mike carey

Isn't it normal for the Treasury Secretary of the day to sign banknotes? I can imagine some audiences taking exception to it, but not the audience here.

I always thought you were the calculating type.

I'm not chasing the highest term deposit rates, or savings accounts that offer a few basis points more than my main bank, and clearly my experience has no relevance for North American investors. That said, my bank's savings account has been offering a variable interest rate paid monthly 65 basis points above the Reserve Bank cash rate, so 4.75% with the current cash rate 0f 4.1%. It's been tracking at the same premium to the cash rate for a couple of years now. In general its term rates are lower than that, but at present they are offering 5% for 6 or 9 months and 5.1% for 12 months paid at maturity. The rates are 4.95, 4.92 and 4.98 respectively if paid monthly. I'm only half tempted to lock in one of those as current expectations are that the RBA will raise rates by 25 basis points in May or June, and then the savings rate would go to 5%. (All interest earnings are subject to income tax.)

Perhaps neither underrated nor overrated, more likely not really 'rated' at all, but both the old and new Sydney Fish Markets could/can be vibrant places to visit, for the commercial auctions, retail precinct and their culinary scenes. The market regularly stays open continuously for retail and commercial sales for the 36 hours leading up to Christmas. Time magazine, it appears, has noticed. https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places/2026/sydney-fish-market/

Says one provincial colonist to another!

Whatever the precise calculation, it's still a lot, but I drive so little it won't break the bank. I also usually have a supermarket voucher that takes 4 cents/litre off (big deal I know!) so that softens the blow. My calculation was for the 95 octane, $2.659 (not standard unleaded at $2.50). The spot exchange rate when I worked it out was about $AU1=$US0.6966 (it's dropped since then), so that was $US1.8523, multiplied by 3.78L for a price per gallon is $US7.0015.

I hadn't bought petrol for a while as I haven't travelled away from Canberra much, and I don't go past servos often to note the day-to-day prices. Today was refuel day and regular UPL was $2.50/litre, and the 95 octane for my car was $2.659. Last time I bought it was under $2. As prices have gone up over the past few months, the Aussie dollar has also appreciated against the USD, and the two price movements both increase the USD equivalent of our prices. The $2.659/litre today works out at $US7 per US gallon. (Diesel was just over $3/litre today.)

Oh, it's believable, but the headline statement is not what's believable there, because in a prosperous city like New York, it doesn't pass what in Australia we call 'the pub test'. What is believable is that a poll would make such a 'finding'. When you commission a poll, you write the question, you are able to 'adjust' the sample surveyed and weight the data. Curiously, I didn't see a reference in the article to the name of the polling agency, or a link to a full report of the results. I'm sure that there are people in the city, some frequent posters here may have views as to which borough they live in, who do indeed have to make the sort of decisions, but a majority? Yeah nah.

When old threads are resurrected, or when we merge a new one into an older one, some people will comment as if nothing went before, but others, perhaps many, will read the old content, either anew having read it in the past, or for a first time. I know that I regularly (but not frequently) receive emojis on posts I have written months or years earlier, often from active forum members. So yes, there is an element of dead horse beating, but that's fine. It only becomes tiresome if a new thread starts to do it every Tuesday. Not every revived thread needs to be sent to a knackery.

Such seductive talk!

Rent Man of the Day is paid for by the escort, not 'awarded' or 'given' by the platform.

Distances on our almost spherical world can be deceptive.

To which someone replied, 'English follows other languages down dark alleyways, beats them up and goes through their pockets for loose syntax and grammar.' The comments also brought up a midatlantic divide of which I had only recently become fully aware, that 'thorough' in US English is pronounced something like 'thurrow' whereas I (and from the commentary in the Facebook thread, most of the English-speaking world) pronounce more like 'thurrer' (or 'thurra')

Haha, I had considered commenting that a trip to Costa Rica sounded nice, but decided that was a snark too far, and that most people would apply Occam's razor and deduce it was the city [almost] by the bay.

Do I sense a dead horse being beaten?

I thought you did, like us.

An old thread: And a positive comment in a thread about Charleston:

Just like New Jersey, which is 2/3 the size of Belgium, everyone uses bicycles and public transport there as well. That stretch of country between Newark and the Hudson River is ideal for cycling.

No, I was not.

It seems, some people think that endlessly repeating makes something so, and that a small variation on a theme is a completely new argument. No, I am almost certain that it was not you. And I think I'm not alone in knowing exactly who he was referring to. And not the OP either.😉

An old thread:

So, you've been feeling flat?