Supercharger Emporium

I was feeling hungry for lunch and so decided to try eating at Supercharger in the Emporium food court in Melbourne.

This was the first time I'd been to this place. The menu looked complicated. They presented two pieces of paper. One allowed you to make your own meal. Another piece of paper had four different set meals. However, the set menu was set up in a way that was very unclear. When it was all explained to me, I understood it. I actually thought that the menu was referring to many different meals when really they were just referring to different aspects of each meal (did that make sense?). Have a look at Supercharger's menu at Zomato to see for yourself.

Anyway, for newbies, I recommend you get a set meal. They have names like "immunity" or "strength" depending on what you want the food to do to you. I assume the "immunity" meal makes you immune to sickness.

You pay around $14 and you get a number. After waiting around a bit, you receive a tray usually with three bowls. There is usually a soup, some creamy mixture, and a big main bowl with salads, edamame, noodles, and all sorts of other things that I don't know the name of (luckily I took a photo).

All in all, it was very tasty and definitely very filling! I highly recommend it.

Drunkards on Metro Trains

A man carries a bottle of whiskey in his hands and takes a drink while waiting for the train.

Sacrificing sunlight for affordable housing

According to Chasing the sun among high-rises a heated issue, there is significant resistance to high-rise development in Melbourne's CBD, mainly because of fears that high-rise buildings would destroy sunlight.


Victoria is facing a massive housing affordability crisis that is  resulting in middle-class people paying exorbitant rent or massively inflated prices (and therefore interest repayments) on their homes. Giving first home owners grants only increases demand for houses and pushes house prices up even more. The answer is to increase the amount of accommodation. One way of doing this is to build outwards. Another way is to build upwards. In the face of a housing affordability crisis that is crippling this country, I am surprised that there are people more concerned about sunlight at lunchtime. Governments need to let property developers build more accommodation. Increasing supply is the only way prices will go down.

The Train Ride

It was afternoon. The train moved quickly and smoothly along the tracks, but suddenly the carriage in which I sat shook and swayed. Perhaps the train had hit a rock left on the track by vandals. Nevertheless, none of the commuters on the crowded carriage seemed to care. Their heads were down as they read their novels or newspapers. Some even played colourful childish games on their smartphones, even adult men who daintily pressed their fingers on the phone touchscreen like finger-painting kindergarten children.

A man in smart casuals sitting opposite me tried to move his feet. His knees pressed against mine. We made eye contact with each other for a moment, and I noticed he had an angry look in his eyes, and he isn’t afraid to express it. I averted eye contact and justified to myself, in my mind, that it was not my fault. I cannot help having long legs. It was the train that was at fault as it was not big enough and there weren’t enough seats.

A woman who sat to the left of this angry man stared forward like a zombie. White headphones in her ears emitted soft beats. Looking at her was like looking at someone experiencing an intense moment of indulgence while on the toilet taking a dump. She wasn’t the only one enjoying the music. Every third commuter was wired up to his portable music device. Their eyes rolled up into their heads as the music poured into their ears. They were spaced out and out of this world. What are they trying to escape and why is it so scary?

My eyes performed a 180-degree scan of the commuters in front of me. I ignored the men and the old women, focusing instead on the young females. I look at one girl in particular, a blonde schoolgirl who wore dark blue uniform with a light blue ribbon in her hair. She too had white headphones dangling from her eyes. Her eyes stared out the window, and she had the look of a girl who wanted to be somewhere else.

Baillieu Cutting Stamp Duty by 50%

The average house in Melbourne is around A$500,000, which is among the most expensive in the world. In a bid to help first home buyers, the Baillieu government plans cut stamp duty by 50 per cent (according to First Time Buyers Struggling to Keep Up). This is clearly a bad move as it will only increase the demand for houses which will in turn increase prices even more. Those buying houses at a time like this may think they are better off with a stamp duty discount, but with house prices and mortgage interest rates at record highs, it will likely put a lot of stress on home owners. Expect banks to make more money out of this.

My advice to first home buyers is to live with your parents for longer and to pay them rent. Usually parents are willing to charge lower rent to their children because they have been living with you for decades and know that you are trustworthy tenants. With the money you save from living with parents you could take advantage of the high Australian dollar and invest in overseas companies or you could buy shares in Australian banks.

If Australians continue to want to buy houses, this will only result in more bank profits as perpetual demand for housing will result in perpetually rising house prices, which will mean home buyers will need to go into more debt to fund their purchases. Greater demand for debt will mean that banks are able to charge higher prices for mortgages. They can increase interest rates or charge higher fees. This should lead to greater profits, all else equal, will lead to greater shareholder return.

If you want to invest in an Australian bank, I recommend one of the big four: Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ, or NAB.

