nemesis's Journal

Anyone who's traded stocks more than "infrequently" will know that the markets are open between 10AM and 4PM. Presumably these hours were selected many decades ago to allow stock brokers to arrive at a reasonable hour, and get some preparation done before the market open.

But in this day and age where the Internet allows us to buy things any time, day or night (from anywhere around the world), why is the stock exchange still restricted to these archaic hours? Thanks to online brokers such as CommSec, many investors nowadays are private investors, with full-time jobs that don't involve securities trading. And many other investors are even in different countries, in different timezones.

A 10AM-4PM restriction is not only inconvenient, but it just doesn't make sense anymore. It's not like the technology doesn't exist; the ASX already has a computer-based trading system.

A market that's open 24 hours a day would have another positive side-effect: Companies could no longer time market-sensitive announcements to 4:10 PM. Companies tend to do this (especially in the current environment) so that investors have time to sleep on the announcement, before dumping the stock. That's simply not how the market should work.

It's time to move into the 21st Century -- into the Internet era. If millions of Internet merchants can sell products 24/7, then why can't the ASX?

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The first episode of Top Gear Australia just aired. And I could tell it was a flop, within the first 10 minutes. Somehow, they've managed to make the show sound like a boring documentary -- and without David Attenborough's charm.

The presenters just aren't interesting. Charlie Cox, some old guy nobody's ever heard of, has a voice so boring that I've found a new soundtrack for when I have insomnia. Steve Pizzati is some hippy, with all the wank and none of the charm of Richard Hammond. And I don't even see why Warren Brown's on the show. He just fades into the background.

But Top Gear Australia falls into the trap all Australian motoring shows fall into: they're unable to be critical of the cars. The biggest criticism was that one of the 4x4's sent too much power to the front wheels and not enough to the back.

The one possible redeeming factor Top Gear Australia would have had was that the personality for the interview segment could actually have been someone we've heard of. But instead, they got some nobody who was as almost as boring as listening to Charlie Cox's voice for an hour.

It just goes to show that you can take a successful format, but it's no guarantee of a successful show.

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It's pretty well known that the pension is $273. But what's not often discussed is that this pension was always intended as income supplementation; not as income to live solely off.

Raising the pension is a terrible idea, for one main reason: we have an ageing population. Consider these statistics:

• Today, we have a ratio of around 6 taxpayers per pensioner
• In 2025, we'll have a ratio of around 3.7 taxpayers per pensioner
• By 2050, that ratio will drop to 2.0 taxpayers per pensioner.

That means that, even if the pension isn't raised, by 2050, $137 of the tax you pay per week is going solely to supporting a pensioner. That doesn't leave much money to run the country on.

The pension should be phased out; not raised. It's clearly unsustainable, and places an enormous burden on younger generations to support extravagant baby boomers with no savings capacity.

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How do you squeeze in more ads into a one-hour program? Channel Ten's found a cunning way.

I came across this phenomenon when watching Burn Notice for the first time on Ten a few nights ago. Something just didn't sound right -- everyone's voice was slightly higher. I played the US source against Channel Ten to make sure I wasn't going insane.

I was right. Everything was slightly higher. This is typically caused by the source being played faster, like when you hit the "2x" button on an audio tape and hear chipmunks.

The source was indeed being played faster; gaining about 10 seconds in 5 minutes, by my estimates. That's about 1.04 times the speed of the original source -- equating to Channel Ten being able to squeeze in around two more minutes of advertising.

You can only really do this with a new show, like Burn Notice. After all, most of the Australian Audience has never seen it before, and so doesn't know what the actors' voices sound like, or what key the opening theme is in. You certainly couldn't do it with a show like The Simpsons. You've heard the opening theme thousands of times, and more than a few people will notice that it's now in C# Major, instead of C Major.

I guess I can see where Channel Ten is coming from. Content doesn't earn money. Advertisements earn money. But where do you draw the line? Playing shows at 1.5 times the speed, to squeeze in half an hour of ads?

Is this just another example of commercial television stations taking Australian viewers for granted? Will Australian consumers just give up completely on commercial television?

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