HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ggr@koonda.acci.com.au (Greg Rose)
Subject: Re: implication of GST for savings
Organization: Australian Computing and Communications Institute
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 05:23:45 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.005122.1633@cs.uow.edu.au> ph@cs.uow.edu.au (Phillip Herring) writes:
>ggr@koonda.acci.com.au (Greg Rose) writes:
>>Suppose, on Jan 1 1993, a GST of 10% on basically everything is
>>introduced. Well, on Dec 31 1992, a load of groceries at the
>>supermarket might cost me $100. Twenty-four hours later, I will use up
>>$110 to buy the same load of groceries. Therefore, money I had in the
>>bank will now buy me 10% less than it used to. However, there has been
>>no inflation :-), as the cost of the goods has not gone up. 
>
>Now Greg... are we just playing word games here? What do we mean

What's this "we", white man? *I'm* not the one playing word games.
The government does seem to be, though...

>(Incidentally, your savings have been devalued by 9.1%, not 10%.)

I just knew someone would bring that up... so now I can go all
righteous and point out it is really 9.0909...%. However my parents and
children are satisfied with the 10% argument, and that is all I care
about.

The argument about the simultaneous dropping of Sales Tax does,
however, somewhat detract from my own argument. I will have to go and
do some more sums. But I wonder... [at this point I admit I am
replying to the wrong article, but I'm not going to go back...] If
sales tax is dropped at the earlier stages of the retail pipeline, we
should see a drop in shelf prices, more on some, less on others. Any
non-cynics want to place bets on this actually happening? Of course
that would automatically happen on big-ticket items where sales tax is
added to the invoice, but I mean the hypothetical grocery cart here.

--
Greg Rose                 Australian Computing and Communications Institute
ggr@acci.com.au                                              +61 3 282 2532
`Use of the standard phrase "HIJACKED" may be inadvisable' -- CAA
Newsgroups: aus.general,aus.politics
From: zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au (Paul Repacholi)
Subject: Re: implication of GST
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 12:28:32 GMT

In article <9228418.26288@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>, fgh@hannibal.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Frank Hayward) writes:
> In article <1992Oct9.212032.1@cc.curtin.edu.au> zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au (Paul Repacholi) writes:
...
>>A resonable markup is ~100%, so we have at wholesale, $35 plus $11 plus $4 ST.
>                         ^^^ more like 30-50%
For a large chain store yes, but I was thinking more 'general retail'.

>>The larger chains quickly saw that they could put the $4 in their pocket by
>>reducing the internal price from $11 to $1 ( plus 30c ST ) and increasing
>>the price of the tax free goods from $35 to $45. When the Tax Office tryed to
>>stop it, they quickly showed that it was 'standard' pricing for the industry,
>>because, of course ALL of them where doing the same sort of thing.
>>
>>Now lets do it the GST way. The 'retail' end get $45 plus $11 of goods. Yes,
>                                                   ^^^$35 

NO, $45.

>>I know these are not the figures quoted above, and this is just the point.
>>They will not reduce the price of the currently tax free items, I'll bet, but
>        a very cynical line indeed!!!!!!!

Why do you think it is cynical?

>>WILL increase the price of the taxed items to show a profit at wholesale.
>>If we apply the same margin, we will be paying $112 plus 15%, ~$130!!
>                  ^^^^^^^^^^^totally unrealistic
Again, Why? Don't forget that the bussiness must be prepared for the TPC to
go stamping over his books and ask rude questions. Good answers would be
prudent I think...

> 
> You also seem to forget the other parts of the Fightback package:
read the subject line.

>>
>>There is also the question of a scad of 'non-sales taxes'.
>>
>>Example: A photographer must pay a "proofing tax" on proof sheets or prints
>>that are not intended for sale. Will this one go away under the GST?
>   No unless it is for his/her own personal use, not for commercial use
>   the GST will go on to the final prints, the cost of which will include
>   the cost of proof sheets.  The GST STOPS double taxing!!
Yes but under the current ST, materials and capital goods are ST free. Where
are the details on EXACTALY what will or won't be reclaimable. Under a GST
type system, I would pay tax on *ALL* incoming materials and capital goods.
Where is the detailed explanation of what I can claim back?

~Paul
From: s924683@yallara.cs.rmit.OZ.AU ( Chandi )
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: EFTPOS
Date: 15 Oct 92 08:34:49 GMT
Distribution: aus

chris@cs.uwa.oz.au (chris mcdonald) writes:

>In <15042@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> s924683@yallara.cs.rmit.OZ.AU (CHANDANA PERERA) writes:

>>  Well I have been told by the engineers who design the ATM mechines and the
>>  PIN generation mechines that if you guess or generate the PIN using 
>>  known data (ie Account Num, Name), U will have a proberbility of
>>  around 1/2^256 (ie one in 2 to the power of 256) of getting it right.

