Are Pensioners Becoming Scared And Desperate?

On Wednesday the 21 May 2014, a pensioner named Gloria phoned ABC Radio to talk to Tony Abbott who was a guest on the program. She told the Prime Minister that in order to afford to pay her bills and feed herself she has to work for a sex phone line service. She claimed that with the changes to pensions in 2017 that she would be $850 a year, worse off. 

ABC radio reported that Gloria was 67 years old, which would make her an aged pensioner. There seems to have been some dispute about this as Marcus Paul on 2CC in Canberra said this woman was only 63, which would mean she would not qualify for the aged pension.

In any case, Prime Minister Tony Abbott explained to her that she would be better off after the carbon tax is dismantled and that she would retain the compensation payments that were given to low income earners when the carbon tax came in under the Gillard Government. What was not mentioned is the fact that all aged pensioners will lose their Seniors Supplement, which take away about $60 per fortnight. In-fact Mr Abbott conveniently avoided this fact. When you add up the extra she will spend on co-payments to bulk-billing doctors and prescriptions and then factor in this Seniors Supplement, Gloria will be far worse off than she herself has calculated.

Having said all of this; this legislation will not come into effect until the next election has passed, which gives all pensioners a chance in the meantime to work if they can and invest any money they can before this happens. The thing is, there is time to plan and somehow make up for the shortfall. In any case, it is likely that these changes will not go through, given that all but one Senator who will rotate into the Senate in July does agree with cuts to welfare. He does not specify whether he is in favour of changing pensions, but all the other Senators have stated they are against cuts to welfare.

Pensioners are struggling as it is, so how can they afford to lose $60 per fortnight and then be forced to pay co-payments for medical services and extra to pay for their prescriptions. And it must really bug people that Tony Abbott made no mention of the scrapping of the Senior's Supplement. It is doubtful that the aged pensioners forgot about that.

It is pretty clear that not everything Hockey and Abbott have put into the budget will get through the Senate. What is even more clear is that it seems as though Bill Shorten's Labor Party and the Greens would love to see this budget go to a double dissolution election. It really does seem as though Shorten and his buddies are running an election campaign with the sole purpose of scaring the hell out of pensioners, the unemployed and families and branding Abbott and Hockey as liars. Perhaps they are liars, but so is the opposition and every other politician and Australians will get sick of this song soon enough.

This strategy will not buy Labor or the Greens any credibility and certainly will not win them an election, should it go that far. They need to put a plan on the table and come up with alternative idea where the budget can be balanced. They made the financial mess in the first place. Australians are not stupid; they know who is responsible for the mess we are in. As for the people who are running scared, well they should be. This budget is the toughest we have seen since Howard won the election in 1996. Hockey and Abbott are going to have to rethink this plan or do a much better job of selling it. Winking and smirking at a radio announcers and getting captured on film doing so is not helping. People are starting to think that Abbott is arrogant and cannot see the forest for the trees, not to mention the name calling. It will not take long for the public to become angry about this childish behaviour. We all need to grow up and focus on the policies and the issues, instead of slinging mud backwards and forwards.

What do you think of this budget and the behavior of our politicians? I would love to know. Catch up with me on Facebook or Twitter.



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Copyright © 2014 Janelle Coulton

Malaysian Plane Tragedy – Family Members Insist That Their Loved One's Phones' Ring

Is This A Reason For Families to Hope for the Best?

According to many news services; the family members of the passengers aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 370 have been calling the mobile phone numbers of their missing relatives and have been getting a ringing signal.

A Chinese gentleman went on TV in China, called his relative and showed the TV crew that the phone was ringing. It was also reported in one of the articles below that Malaysian officials called the flight crews mobile phones and they rang as well. Many people were speculating that these reports were just cruel jokes and not at all true. However this has not been proved and Malaysian officials obviously do not think that they can track the phones, or the relatives and loved ones would have been told this was happening.

Last week USA Today and International Business Times in Australia have reported that loved ones have been imploring officials to track these mobile phone signals in order to find the plane and hopefully rescue their loved ones.

Phone providers have said that the ringing signal could be because the phone is searching for a network. However, it was pretty obvious they were not sure.

Today the Australian Maritime Safety Authority reported a satellite spotted debris in the Indian Ocean, about two and a half thousand kilometers from Perth, Western Australia. Perhaps it would have been better to examine this debris before alerting the press. The families of the passengers aboard this flight really need to hear news that tells them something. It would have been a lot better to wait until they had confirmed whether this debris is from the missing aircraft.

On the weekend the news services reported that they believed the plane had been hijacked and searches of the pilots residences' were carried out, as it was discovered the their communication equipment aboard the plane had been tampered with and disabled deliberately. However, even after this was discovered the Malaysian officials would still not confirm the plane had been hijacked. This has made the families lose faith in what they are being told, they are sick and tired of the trickle of useless information they are receiving, to the point where there was a confrontation with Malaysian officials when some of the family members tried to talk to members of the press.

