The foundational principle of Israel is the expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine since they are the chosen people and the land belongs to them.

In math and (theoretical) physics alphabetical is the presumed norm.

Or those Dairy lobby ones that talk about how much work they are doing to save the environment. What a crock

In one of my old jobs we had a couple thousand line shell script called something like prod_corrections_adhoc.ksh. It was used to jam through emergency fixes between code releases.

It still has ‘adhoc corrections’ from 2006

Why are we starting new coal mines anywhere?

Leaving academia was definitely one of the best choices I ever made for my (physical, mental and financial) health.

I don’t regret doing my PhD, but I definitely spent two years too many on the postdoc treadmill.

From a purely expected return perspective it only makes sense to pay back debts vs investing if the credit spread in the debt is larger than the investment’s risk premium.

For secured debt (like a mortgage) held by someone with reasonable credit the equity risk premium is most likely larger than the credit spread.

The analysis becomes more complicated when you take into account an uncertain income stream to use against the debt. Paying off your mortgage is like buying insurance against the tail event that you lose your house because you can’t make your mortgage payments.

Insurance is generally a negative expected return activity. But the value is in reshaping the outcome distribution. Your average outcome is lower but you’ve flattened out the tail.

As a counterweight to the widening of wealth inequality, rising rates lower the value of essentially all risk assets. So the ones who truly benefit the most are the ones who only acquired their assets after the hiking cycle.

This is partly why there are examples of periods with high inflation that also saw a narrowing of wage inequality. The post-war period in Europe was such an example. In that time the relative bargaining power of labour also helped because the high inflation was met with even higher pay raises. So working people were acquiring new wealth through their wages during a period of sustained low asset prices.

For 2023 wage growth in Canada actually exceeded inflation. I would bet that we’ll see that trend continue this year as well as inflation comes down.

For me personally higher rates have been a net benefit. I have no debt and my capacity to save increased considerably over the period that rates were rising. It’s been great to get better cash yields and to pick up longer dated bonds at generationally low prices.

I definitely do not value having lifetime access to 99.999% of the media I consume enough to have to deal with hoarding physical copies.

I don’t get your take. For the same nominal income you pay less taxes. For the same real income you pay the same taxes.The only way you pay more taxes is if your income grows faster than inflation.

For people on fixed incomes or who don’t see pay raises the decrease in taxes paid is actually a benefit. If the tax brackets weren’t pegged to inflation than those same people would be worse off.

It’s almost entirely driven by the services sector, in particular rent. Goods prices had been deflationary for the better part of the fall, but near the end of the year their prices flattened.

The Red Sea issues haven’t really started hitting prices yet, but I think they will start hitting goods and energy pricesin the coming months. I personally think we could likely see inflation starting to increase again unless service inflation comes in

Over the last year wage growth significantly outpaced inflation.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/bank-canada-may-trail-fed-rate-cut-wage-growth-runs-hot-2024-01-17/

According to that article wage growth outpaced inflation in 2023 by 2.3%.

This site breaks down various numbers

https://mishtalk.com/economics/how-is-canadian-wage-growth-stacking-up-to-inflation/

I couldn’t find a more official source, so take the numbers with some doubt.

In any case, nominal wage growth Mar 2020 - Nov 2023 was 14.7%, which is -1.3% after inflation. If we start that window in Jan 2020 we actually have a net positive 2.1% wage growth after inflation. That is 0.5% on an annualized basis.

Wage growth has been surprisingly strong post-pandemic. I think it’s going to be more sticky than inflation as well. The main ‘issue’ is that the wage growth isn’t being matched by improved economic output, which isn’t a great thing for the economy in the longer term.

We’ve had spot ETFs here in Canada for quite some time.

To me, the biggest issue with these products has always been that the underlying assets can’t be valued properly. The exchanges aren’t regulated to prevent price manipulation through things like wash trading or spoofing.

In order for the SEC to approve it a number of major issuers basically had to agree to some kind of price monitoring system. I’m sure Coinbase is critical to this as they are the only exchange based on the US that isn’t prima facie fraudulent.

The article is behind a paywall but…

Wealthsimple isn’t even a bank, let alone the next big bank. They are not a deposit taking institution. Their ‘savings account’ is just an agreement with a number of actual banks to accept deposits from Wealthsimple on behalf of their clients. Wealthsimple is merely acting as an intermediary.

Being a true deposit taking institution comes with a lot more regulation and institutional sophistication. Never mind the fact that deposit taking is only one side of what truly defines banking: aggregating demand deposits to enable lending. I’m sure Wealthsimple is looking to get into that game, but since they aren’t deposit taking I’m sure it will just be a pretty wrapper around another actual bank just like their ‘savings accounts’.

Is Horizons ETFs the next big bank because of their CASH.TO ETF? Horizons is doing a very similar thing through a different vehicle.

Having said, Wealthsimple has clearly created a competitive product suite. But their ability to offer these products fundamentally relies on other organizations (e.g., Mastercard, Big 5 banks) to do the heavy lifting. Wealthsimple’s competitive advantage is in product design and advertising.

I opened mine in April

They were enemy combatants because they were within bombing radius of an enemy combatant. That was the American logic in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to print more humane-looking civilian casualty numbers

Imagining calling someone an NPC unironically.

The higher rates more than negate any benefit to monthly payments of extending the amortization. I have no idea why someone would choose this.

Having to pay an additional month’s rent when moving has hurt me a few times, so I appreciate the pain. It’s ended up costing me more than the actual moving costs.

I’m looking to find a new place early next year and so I have time to fill up my moving expenses bucket.