>Then I'll just guess the PINs with no knowledge and have a 1:10^4 of getting
>it right.


matthew@psych.psy.uq.oz.au (Matthew McDonald) writes:


>	Well, a PIN number's 4 digits - no?
>	
>	This only allows 10,000 different pin numbers. So my odds of a
>random 4-digit number doing the trick must be at least one in 10,000.
>That's a lot better than 1 in (2^256), just by guessing. Knowing account
>numbers and so on might not help much, but the odds will still be much
>better than you're suggesting.

Welll   (1) 2^256 =  yes = 1.15792089237E77
    I think that is a slight advantage over 10000
	(2)  Guessing wont get U anywhere.... You only gets three goes or so
	     sfter that bye bye card...
        (3)  I was talking about generating the PIN using info... not guessing
	     I was trying to say... generating the PIN has almost IMPOSIBLE
	     odds against it
 In other words With the data on the card one can generate possible
  1000 numbers.... since U know that 9999 is the largest possible pin number.

But there is enough data in a card to generate about 10^77 numbers...
Which data Do you pic to try on your three guesses allowed?????

well I have actually confermed this with a engineer at ### ###### and 
the data is accurate as it can get with out breaking the law....

-chandi
>=-=-
>           Matthew McDonald  matthew@psych.psy.uq.oz.au
>     	Kill the Lawyers. 	Boycott AT&T.
From: beam@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: tradition, node names
Date: 9 Oct 92 17:24:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:BvH46E.Gsw@syd.dms.csiro.au:514595897:peg:993300068:000:117
Nf-From: peg.pegasus.oz.au!beam    Oct  9 12:24:00 1992


how about...

blakes7:
    blake vila gan kali avon travis zen slave orac slear ...

or perhaps even daddo b
From: nick@kralizec.zeta.org.au (Nick Andrew)
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: Sydney Harbour Tunnel Update #19 (Q
Date: 16 Oct 92 09:12:12 GMT
Followup-To: aus.followup
Organization: Kralizec Dialup Unix Sydney: +61-2-837-1183 V.32

beam@peg.pegasus.oz.au writes:


>does anybody think that is actually worth spending .75 billion dollars
>to get more cars into sydney during peak hour?

Sydney's roads are also overcrowded. The connections to the city, esp.
from the West, are sadly inadequate (for more details see Parramatta Rd.)

Essentially the roads are a bottleneck at many places. These places
include both ends of the Hunnel. Imagine a hose pipe with a constriction
near either end. That's our Bridge. Now make the hose twice as wide
along its length, and ignore the two constrictions. That's the Bridge
plus our new Hunnel. You can't get any more water through than before,
due to the constrictions.

What we need is an effective public transport system within the city,
and to keep cars outside a certain radius from the centre. The cars can
be parked underground. There's always "space" for more underground car
parks - it's axiomatic! Finally, a decent set of freeways and ring roads
is required to allow travellers to bypass the city altogether.

I once saw a diagram showing Sydney's ring road scheme. It looked pretty -
a set of semicircular roads joined at strategic places. The reality is
sadly different. Our roads are narrow and twisty, with too many meaningless
intersections and constrictions. These are the primary cause of the traffic
problems.

Nick.
-- 
Kralizec Dialup Unix (Public Access)    Data: +61-2-837-1183, 14400 24hrs 8N1
Zeta Microcomputer Software             Data: +61-2-837-1868, 2400 24hrs 8N1
P.O. Box 177, Riverstone NSW 2765       Plan: To beat Gnuchess 4.1 !
Newsgroups: aus.general,aus.politics
From: kerry@citr.uq.oz.au (Kerry Raymond)
Subject: Re: implication of GST for savings
Organization: Prentice Centre, University of Queensland
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 09:48:49 GMT

>>I have heard that when GST is introduced there will be a rapid inflation
>Looks like Paul Keating got himself onto the net under the pseudonym

The Liberals themselves admit that there will be a one-off inflationary
effect from the introduction of GST. Economists, left and right, have
made various predictions about how big it will be and whether it will
or won't continue to have an inflationary impact in subsequent years.

I agree with the original point: your savings will lose value due to
the immediate inflationary effect. Depending on how large an effect
you believe it will be, will probably motivate you (or not) to shift
cash in bank accounts into a form which is not affected by inflation
(or the GST itself).

