Gambling is one thing I’ve flipped on as I got older. I used to laugh off the critics and think of gambling as “a tax on those who can’t do math” but I’ve come to think that’s cruel (and regressive) and paternalism is good here. This paper is another brick in that new wall.
I put up a mini-site today at https://t.co/7DAPRPxBc7 to help you compare the world’s cities. You can see how many people live near a city, or use my favourite metric: "population weighted density" to get an accurate measure of how dense a city is to live in.
When you hear NIMBYs complaining about shade in their backyard or having to park further down the street or the preservation of unremarkable suburban buildings, please weigh this against what the housing shortage is doing to renters.
Like Mat, from the Inner west:
@ash_craig The difference between evidence and guidance on this topic and regarding sensible alcohol consumption while pregnant/breastfeeding boggles my mind.
🇦🇺 Crikey! The hidden fees report on Australian banks was so intriguing I thought I should ask the Aussie twitter to confirm that our team got the math and screenshots right? /1
Banks profiting off customer complacency (aka ‘loyalty’) is ingrained in the industry. But profiting off customer ignorance by hiding the true cost of FX is particularly grating when it’s an easy problem to solve.
@charliedbecker@patio11 Scope of Work (@the_prepared), a newsletter on engineering/manufacturing/infrastructure is my favourite newsletter about complex things I know almost nothing about.
@AnechoicMedia_ This article about poor parents being far less likely to decline a request for junk food from their kids is compelling. https://t.co/qoBfA6uV3b
@RogerWilkins_au@MattCowgill Do you know what % of the tax benefit the salary sacrifice companies extract? Feels like overly complicated policy vs. allowing tax deduction for an EV purchase.
@Tris_Sainsbury@SHamiltonian@TMFScottP@JoshBosselmann Ha, seems like a v. niche policy decision for the people who would have otherwise exceeded the $100k non-concessional cap on re-contribution. How many people in Australia would have filled this form? Must be less than 100. https://t.co/ZIsDJoBPHM
@elyobo@choiceaustralia@up_banking@UBank@Wise I wasn't sure if ING still offered Visa exchange rates on international purchases but it seems they do https://t.co/bwJGqFVMc8
Pretty hard to beat them given the ATM rebate.
I’m a big fan of @choiceaustralia but this article leads consumers down the wrong path: https://t.co/gQjNoJSvwj
If you are going overseas sign up to a service like @up_banking, @ubank or @wise, load your account with AUD and get significantly better exchange rates as you go.
And don’t forget, this is how some players in the industry treat their customers - by seeding confusion from which to profit.
'FX: Where there's mystery, there's margin' 🤢
Laws mandating proper cost disclosure in the EU means that ING are transparent with their customers sending money around Europe - but not when they send money to the US. Australia could implement a law that makes banks do what ING did for EU payments and have it apply everywhere