Ian Timmins comments on assorted topics
ASSORTED
10th February 2009 - Is Vegemite all Australian?
One result of globalization has been the little publicised takeover of several Australian biscuit manufacturers by multinational giants. Australian made household brands and products have been acquired, among them PREMIUMS and IN-A-BISKIT ( formerly produced in Australia along with some Nabisco lines by Lanes Biscuits ).
Now under the Kraft / Nabisco label, production of these same lines has been moved to China, which may surprise many consumers.
The Australian public has a right to know just what food products contain wholly or partly imported ingredients. This concern has been given added urgency following the Chinese food contamination scandal where milk was adulterated by the addition of melamine powder, resulting in some deaths and serious health problems particularly in young children, with unknown long-term effects.
That staple of Australian households, Vegemite, is also produced by Kraft Foods. The Vegemite label states " PROUDLY MADE IN AUSTRALIA SINCE 1923 ", and bears the " AUSTRALIAN MADE " symbol ( as opposed to the more important " PRODUCT OF AUSTRALIA " label ). But whilst current Vegemite labels make no reference to the source of contents, earlier labels state "MADE IN AUSTRALIA FROM LOCAL AND IMPORTED INGREDIENTS. " So what is the actual situation with the contents of Vegemite?
It's also time for government to ban use of the misleading and uninformative " made in Australia from local and imported ingredients " description for all foods. The public want to know just where their food is coming from.
7th January 2009 - The power of small savings.
Though probably the equivalent of a foreign language to some from generations X and Y, the old idioms of " look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves " and " a penny saved is a penny earned " never held truer than in these financially troubled times.
So many people treat their loose change as nothing more than a nuisance, but they should reconsider their attitude to this potential booty. They are looking at small amounts from the wrong perspective.
What many ignore is the difference that making a saving of only $1 per week can make. This equates to an annual saving of $52. To earn a similar amount from a bank savings account paying say 4%, you would need a deposit of around $1300, or in excess of $1500 allowing for tax, and even more if the account pays less interest.
The average Australian wage is now $59,644, or $1147 weekly. So a worker on the average wage has to save around one and a half week's income in order to accumulate the same funds necessary to produce that weekly $1. Another way to look at it is how much time would they have to work to earn the tax-free $52 itself?
So it seems a no-brainer that it is easier to save $1 a week. There are so many simple means such as buying food on special, reducing mobile phone costs, reduce ATM fees by more responsible funds management, cut out that expensive bought daily cup of coffee etc. And of course if you can save more than the $1 per week, then the benefits are multiplied.
People can save their way into a more secure financial position without pay increases if they simply control the small expenses. The old aphorism " use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without " also comes in handy!