Benefits of Brumby's Expansion of Melbourne

Today the Victorian parliament voted to extend Melbourne's urban growth boundaries (read Green Land Cut Back as Melbourne Grows Much Bigger). When I read this news, I thought to myseld, "Brilliant! Great idea. Houses are very expensive in Melbourne, and making Melbourne bigger would make it easier for first-home buyers to afford houses."

But reading the comments in the Age news article I linked to above, it would seem as if Premier Brumby had just been caught sexually abusing a child. Why are so many people whinging about an extention to the urban growth boundaries?

I don't pretend to know exactly what the Victorian government intends to do when implementing this policy, but based on what little I have read, everything seems positive.

Wouldn't it increase congestion because more people will have to travel to the city?

According to the news article, suburbs like Footscray, Broadmeadows, Frankston, and Dandenong will be "designated business districts." WIth the expansion of Melbourne's urban growth boundaries there will, I hope, be more commercial and industrial zones outside of Melbourne's CBD. Once many residents are established in the outer suburbs, many businesses that are headquartered in the CBD will feel great monetary pressure to relocate from the CBD to new business districts like Frankston and Dandenong where they will be close to many new outer-suburban citizens and where rent would be cheaper. Lower rent means higher profitability.

Suppose very many workers still travel to the city rather than outer-suburban business districts. If that is the case, the cost in terms of congestion, time, and petrol for workers to travel to work is high, and these workers will demand a higher wage from employers to compensate, which means businesses based on the CBD will need to increases wages. If these businesse move to Dandenong or Frankston, congestion would not a big issue.

Basically, work moves with the people. If people move away from the city, so too businesses will move away from the city to follow the source of labor.

A larger Melbourne will create social division because rich people will live near the city while poor people will live in the outer suburbs.

This is already happening. Rich people in Melbourne already live near the city while poor people live far from the city. Even if Melbourne does not grow geographically, it wouldn't fix this problem. In fact, it would make things worse. If Melbourne did not expand, and if we assume demand for housing remains high, house prices would be high everywhere, even in the outer suburbs. At least if we expand Melbourne we increase the number of houses in the market, which pushes house prices down, giving the poor an opportunity to afford to put a roof over their heads.

If the government expands Melbourne and also increases the amount of commercial and industrial zoning in the outer suburbs, this should make living in the outer suburbs more attractive since it those who work there can more easily travel to work.

What about the green wedges?

Most of the green wedges in Melbourne are actually just garbage tips and farms. It makes no sense to have these things in the city. An argument can be mounted that urban sprawl will harm the environment by clearing forest and increase carbon emissions, but both these problems can be fixed with either taxation or cap and trade. To prevent deforestation or carbon emissions, tax it heavily or sell off permits to individuals or companies to allow deforestation or carbon emissions. This way the government can set how much deforestation or carbon emissions it wants. If citizens or government decide that deforestation or carbon emission is a problem it can increase taxes on deforestation or sell off very few carbon pollution permits. This makes urban expansion very costly for property developers or individuals to buy new land, which makes high-rise apartments more economical.

What about the extra traffic?

Extending the urban growth boundary will allow for the construction not only of houses but also roads and train tracks. Because more roads are built, congestion should not really increase. If very many roads are built relative to houses and businesses, we should actually see a net reduction in traffic congestion.

High Income Households in Melbourne

Below is a map of where high income households are located in Melbourne. High-income households tend to be in the city, the inner-city, the Bayside suburbs, and the suburbs near the Yarra River.

Brendan Keilar Dead after Melbourne Shooting

FRIENDS of solicitor Brendan Keilar, gunned down as he tried to rescue model Kara Douglas as she was being assaulted, say his last act was typically brave and selfless.

Mr Keilar, 43, was on his way to work when he came across a man dragging Ms Douglas from a cab by the hair in central Melbourne during the morning peak yesterday.

In the blink of an eye the man pulled out a gun and opened fire, fatally wounding Mr Keilar and seriously injuring Ms Douglas and a second, unidentified man who also went to assist.

The father of three died despite the efforts of paramedics, who fought for an hour to revive him at the scene.

Mr Keilar's family gathered at his Hawthorn East home to comfort his widow, Alice, son Charlie, eight, and daughters Phoebe and Lucy, aged six and four, The Herald Sun reported today.

Brendan Keilar grew up in Warrnambool, in Victoria's south-west. He was admitted to practice as a solicitor in 1988 after completing law and commerce degrees at the University of Melbourne, Fairfax newspapers reported.

He was a partner at commercial legal firm Norton Gledhill and specialised in property law.

Mr Keilar was also a member of the University Blacks football club. The club's reserves coach, Justin Gray, said his friend was a fearless rover for the team in the 1980s and naturally showed the same fearlessness yesterday.

"That is exactly the sort of thing you would expect him to do," he told the Herald Sun.

"He was caring for others. He always came to the fore."

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21930003-1702,00.html