mike carey

Gentlemen, a reminder to stay on the topic of XL (whether the escort or the digraph) and not venture into comments about other providers or into other speculative asides.

Probably not, but then we would not have had the benefit of @Vegas_Millennial's educational intervention.

Bank term deposits in Australia are still available at 4.8% to about 5.1% for terms from about six to twelve months (all taxable). My bank's transaction account is paying 4.75% and I have a 'bonus' savings account that pays 5.15% (reduced to about 2% for any month I make a withdrawal or don't deposit $100) so there's little advantage in taking out a term deposit. Unlike the US Federal Reserve, the RBA is saying it doesn't expect to cut the cash rate until early next year, so maybe then it will be worth looking at term deposits but not just now.

It would be helpful if you mentioned the city, or at least region that you are in, or if you're prepared to travel for the right guy. Edit to add, we've merged this new thread with several others asking the same question.

*Searches ASMR disambiguation*

Would it be churlish to agree? I won't quote FU again.

I'm glad you were prepared to go there, I considered it and demurred!

Russ' ad is active and 'Gold', with some new photos, and he lists a two-day trip to Los Angeles this weekend. https://rent.men/Russ_NYC

To repurpose my favourite quotation from the original House of Cards, 'You may well say that, I couldn't possibly comment.'

Welcome to the forum. You're a class act, and in one post you set an example of how to make the best use of an unfortunate incident.

Which is somewhat ironic, as the word is derived from an Asian word for a sauce, that when it (the word) came into contact with English referred primarily to spicy savoury sauces. The nearest commonly known such sauce is kecap manis (Indonesian/Malay sweet soy sauce - kecap [pronounced ketch-ap, stress on the first syllable] is the shared spelling now although it used to be spelt ketjap in Indonesian, tj being the way the sound ch is written in Dutch). You'll see some brands of ketchup on Australian supermarket shelves, and although it is universally called tomato sauce in common usage, everyone will understand the K word.

An interesting perspective on Why Companies get Inflation wrong from the Ecomomist, with a link to the article for subscribers (who may prefer to listen to it rather than read it out loud with an English accent: Why companies get inflation wrong WWW.ECONOMIST.COM Bosses should pay less attention to the media And for those who don't have any free articles left: Why companies get inflation wrong Bosses should pay less attention to the media Aug 15th 2024 Over the past year-and-a-half inflation has fallen sharply across the rich world. Although some central banks have now begun to cut interest rates, few are yet ready to pat themselves on the back for a job well done. In many countries the core rate of inflation, excluding volatile energy and food prices, remains uncomfortably high—at 3.2% in America and 2.9% across the euro zone—even as underlying economies show signs of slowing and financial markets become increasingly jittery. The marathon task of returning price growth to more normal levels is not quite finished. And the last mile, as so often, is proving the toughest. In recent years policymakers have worried that inflation expectations would become “unanchored”: that a long period of high inflation would lead both households and firms to expect more price rises in future. This is a particularly concerning prospect since such beliefs can become self-fulfilling, with workers bargaining for heftier pay rises to compensate for rising prices. Economists have often focused on how expectations take hold among households, but more recent research looks at how firms respond to rising prices. It not only holds a few surprises—it also offers fresh insight into why the last mile is quite so hard. Surely companies have a good idea of where inflation is heading? After all, they receive regular data on the cost of inputs and how much customers are willing to pay for their goods and services, and have strong incentives to pay attention. If a company does not have a sense of the pricing strategies its rivals will be employing in the months and years to come, it will probably suffer. Despite this, bosses seem to be easily swayed by less up-to-date sources of information. In particular, they are influenced by backward-looking data from national-statistics agencies. A new paper by Ivan Yotzov of the Bank of England (BoE), Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and co-authors examines how firms responded to inflation in 2022-24. The researchers look at responses to the Decision Maker Panel, a survey of British bosses that has been carried out by the BoE every month since 2016. Because respondents have a fortnight in which to send over thoughts and because their thoughts are time-stamped on arrival, the researchers can compare the inflation expectations of firms before a monthly consumer-price-index (CPI) release with those afterwards. They find that an unexpected one-percentage-point rise in CPI inflation produces a 0.7-percentage-point rise in expectations of future inflation in the days after, and continues to exert influence in the weeks that follow. Last year Yuriy Gorodnichenko of the University of California, Berkeley, and co-authors found a similar result, with a similar methodology, in Israel, where an unexpected rise in inflation of one percentage point was associated with a 0.5-percentage-point rise in expectations. Indeed, the influence of official inflation statistics stretches even further than companies’ views on the general inflation outlook. It also sways their views on the likely path of their own prices. Analysis of the BoE’s Decision Maker Panel finds that a one-percentage-point rise in headline inflation leads to a 0.6-percentage-point rise in expected own-price growth. These expectations are skewed in a manner that will concern central bankers. Higher inflation readings pull expected prices up by more than lower inflation readings drag them down. The media may in part be responsible. Messrs Yotzov and Bloom constructed an index of inflation chatter in British journalism, based on the share of newspaper articles mentioning rising prices. Looking at this, the researchers and their co-authors discovered that days with lots of such chatter were associated with rising inflation expectations among companies. They assumed that firms obtained information about inflation from media outlets, rather than directly from the national-statistics agency. Between 2019 and October 2022, when CPI peaked at 11.1%, British inflation rose six-fold; by the same point, media coverage had also risen six-fold from its average in 2010-19. But during the period in which inflation subsequently fell, media interest declined. An old journalistic saying is that “if it bleeds, it leads”. Similarly, writing about the pain of rising inflation is more attractive to journalists than writing about the joy of falling inflation. This, in turn, distorts how companies perceive the state of the economy. Race to the bottom Given the astonishing array of information available to bosses, it may seem implausible that they really are such naive media consumers. However, corporate leaders are nowhere near as well informed on economic developments as might be expected. In 2021 Bernardo Candia of the University of California, Berkeley, Mr Gorodnichenko and Olivier Coibion of the University of Texas at Austin examined responses to a quarterly inflation survey by the Cleveland branch of the Federal Reserve. The researchers discovered what they called “systematic inattention” to issues of monetary policy and inflation. Less than 20% of chief executives were even able to say what the Fed’s inflation target is (2%, for those also not paying attention). Two-thirds of managers would not even offer a guess. Bosses also disagreed just as much about what inflation had done over the previous year as they did over what it was likely to do in the year ahead, despite the former being public information. It seems that corporate leaders do not owe their career advancement to sophisticated economic analysis. Media coverage, therefore, is one way in which high inflation begets even higher prices. By writing about rising inflation more than falling inflation, journalists make the final mile tougher still. The Economist is just as guilty of this as any other publication. Although it is tempting to lay the blame for persistent inflation solely on chief executives, your columnist offers his apologies. ■ For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, finance and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. From the August 17th 2024 edition

