Caterina @caterina was kind enough to give me the following fascinating historic information about urinals, urine and the tax levied on collected urine by the roman emperor Vespasiano. He put a tax on the urine collected in public toilets from which ammonium was extracted to tan skin. The history goes that his son Tito was upset by this tax (that generated a large amount of money), but Vespasiano answered that "money doesn't smell". The sentence is now commonly used (at least in Italy) to criticise people who don't worry about the ethics of gaining money. It seemed that this phrase was very apt in relation to the Royal Commission into the behaviours of various Australian banks eg CBA, NAB, ANZ, WBC. Their ethics have been found to be extremely dodgy with charges of forged signatures, enabled money laundering through ATM machines and fees charged for no reason (to mention just a few items!) The 52 week theme for week17 is "Humour". If the bank revelations weren't so dire I think they could be humourous!
Thank you Rob for mentioning my story. Beautiful collage that you made but, as you say, there is nothing humorous in corruption which is so widespread! To say it in Latin as Vespasiano would. Pecunia non olet!
@caterina Hi Caterina - I glad you saw this and that you were happy with the result. Your info was so interesting and so relevant to our banking businesses. Thanks you again. Cheers Rob
@robz I am away all week on a walking holiday so I expect it may be a landscape. Weather forecast looking cloudy but I will see what I can do. Look forward to seeing yours, sounds fun.
April 27th, 2018
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