Yes - obviously quoting yesteryear activities can lead to giving away your age. 80+ is correct. I am lucky enough to have a couple of really skilled sons who are IT experts and keep me up to scratch with the digital world while I repay by helping them through the financial world in which I spent most of my career. Not all of my career thankfully - I got sick of it. Maybe I am too old to see what the Govt see in holding these expensive inquiries into successful businesses on the basis that they are apparently price gouging. Breaking those businesses up into smaller entities with less individual buying power and spreading the sales over a myriad of more logistical and real estate owning and renting expenses seems a bit odd to me. It has to mean less profitable and more marginal business if they expect to be competitive. Coles and Woollies are not really monopolys. The independents group together and buy through the third largest wholesaler in the supermarket trade, Metcash. If they start looking at Wesfarmers due to their apparent dominance in the hardware trade exactly the same applies with other groups like HomeHardware, Stratco, Mitre 10 all group buying to compete. When Keating called the "recession we had to have" and rates hit 18-20% I do not remember the Feds running inquiries about the large chainstores which existed at the time. I was running a business myself at that time and my costs had to rise to cope with the extortionate interest rates at that time. Rental increases were horrific. No matter I still made enough to retire very early - I was just a little guy - maybe I was the price gouger and I was too small for them to notice.
WES Price at posting:
$64.61 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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