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1 week ago | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | David Murphy |Duncan Hughes |Nicholas Way
I bought The Idiot for $1.03. A bargain price, you’ll have to agree, for a masterpiece of Russian literature. Yes, all 1,635,000 or so of Dostoevsky’s words have been downloaded to my Kindle ready for my edification. It’s not his longest book, with The Brothers Karamazov holding that distinction, but a few years ago I read Crime and Punishment and enjoyed it greatly. Yes, part of my reading penchant in retirement is delving into the classics, and it’s been a gratifying experience.
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1 month ago | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | Jamie Nemtsas |Duncan Hughes |David Murphy
The first-half numbers for Coles (ASX:COL) to December 31, 2024, were solid, with sales ahead 3.7 per cent to $23 billion, outstripping its major rival Woolworths – the latter was plagued by industrial trouble before Christmas – which could only increase revenue 2.7 per cent.
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1 month ago | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | Duncan Hughes |Jamie Nemtsas |David Murphy
A father’s failure to write a will has triggered an expensive legal battle over the ownership of his prized collection of prestige cars, including a $250,000 Rolls-Royce Ghost. Lawyers warn the case highlights the importance of carefully planning a will with expert guidance to avoid confusion, delays in distributing an estate and family fights, particularly where there are children from multiple marriages.
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2 months ago | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | Nicholas Way |Drew Meredith |David Murphy
The regular consumption of eggs is associated with a 29 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease-related death (CVD) in relatively healthy older adults, research from a Monash University-led team has found.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | David Murphy |Jamie Nemtsas |Jon Glass
Have you, as a retiree, ever considered teaching? You’ve acquired knowledge and expertise over your decades of employment, so why not pass this on to the next generations or even your peers? For myself, semi-retirement teaching was among the most rewarding activities of my career.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | James Dunn |Nicholas Way |David Murphy
As 2024 recedes in the rear-view mirror, the share market’s gains go into the past performance file and nothing about 2025 is guaranteed. To recap, the share market – that is, the S&P/ASX 200 index – gained 7.5 per cent in 2024, or about 11.4 per cent with dividends included. That is a bang on-target for the long-term average for the share market.
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Dec 17, 2024 | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | David Murphy
Melbourne’s Glen Eira council puts out a monthly newspaper, Glen Eira News, which is delivered free to municipal inhabitants. It regularly arrives in my No Junk Mail letterbox, and if not busy I quickly peruse the latest comings and goings of the mayor as well as other fascinating news about the neighbourhood. One of the latter pages is community diary, divided into meetings and clubs, and community.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | David Murphy |Jamie Nemtsas |Nicholas Way
We might not particularly like all aspects of the US, but we must admit that they do have some of the best (and worst, but that’s another story) universities in the world. So, who wouldn’t want to study at Harvard? How great would it be to listen to a leading Harvard professor teach topics such as justice or historical literature. Yes, you too can access some of the intellectual capital of leading American universities, often for free. How did this come about?
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | Nicholas Way |Jamie Nemtsas |David Murphy
The outperformance of market heavyweights, such as the banks domestically and big technology stocks internationally, is still making life difficult for active managers, with research showing most of these funds (54 per cent) across all Australian categories underperformed their assigned benchmarks in the six months to June 30, 2024.
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Oct 29, 2024 | 
thegoldentimes.com.au | David Murphy |James Dunn |Nicholas Way
Many decades ago, my teaching career took a turn into the world of distance education. It proved productive, giving me the opportunity to work overseas and enjoy creating a variety of courses for study. At the time, the leading institution in this form of education was The Open University in the UK, created in the 1960s with the aim of providing second-chance university courses for those who had missed out after completing their schooling.