However, most people don't know, don't care, and don't do anything anyway.
So, as far as keeping up with the Joneses is concerned, do nothing and you
will maintain parity with your neighbours. Some people will probably
think up some really clever scheme and make a mint; the rest will do something
reasonably well-known (I'm sure the investment columns in newspapers and
magazines will offer advice) and maybe get a little bit ahead.

However, the effect on the banks won't be very dramatic as most people
will do nothing and even those who do still need to maintain some money
in the banks for cash flow.

Xref: sparky aus.general:1927 aus.aarnet:1025
From: s924683@yallara.cs.rmit.OZ.AU ( Chandi )
Newsgroups: aus.general,aus.aarnet
Subject: Re: EFTPOS
Keywords: EFTPOS
Date: 15 Oct 92 08:16:03 GMT
Followup-To: aus.general
Distribution: cs

ivan@atlas.abccomp.oz.au (Ivan) writes:
>There are a number of people who make them, but I believe that only one is
>approved by the government for use in Australia (by a French mob??) - there is
 

 LEE MARTIN AT Morabin Melbourne


>And that's all I remember!  8*)

>Ivan.
>-- 

-- Chandi

Newsgroups: aus.general
From: jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au (Jim Breen)
Subject: Re: New Victorian Premier/result using PR
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Distribution: aus
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 23:11:38 GMT

jat@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (JAMES THOM) writes:

>In article <9228113.26049@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> lee@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Lee Naish) writes:
>> Note than in Victoria the is nothing in the constitution
>>about the electoral system.  Kennett may get legislation passed which
>>makes elections optional or even illegal.  I think the parliament can
>>even appoint Kennett (or me!) as a dictator and dissolve itself.

>But that would presumably violate an implied right to democracy in the
>Australian Constitution and would be overruled by the High Court (if
>not on the streets of Melbourne).

Nice thought, but apart from defining those powers which are held by the
Commonwealth, the Australian  Constitution does not restrict the power of
the State Parliaments to make laws. The one teensy exception to this was
the 1977 amendment forcing State Parliaments to appoint senators filling 
casual vacancies from the Party of the retiring/dead senator.

There was a referendum a couple of years ago which, if passed, would have
prevented States from establishing or banning religions. It was easily
defeated, so it would continue to be quite legal for a State to do what
it likes in these regions.

There was a view earlier this century that British constitutional 
conventions bound the States, and over-rode State acts. There was 
a seminal set of court cases went through the High Court and the
Privy Council, largely instigated by the Ryan Labor government in
Qld, that established that the States had complete independance,
except where they were explicitly restrained by "imperial" statutes.
-- 
Jim Breen                           JIS:$B%8%`!!%V%j!<%s(J
Department of Robotics & Digital Technology. Monash University. 
PO Box 197 Caulfield East VIC 3145 Australia (ph) +61 3 573 2552 
(fax) +61 3 573 2345  AARNet/Internet:jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au
From: beam@peg.pegasus.oz.au
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: Sydney Harbour Tunnel Update #19 (Q
Date: 14 Oct 92 13:01:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:otc.otca.oz:6543:peg:993300070:000:1833
Nf-From: peg.UUCP!beam    Oct 14 08:01:00 1992


thanx for all the info brendan. it certainly is an amazing project.

just as a general question though...

does anybody think that is actually worth spending .75 billion dollars
to get more cars into sydney during peak hour?

after peak times it seems to me that it doesn't really acheive much and yet
all the traffic passing at these times still get taxed (tolled) extra
to help build the thing (if the tunnel hadn't been built the bridge tax should
have gone down (it used to be $1 before the tunnel plan)).

is this a case of the community at large paying for the luxury of just a few
citizens and the richest few at that? how many car parks exist in sydney city?
i would guess it would be less than 50 thousand, but i think a lot more people
than that will end up paying the toll on a regular basis. i would also be
surprised if much more than a small proportion of the city parkers would be
working for much less than a $100K package each year.

another other point is whether the city will be better of for the change.
there will be no requirement and no money to think much about moving from
private to public transport in sydney city for many years to come. what
government could even consider regulation to reduce the numbers of cars in
the city now when that would result in such an expensive tunnel being under
utilised?

don't get me wrong. i'm still completely blown out by what has been acheived,
but i wonder if more a "wonderful folly of" than a "wonderful advance for"
sydneyKind.

cheers, tim :-)
                            ___
--                         __  \    
pegasus networks          / /\  \
byron bay, australia     / /\ \  \    i enjoy working with humans ...
beam@peg.pegasus.oz.au  /_/__\ \  \                                 - hal
+61 (66) 856 789        \_____\/  /
                                 /
From: isaac@etrog.se.citri.edu.au (Isaac Balbin)
Subject: Re: New Victorian Premier/result using PR
Organization: Collaborative Information Technology Research Institute
Distribution: aus
Date: 14 Oct 92 01:01:56 GMT

rcgaym@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Angus Y. Montgomery) writes:

>>No system is `better.'