When all is said and done, this is an awful tragedy and I really hope they get some answers soon. I guess all anyone can do at this point is wait, hope and pray. I am also hoping that this telco provider official was wrong and the loved ones who did call their family members phones did actually connect, because that would mean the plane is not in the ocean. However, this cannot be proved.

It is a complete mystery. Who goes to the trouble of hijacking a plane to simply crash into the sea? Why did they change course and go in a completely different direction. The simple fact that the plane headed west surely must mean that whoever was at the controls had a plan to land the plane somewhere. Terrorist's sometimes carry out suicide missions, and this could be what happened, but it just seems really stupid to go to the trouble of turning off all communication systems and changing course. If they were planning to crash the plane either into the sea or on land somewhere, why go to all the trouble of trying to remain invisible.

Perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part because I want a happy ending for the families who must be out of their minds with grief and I simply do not the like the thought of two hundred and thirty nine people dying for no good reason. So tonight I will be praying that this debris is not that of the Malaysian airliner, because if it is then that means the passengers and crew on this flight have died.

Hopefully we will have some news sometime tomorrow. The weather in the location they were searching was not good today and a Navy ship is on it's way to meet the aircraft, and this will take a few days. However if the weather improves tomorrow, perhaps the pilots in the RAAF planes who should already be at the location might be able to get close enough to identify the debris. In the meantime the waiting, the questions and the speculation continues.

Sources:

USA Today

International Business Times

Copyright © 2012 Janelle Coulton

Review Sites That Pay For Written Reviews

The following article is a short list of the most popular and the best review sites that actually pay writers money to their Paypal accounts for writing and sharing reviews. Some of these sites are much like affiliate selling, particularly Favourite Thingz at the end of this article, you choose your favourite products on the site and if a customer makes a purchase you get part of the sale.

Epinions is probably the most popular and has been around the longest. Review Stream and Shared Review are newer or so I am assuming as I only discovered them a little while ago. Favourite Thingz is a new site, as far as I know as I have never heard of this one until I did some research for this article. Have a look at the short descriptions below:

Epinions

Get $10 for every 10 reviews you write, this is truly an easy site to write for. You write a comprehensive review, say around 400 words and you share in the revenue. If you are really good at reviews then it can work out to about one dollar per review.

Review Stream

This site is the only place on the Internet you can earn some cash just for writing the reviews! You are able to write a review about any topic you like, it could be anything, you best friends new fishing tackle box or your uncle's cat. Write about hotels you have stayed at or stores you have shopped in. Make it around 300 to 400 words and you could do well at this site. This site will pay you for every review.

Shared Reviews

This is a community site that empowers people to connect with others and share in the profits. Many website owners are understanding more and more that we writers don't need to write for free and quality content is worth paying for. Help generate profits at Shared Reviews and get paid for it.

Favourite Thingz

All that one needs to do here is choose favourite things on the site, when somebody purchases one of your favourite thingz, you earn from the sale. It kind of reminds me a little of affiliate selling but with a difference. I cannot seem to find a link for this site, so perhaps they are not in operation at present. I will get back to everyone on what I find out regarding this site.

Slice The Pie

So I have saved the best till last, as I love music and I adore this site. There is a trick to this site that someone on Teckler shared with me tonight. If you are a fast typist you can do quite well here. You will listen to a song, while you are listening, write what comes into you head. Do not censor your thoughts or typing, plenty of time to edit later; just write. You need to write a decent review of the song, about 150 – 200 words, and if you love music and you can type at around 80 words per minute, this should not take you long to write several music reviews per day. I am not sure what one review pays as I have only just signed up there; however I highly recommend this site and so do many other people out there earning online.

Personally folks, I would sign up for all of them and work slowly for a while until you start to build a reputation on the site. I love them because I love to write reviews, in-fact most of my private clients ask me to write reviews, so it's something I have become quite good at.

It doesn't hurt to sign up and try them all out and if you are not happy with one of two of these sites, then close your account; but I am sure if you like to write reviews then you will enjoy these sites.

Previously published on Teckler

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Copyright © 2013 Janelle Coulton

This article may not be reprinted in any form without written permission from the writer. A partial reprint of this article is permitted with a link back to the original work.

If you would like to exchange links with me, please leave me a message via the comments or contact me via email, which you will find on my Hire me page.

Make Money Proofreading Or Transcribing For Scribie

Scribie is an online transcription site and is one of the most popular transcription sites out there at the moment. The only experience you will need is to be able to type at a reasonable pace; you will also need to have good written communication skills. There is also an option to obtain proofreading or review work once you have transcribed ten files.

