question about australia?

[vc15jrich23]

yes, we use to have a ton of card shops from 96-99 (I quit collecting while in high school from 99-03) but I can not say for sure if it was people quit caring as compared to the employee's attitudes at the shop. At one shop when I was 9 years old or so I hit a Michael Jordan insert that booked at $25.00 at the time and then the guy wouldn't even give me a hard case. (I know that is not a lot of money but when you are 9 years old and have a $5.00 allowence for a pack of cards it's like hitting gold) then there was another shop where the guy just did not care, he inherited the shop from his dad and he just let it go out of business, he wanted nothing to do with it. Finally on another shop the owner worked for MSN Hotmail so he was loaded he also owned seven restaurants and four local tire shops so he basically had the shop to get cases at discounted prices so he could open them all himself.

Right now we only have two shops which one of them only carries about 2 sealed boxes on the shelf of NBA MLB and NFL sports so I am not sure how long he will be around. (I do go in there for supplies and becketts sometimes)

 

[Anfaure]

Yes, I think it may have been a bit of both, sounds like it might have been the same over there and when you started collecting it was already on the way down but maybe a bit slower than over here, it really annoyed me because the price of cards fell at a rate of knots and a collection worth thousands was lucky to be worth hundreds.

 

[taffster74]

What really killed the hobby in australia was the AU dollar crash in 1999/00 (when the dollar hit an all-time low of 43 us cents). Shop owners just could keep up with the inflated box prices as well maintaining overheads.

 

[tak35bne]

yeah its illegal not to vote here. You get a $50 fine i think and then still have to vote.

Voting is compulsory for all persons aged 18 and over, if you fail to vote you are issued a $20 penalty and you have 21 days to pay and/or explain your absense at a polling booth. If after the 21 days you have not paid the penalty or explained your actions then proceedings thru the local courts are started where the penalty awarded is $50 + court costs.

 

[mischap123]

Back onto the food thing. As well as having to include calorie count, fast food giants also had to include healthier eating options. You can now get salad and H2O at Macca's. School canteens have also changed a lot but depends on the school policy with an increase rate of childhood obesity. USA is always used as the measuring stick for this as they have one of the highest rates in the world

 

[rishgoon]

Voting is compulsory for all persons aged 18 and over, if you fail to vote you are issued a $20 penalty and you have 21 days to pay and/or explain your absense at a polling booth. If after the 21 days you have not paid the penalty or explained your actions then proceedings thru the local courts are started where the penalty awarded is $50 + court costs.

Voting compulsory for Australian citizens. Permanent residents have the option to enroll to vote or not.