>what tripe.
>you refuse to judge the system?

No, the judge has been out and said no system is better.

>how utterly immoral.  i can't believe that you believe what you say.
Immoral? An interesting use of word in this context.

>to cease to work towards a perfect system, no matter how futile
>the quest, or how illusory the goal towards which you strive, is to
>cease to be of value as a political being.  

or to be perfectly plain about the facts, viz, politics is politics is
politics, and the sooner one realises that, one is convinced that the
eternal assumption of `let's start with truth' does not apply.

>let's improve the world we live in.
>that's work enough for anyone.

Rarely, of ever is this done by politics, polticians or the 
political systems of the world.

As I said, let's get back to *work*.
From: dave@eram.esi.COM.AU (Dave Horsfall)
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: EFTPOS
Date: 16 Oct 92 03:23:41 GMT
Distribution: aus
Organization: Pacific ESI, Sydney, AUSTRALIA

In article <1992Oct15.024355.4997@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>,
    map@hal.maths.monash.edu.au (Michael Page) writes:

| dave@eram.esi.COM.AU (Dave `aus.bizarre' Horsfall) writes:
                              ^^^^^^^^^^^
Bless you - someone remembers!

| Also not true, at least for some institutions.  I'm willing to believe
| that they can't have all four digits identical, though.

This brings to mind a question - why can the State Bank (NSW) allow me
to specify a PIN (and is there any sanity-checking?) but the Commonwealth
Bank cannot?  I thought they'd use similar systems by now...

I would think it would be dangerous to allow people to specify their
own PINs anyway - how many would pick `123456' because it was easy
to remember?

When the State Bank announced that letters could be used as well as
digits, I thought "Beauty - what a keyspace!"  But no, they just map
alphas into numerics, like on a telephone keypad.  My initial choice
was abandoned when I realised I was selecting repetitive digits.

Isn't it ironic when, to improve the security by avoiding certain
sequences, I actually _decrease_ it by reducing the keyspace :-(
Roll on challenge-response systems, and smart cards...

Oh, and in response to the point about ATM's swallowing one's card
after three (programmable?) incorrect entries, remember that EFTPOS
terminals (the original thread) do not.  If I had someone's card,
and had a reasonable idea of their PIN (from watching them), I could
go around to a lot of shops and try the numbers, pleading silliness.
Is there some sort of alert system to detect this, and refuse to accept
the card hence-forth?  I ask out of pure intellectual curiosity...

-- 
Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU)         VK2KFU @ VK2RWI.NSW.AUS.OC
dave@esi.COM.AU                ...munnari!esi.COM.AU!dave
           Disclaimer: "Me, speak for us?"
Newsgroups: aus.general
From: u894184@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au (Anthony Woolley)
Subject: Swap meets in Melbourne (Vic) area
Keywords: swap meet Melbourne
Organization: University of Tasmania, Australia.
Distribution: aus
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 21:27:30 GMT

Hello there!
 
   Does anyone know if there are any swap meets scheduled in Melbourne
   over December (this year) or January (next year).
     If anyone has any details could they please email them to me at :
                 u894184@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au

    Thanks in advance.

                      Anthony Woolley...
--
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- Anthony Woolley              | This message was proudly brought to you by   -
- u894184@bruny.cc.utas.edu.au | the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.          -
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Newsgroups: aus.general,aus.politics
From: miw@cc.uq.oz.au (Mark I. Williams)
Subject: Re: implication of GST
Organization: Prentice Centre, University of Queensland
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 12:45:17 GMT

gnb@duke.bby.com.au (Gregory N. Bond) writes:

>We've had this out here before.  20% Markup is reasonable on "high
>margin" retailing like Myers/Grace Bros, etc.  Food is "low margin"
>retailing, by which we mean 2.5% - 3%.  So something that retails for
>$1.00 costs around $0.97 to buy wholesale.

Believe me, this is too low. I come from a family of shopkeepers and
other capitalist scum. Jack Butler shocked the world when he opened a
grocery store that operated on a 7-8% markup. Everyone predicted he
would go broke. The family retailing business has a markup of 37.5%,
which is a typical markup for a non-chain, non-boutique specialty shop.
Myers has slightly less, Country road significantly more.

