Author: Stilgherrian

Posted on

What hope the Liberal candidate?

OK, the Liberals have a snowflake’s chance of winning our local seat of Marrickville in the forthcoming NSW state election, so they can let any muppet have a go. But if this is the best election flyer you can come up with, Ramzy Mansour, then who are you kidding?

Photo of Ramzy Mansour's election flyer

Consider:

  • If you can’t even organise someone who can cut paper in a straight line, what makes you think you can run the state of New South Wales?
  • If you can’t raise the $3000 to professionally print the 45,000 leaflets necessary to hit your electorate, how little support do you actually have?
  • If you can’t do the basic financial management to understand that for large print runs, offset printing is a lot cheaper than photocopying, why on earth would I trust you with a billion-dollar state budget?

1 out of 10, can do much, much better.

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Seek must be a rip-off

OK, this isn’t exactly cutting-edge business analysis, but stay with me. Employment website Seek makes a net profit after tax of $23.9M off revenue of $70M. That’s a markup above costs of nearly 52%.

So I figure they could drop their prices by a good 20% and still be making plenty more profit that the average quite-successful business, yeah? Hell, a computer shop only makes 6% to 8% when they sell you a laptop.

No wonder their share price is at a record high.

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If I ever become an Evil Overlord…

… then here’s the plan: Follow the advice given in The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord. Including:

  • My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
  • I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum — a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
  • If my advisors ask “Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?”, I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
  • My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

Sure, the list is a decade old, but I only found out about it just now from author John Birmingham, who continues the discussion.