Monthly Archives: May 2009

Suck shit, scumbag

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Something that really does piss me off is men who go through all sorts of contortions to avoid paying child support to their former partners.  I mean, they are the father’s kids too, and you’d think these guys would have some interest in ensuring they are properly looked after.  But no, often getting revenge on the ex takes precedence over the kids.

Simon Sywak is one such man.  He was a hedge trader with JP Morgan who earned more than $500k a year.  His marriage ended unhappily in 2005  after 8 years and 2 children.  Mrs Sywak was granted the family home and monthly maintenance of £2750 from her former husband’s income of more than £250,000 a year.  He paid maintenance for two years, but in 2006 the payments stopped suddenly when he argued that he had abandoned trading and was unemployed and training to become a bus driver as well as thinking about writing a book.

The banker then proceeded to use his legal proceedings against his former wife to stop paying maintenance. Ms Sywak, who was immediately suspicious that her high-flying, wine-loving former husband would tone down his lifestyle, hired a private investigator who tracked him down in Singapore.  He was caught out when was filmed by a private investigator and was seen accepting flowers at his office with a card which stated "Thanks for everything". Despite being caught, he continued to refuse to pay maintenance and not only brazened it out for several months but continued a court case against his former wife in the hope that delays would bankrupt her.

He was recruited by Westpac as a derivatives trader in Sydney after leaving his job with JP Morgan in Singapore. Westpac sacked him last year, three days after the it was reported that he had been pretending to be training to become a bus driver to avoid paying child maintenance.  He argues that Westpac owes him at least $1.3 million, a sign on bonus for starting his new job with them.  Westpac terminated him 3 weeks before this payment was due. He is suing them, arguing that the terms of his contract meant he could be sacked only for fraud or other illegal conduct, and not for matters involving his personal life.

Hopefully the court acts with commonsense and decency, and finds against him.  Busted, being an unethical prick, I think gives the company plenty of grounds to sack him.  Scumbag.

 

Paranoid?

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There is apparently an ammunition shortage in the USA.   Some say the shortages stem from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are causing manufacturers to focus on military need, coupled with increased training exercises by law enforcement officials.  But there is also evidence of stockpiling by private gun owners who fear the Obama Administration will move to limit gun ownership or tax ammunition heavily.

According to some of the gun owners at a gun show in Virginia:

"Since the election, everyone’s in a panic,"

"They didn’t announce it officially, but the rumour is that they were going to raise the excise tax on it to 500 per cent. It’s 11 [per cent] now and that puts it out in the market for $US400 [$550] a box. It would go up to $US2000 if the excise goes up to 500 per cent."

"Everybody’s buying it right now, probably because of politics, because they think gun laws are going to change,"

"The numbers I have seen suggest that 17 per cent of gun owners in America will defend their right to own guns with their lives," he tells me. In order to do that, they have to be able to shoot them. They are stocking up now so that if the legislation changes or there is a shortage, "they will have everything they need"

Another one of them passed specific commentary on Australia, saying sales are booming because:

"we don’t want it to happen here like your government screwed up your country taking your guns and freedom away from you".

Yes, don’t we all know that guns are the symbol of freedom.  No guns = no freedom, according to a lot of these paranoid ultra-conservative Americans.  The whole attitude just amazes me.  Do these guys still think they’re living on the wild west frontier or something a century and a half ago?

I am quite happy that we don’t have the gun culture in Australia, despite the efforts of some on the right wing fringe of politics (One Nation in Queensland, the Shooters Party in NSW, et al) to import it.  Does anyone in Australia have any real concern for their safety at the hands of armed nutcases/criminals?  I’d say the answer to that is overwhelmingly no, unless you’re an active participant in outlaw motorcycle gangs, Lebanese crime gangs, Chinese triads and the like.

I can grudgingly accept that farmers need rifles and shotguns for pest control.  I can even accept people like shooting at a gun range.  Fair enough – I’d suggest that their guns should be kept under lock and key at the range where they shoot.  However, I can see no valid reason why people own assault rifles capable of firing hundreds of rounds a minute, and use high impact military ammunition which is designed for one purpose, which is killing people.  What, are they worried about an uprising of heavily armed killer super-deer or super-rabbits?  Having such weapons in the community is just stupid, stupid, stupid!!!!