Tim Cameron

@mikulaja @Wise Hi Jason. That's a well justified nitpick. We just fixed it.

I will nitpick this @Wise UX, because that's basically my job. I did not save negative money... that would imply this actually cost an EXTRA $29.08.

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 citydensity.com 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.

Our pre-birth *hospital-run* course told us that breastfeeding -> baby iq higher by 7 pts. I looked up the study. It had mother’s IQ and did not control for it. When they did it went away. Even for researchers more honest than that, controlling for observables is not enough.

🇦🇺 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

@yimbymelbourne Insanity

THE DEVELOPMENT WAS REJECTED

We'll be at the City of Darebin meeting tonight to speak in favour of the two-storey townhouses! Check out the live stream below! darebin.vic.gov.au/About-Council/….

@zoomerjd $10k! Yuck. The worst I've seen a bank take on $600k is $30k from an unsuspecting family 🙈

Reading through some customer comments for work and this one from an NZ customer stood out.

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.

@patio11 Who are your other favorite writers for this kind of thing? And similarly, any books to recommend?

As someone who appreciates Matt Levine both concretely in the abstract, there could be a hundred other authors with this general lens on the world applied to various fields and I would read as many as I could find hours in the day for.

@AnechoicMedia_ This article about poor parents being far less likely to decline a request for junk food from their kids is compelling. latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/…

A 2023 study finds "food insecure" people are much more likely to use food delivery apps! Blacks, hispanics also more likely to use.

I think what happened is during the pandemic people had a sudden surge of spending money and a reliance on delivery food. Then we went back to normal and young people in particular have grown accustomed to nearly daily access to restaurant food, and are spending a lot on it.

@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.

@MattCowgill Lease an EV through a salary sacrifice arrangement. As long as the car price is less than $85,000, there's no FTB and the whole thing is basically paid for out of your pre-tax income (including insurance, servicing, etc.) [Has to be a new or near-new car, though.]

@jonclemonsjp @levelsio @Wise The JP limit is very low by our global standards. We’re working on increasing it.

@levelsio @Wise Does @Wise SG have limits on international wires in SG? Can only receive around $10k per wire here in JP with @Wise. Maybe I need a new home base...

Switched my business banking from old Singaporean 🦖 dinosaur bank to 🏎️ @Wise Business Now: - instant payouts from Stripe in seconds - instant int’l transfers in seconds (before was days) - great iOS app - no going to bank and waiting 2 hours to do basic things:

@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. ato.gov.au/assets/0/104/2…

@SHamiltonian @Timcammm @TMFScottP @JoshBosselmann Also worth noting that the ATO website currently states that 'COVID-19 re-contributions' may be excluded from the non-concessional contributions cap ato.gov.au/Individuals/Su….

Fascinating thread on the COVID Super withdrawals in 2020. Have a read. Nice work, @SHamiltonian and team!

Abbotsford’s character is ruined by cars on footpaths.

@DrCameronMurray There's a 5% import duty on ebikes in Aus. The government could at least remove that.

Fair point

@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 ing.com.au/faq-result.htm… 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: choice.com.au/travel/money/t… 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