Wouldnya know it? Hot on the heels of my recent management kickin’ (see previous post), along comes BHP with an announcement that they are buying back the homes of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine workers they laid off a couple of weeks back. The value of the homes had plummeted after BHP’s decision to abandon mining in the region, which they had previously flagged was guaranteed to prosper for at least 25 years.

Not only that – BHP are intending to provide financial support to businesses in Hopetoun and Ravensthorpe likely to suffer from the inevitable exodus of mine workers and their families. This doesn’t make them heroes. Shit, they are merely acknowledging their moral responsibility to the folk they misled with their 25 year mine guarantee assurances. But it’s something, at least, that they’ve taken some honourable action without the stimulus of legal action to help them on their way.

THEN, we have good ol’ Richard Branson’s response to the now-famous letter of complaint from a passenger about in-flight food during a Virgin flight from Mumbai to Heathrow. Evidently, Branson phoned his disgruntled client personally, apologised with a double topping of charm, and offered the bloke employment as a food and wine selector for future Virgin flights!

Mind you, looking at the passenger’s pic of the offending vittles, Branson’s shoe-shuffling charm offensive was very much required!

ERK!

…and ERK again!!

Anyway, that’s how it’s done, all you management bozos out there. There is always a win-win solution. And working to find it is always worth the effort.

Perth, Political, Society

Why Should The Taxpayer Save Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun?

January 25, 2009 rolanstein 10 Comments

Until very recently, there has been a sense of unreality about this global financial crisis. The media has been flinging doom and gloom at us like a baby in a high chair with a big plate of bad news, but I can’t say I’ve noticed much belt-tightening out in the real world. Restaurants are still packed, shoppers were as fevered as ever in their attacks on the post-Christmas bargains at the department stores, and the coffee-sippers and lunchers at the local cafe strips are undiminished.

A majority of folk have suffered excruciating drawdowns on their super funds, sure, and those with direct exposure to the sharemarket have been hammered, but in many cases the losses are on paper only. Markets crash and markets boom, and in between – which is most of the time – they fluctuate to and fro rather tediously. That hasn’t changed. The cycles repeat, and in time the paper losses of today will be made up with the resumption of the upward bias that is historically a given. The same applies to the real estate market. In the meantime, though, this current crisis will leave its mark just as the boom has. Continue reading Why Should The Taxpayer Save Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun? →

Perth, Perth real estate, Political

Three Cheers For The Bust

January 24, 2009 rolanstein 1 Comment

So this boom that has rained bucks on its beneficiaries and disadvantaged the majority in myriad ways – in Perth, at least – appears to have busted. Slow handclaps for the stockbrokers and financial media seers who declared time and again with unshakeable confidence that China’s dizzy growth rate was assured for another three decades, regardless of America’s economy or the state of global markets. Add India, the other waking giant, to the mix and we had a cake that would just keep on a-risin’. Turns out, ’twas more like a souffle full of hot air that escapes with a hiss when taken out of the oven, leaving big ambition and great expectations collapsed in a cheesy heap…

I say three cheers for the bust. The boom has misshapen the Perth community quite grotesquely in all sorts of ways. Here are a few obvious examples: Continue reading Three Cheers For The Bust →

The Boomtown Rap

Gadzooks! Some GOOD Management Stories!

Why Should The Taxpayer Save Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun?

Three Cheers For The Bust

movie reviews + occasional other musings