Some joker in that city came up with this, and it's largely true for many parts of the south-east of the country, including my stamping grounds of Canberra and the part of southern NSW just west of there, perhaps without the Hell part, which is a references to the few days of hot north winds in 'summer'. 'The Swooping' is about the nesting season of the Australian magpie which is renowned for that, when anyone they deem a threat comes within 200m of their nest tree. They can recognise people, so you're doomed if you have done anything threatening to the pair concerned, and can be safe if your house is nearby and have fed them.

... And of course cricket will be back in 2028.

You might note that some personal information has been redacted from the opening post in this thread.

I agree that it's appropriate for the responsible government to force owners' corporations (or whatever the local law calls them) to have adequate reserves. Doing so crystallises potential liabilities and takes away the ability of the corporations or individual owners to hide expenses purchasers may face. There are instances here where owners would reject efforts to create necessary reserves preferring, perhaps understandably but shortsightedly, to minimise current costs. This forces their hands. You could argue that it's up to buyers to do their due diligence, but making due diligence difficult for them should not be an option for corporations or owners. What about non-compliant corporations? My short answer is 'tough shit', but the longer answer is to force them to comply. Issue directions to them to levy contributions to the reserve fund so that it shows up as a liability for individual owners rather than a contingent liability for the corporation. How the corporation enforces the debt is a separate question, they could allow it to be paid off gradually and charge interest on outstanding amounts. (Under the conveyancing laws here, if the owner has to sell, any debts to the corporation are paid from the proceeds of sale before the balance is paid to the vendor.) If they don't comply, then the government should legislate to allow it to fire the corporation executives and appoint an administrator to make the building compliant. I was on the executive committee of my development 10 years ago when the territory government changed the law to require owners' corporations to hire professional assessors to produce a 10 year maintenance plan and for us to budget a sinking fund to cover the anticipated expenses. We had a special assessment at the time but haven't had one since. (The development is single storey with only duplex and rows of four units, so under our law that's a class of development in which owners are responsible for most building maintenance so for us it was a relatively simple effort.)

That's how I read @SirBillybob's comment initially but as I read on concluded that he meant 'it' not he had touched down in Stockholm.

If your interest is to invest in emerging markets, doing so through their banks and buying stocks through various foreign stock exchanges can be a casino play. It will also become incredibly complicated if you want to repeat the steps in multiple countries. It would be simpler to invest via US intermediaries (and not Honest Billy Bob's Third World Stocks Inc), either a US broker who handles foreign stock dealing, or through an emerging market mutual fund or exchange traded fund. It may be feasible to deal directly with foreign stocks and currencies in developed countries, but keeping track of the market trends AND the variations in their exchange rates with the US would make for a complex management task for you. Take professional advice. If your intent is to take your funds out of reach of the IRS, basically you can't. Well, unless you renounce any US citizenship you have, or aren't one in the first place. For US citizens, all income domestic and foreign is subject to US taxes, and from what I understand, they take a dim view of off-shore investments that tax-payers try to hide from them.

Moved to the Lounge.

This was all over the ABC news yesterday, including an interview with Professor Manga. I don't recall whether it was him or another talking head that said the amount of water could be enough to cover the Martian surface to a depth of up to 2 metres (although that assumes that the surface is flat, which it's not, for example the volcano Olympus Mons is 21.9 km high, 2.5 times the height of Everest). I found it amazing the detail they can deduce about the Martian interior from the returns collected by a seismograph.

I'm certain many faces, familiar and otherwise are looking forward to seeing you again, both here and in person. Welcome back Danny! I know someone who is looking forward to it immensely!

Finally, about time too.

Waddaya mean, it only seems like yesterday when Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean were skating to gold in Sarajevo to Ravel's Bolero. Torvill and Dean's legendary 'Bolero' performance | Music Mondays OLYMPICS.COM Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean memorably receive sixes across the board following their skate to Ravel's Bolero at...

Are you saying Cornhuskers aren't your thing? (BTW, I think I still have a t-shirt emblazoned with 'Omaha Nebraska, known for absolutely nothing '.)

I last heard from him a month ago today. We had a long phone conversation about the big commemorative para jump he organised in Oregon in April. He sent me a shit tonne of photos and videos of the event. He seems fairly busy with those sorts of activities. He was last on WhatsApp 36 hours ago so he's still around, but we haven't spoken or exchanged any texts.