In the late 70s, Coles worked on about 22.5%, but they probably work on
a slightly lower margin than that now, as the business has become a good
deal more cutthroat since then.

>No, I don't know how they make money, either.

At 2-3%, they wouldn't stand a chance. 

*However*. Wholesale to Coles is a lot less than wholesale to your
average corner store. I have also bought wholesale for a small shop I
ran once. The wholesale price I used to pay at Tickell's was actually
higher than the retail price at Coles for some lines, and I can well
believe that, had I shopped at Coles or Woolies, I could have saved
cash. (However, have you ever tried to buy $100 worth of Mars Bars as
Woolworth's? :-)

cheers,


--
Mark Williams         The University of Queensland       miw@cc.uq.edu.au
+61 7 36 54012   (w)  Prentice Centre
+61 7 36 54477  (fax) Qld 4072  Australia
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.  -- Seneca
From: thos@suite.sw.oz.au (Thomas Cohen)
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: EFTPOS
Date: 15 Oct 92 04:21:56 GMT
Distribution: aus
Organization: Softway Pty Ltd

In <1576@eram.esi.COM.AU> dave@eram.esi.COM.AU (Dave Horsfall) writes:

>In article <6557@otc.otca.oz>,
>    brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones) writes:

>| 	- PINs do not start with a '0'

>One of mine does.  Oops - I just compromised security...

A defunct one of mine did.

>| 	- PINs do not have more than 2 digits the same

>Possible, since that would make it easy to observe someone typing it.

The same PIN had the second digit the same.

maybe it was old enough that these security rules hadn't been 
enforced in the encryption? (this was back in 1986 or so)


regards.
-- 
thos cohen  				       |Softway Pty Ltd
"Detachment of any of the four wheels adversely|ACSnet:         thos@softway.oz
 affects vehicle stability..." -               |UUCP: ...!uunet!softway.oz!thos
 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration|Internet:    thos@softway.oz.au
From: s315959@parasol.cs.uq.oz.au (Dan "Sam" Miles)
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: EFTPOS
Date: 16 Oct 92 02:30:05 GMT
Distribution: aus
Organization: Computer Science, Queensland Uni, Australia

> - PINs do not have more than two digits the same

Actually, I had a pin with all four digits the sam once.

Sorry.  :-)


Sam
From: brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones)
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: EFTPOS
Date: 14 Oct 92 22:27:35 GMT
Distribution: aus

in article <summer.718928939@murillo>, summer@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Mark Summerfield) says:
> This is patently untrue -- there are only 10000 possible PINs

In fact, I think there are much less than 10000 possible PINs, because I
have been led to believe that:

	- PINs do not start with a '0'
	- PINs do not have more than 2 digits the same

If this is the case, then there are only 7100 possible PINs.

(Did I do my maths right?)

-- 
Brendan Jones  | ACSnet:  brendan@otc.otca.oz.au               | This space
R&D Contractor |   UUCP:  {uunet,mcvax}!otc.otca.oz.au!brendan | for lease
Network Access |  Phone:  (02)287-3128    Fax:  (02)287-3299   | pending new
|||| OTC ||    |  Snail:  GPO Box 7000 Sydney 2001, AUSTRALIA  | .sig
From: steveo@mel.dbce.csiro.au (Stephen Oakes)
Newsgroups: aus.general
Subject: Re: EFTPOS
Date: 15 Oct 92 22:56:14 GMT
Distribution: aus
Organization: CSIRO, Div. Building Constr. and Eng'ing, Melb., Australia

In article <6557@otc.otca.oz> brendan@otc.otca.oz (Brendan Jones) writes:
>in article <summer.718928939@murillo>, summer@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (Mark Summerfield) says:
>> This is patently untrue -- there are only 10000 possible PINs
>
>In fact, I think there are much less than 10000 possible PINs, because I
>have been led to believe that:
>
>	- PINs do not start with a '0'

Possibly.

>	- PINs do not have more than 2 digits the same

I used to have a PIN 4424.  This has three digits the same ( for those who
can't count :-) ).

>If this is the case, then there are only 7100 possible PINs.
>
>(Did I do my maths right?)

I don't know.

--
| Stephen Oakes      CSIRO Division of Building, Construction and Engineering |
|                    Post Office Box 56, Highett, Victoria, Australia   3190  |
| Internet: steveo@mel.dbce.csiro.au  Tel: +61 3 252 6000 Fax: +61 3 252 6249 |
|_____________________________________________________________________________|
Newsgroups: aus.motorcycles