commentator who at some time in the last ten years has been predicting just such an occurrence and giving them air time. Nearly every night there has been someone sprouting about recessions and depressions, even predicting the worst in history.

Of course this type of rabid publicity has a negative effect on peoples attitudes out in the market place. But, I find it all a bit of a storm in a tea cup at the moment. I don't know of anyone doing it any tougher,or losing their job, let alone their house. I don't know anyone who has had to pull their kids out of private school, or stop going out for dinner, buying lattes or going to a concert. I know we are somewhat isolated from it here in good ol' Oz, mainly due to good banking regulation, so I may be a bit too optimistic, but I still can't help but feel that we will ride this out faster than a lot of the doomsayers are telling us.

The price of oil has crashed back to a reasonable level for the time being, the Oz dollar is back at a level where our exports are better placed, and unemployment is still low at around five percent.

All in all, I reckon we will see this out reasonably well. Lets hope I'm right - but hey, I have been wrong before!!

How did that Monty Python song go again? "Always look on the bright side of life,....."

JP