The process is that you sign up and take a short test, which is not difficult. Shortly after you will receive an email with your results and an invitation to join up. Scribie always seem to have plenty of work available, so it's just a matter of logging in and choosing a file to transcribe. Once you choose a file, you have two hours to complete the file, since the files are only six minutes long, this should be relatively easy for someone who types at a good speed.

All the files are in English, so you would need a good command of English grammar and spelling. The files are six minute recordings, that you type up. For each completed file you receive $1. So if you spend a few hours each day on this, you could be earning $40 - $50 per week or more, and this translates to about $200 per month. A nice little addition to your other streams of income. There is no limit to how many jobs you can accept and once you have done three hours worth of tapes, you will get a $10 bonus. If you really wanted to go hard at this and do an hour of tapes per day, you could be getting the bonus every three days. And another big bonus is that you can cash out whenever you like and your money will be in Paypal the next day.

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Once you have transcribed ten files; you are then eligible to do reviews and proofread work from other transcribers, which is easier to do and pays the same as transcribing. Once you have worked at this for a while, your typing speed will increase and you will also be able to apply for other transcription jobs that require experience.

Scribie is open to people from most countries, however they do not accept applications from countries that do not support Paypal. The files are all in English, so anyone who speaks English as a second language may find it challenging, however there's no harm in trying it out. Take the test and see how you go.

There are many other transcription sites online, however this is the first one I have encountered where you don't need much experience. Once you get your feet wet here, you may want to sign up for other sites that pay more. The site that pay more generally want their applicants to have skills in certain areas; like a legal background or an understanding of medical terminology.

So, there you have it. Another way to make a little income online. If you are interested, then go check out the site.

Check out Scribie for yourself.

For more information about Freelance Writing visit my website. If you would like to hire me to write for you, you can contact me via my Hire Me page.





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Copyright © 2013 Janelle Coulton

People Need To Be Right

The Need To Be Right. We all have this need, and sometimes it is better to tell a person they are right, rather than argue with them.


Recently I got into a big fight with my partner, who is no longer my partner, but that's another story. 

Anyway, he got himself into a little hot water at work. Something that was totally his fault and he would not take responsibility, just kept blaming the other person. His boss was cranky and the whole thing could have resulted in him getting fired as what he was accused of doing was over the line. I told him it was his word against the other persons' and to let it go. He did not appreciate that. I am guessing he was after sympathy because this person was picking on him and telling lies.

Once he got home that night I realized just how angry he truly was and instead of giving him comfort, I told him he has quite a reputation for doing stupid things. He and I did not speak for a few days. So was it worth it to throw the truth in his face like that? Probably not. But it's what I do. Ask and you shall receive is my motto, ask me a question and I am not gonna lie. So if you don't want the answer, then don't ask and this is exactly what I said to him.

I was pretty upset about his attitude and it all calmed down, until he came home again in a really foul mood and began to take it out on me. It was a Friday night and I did not want to put up with his dark mood all weekend, so I asked him what was up?

After the last few days of the silent treatment and him snapping at me every time I opened my mouth, I was on my guard. 'Here we go again' I was thinking. Instead he just said that the girl at work that was giving him a hard time had reported him for harassment and he was being investigated and had to do mediation. Instead of berating him for being an idiot, which he probably was. I told him I was sorry this was happening and was there anything I could do. He smiled and thanked me, and asked if we could go get pizza for dinner. We ended up having a great weekend and when he went to work on Monday, I wished him luck and said that it's her word against yours. He said nothing and off he went.

When he returned home that evening he was in a good mood and told me that this girl had fallen flat on her face, apparently she had lied about this sort of thing before. He was in a happy mood and I truly think it was because I let him feel that he was right in this situation.

And the moral to this story is, sometimes we may disagree or believe another version of the truth, but people need to be right.

This guy and I are no longer together, but he is an awful flirt and it would not have surprised me one bit if he did make a move on this girl. But at the time it was easier to let him be right. Perhaps that was wrong; well no, not really I know it was wrong to let him get away with it, as he has said really discriminating things regarding women and disabled people for as long as I can remember and I have been warning him for years that he will get into trouble. He was damned lucky to get away with that, and in the end the girl quit working there. Hmmmm. Gotta make you wonder.


The previous article is a re-write from Bubblews; Write you Way, Share Your World - Write for Bubblews and earn: Sign Up Here and Start Earning Today 



Janelle started writing as a content writer for Suite 101, you can see her work here. She now write for private clients, Helium, Expert's Pages', Full of Knowledge, Hub Pages, Triond and a few others. Janelle write and creates her Grey's Anatomy Addicts blog, and maintains several other websites. She is a expert in content writing of all topics and can turn her hand to write almost anything, having recently ghost written a series of articles about Adjustable Dumbbells, which she has absolutely no interest in what so ever and did not even know what they were until a week ago. You can get more information about Janelle at her profile page or on Google+.



Copyright © 2013 Janelle Coulton