Jeor

I see you've completely passed over my point about the good work that faith-based groups do! And, historically, have done in the past when governments and irreligious people did nothing. I also find it a bit odd that you're not going to change your explanation when it is factually inaccurate and melodramatic. Faith-based groups were behind much of education to begin with. It has not swooped in and captured it. @Paxter, we agree on a lot of things - and you write and think very well on most topics, so let me reassure you I still very much respect you for that. But this characterisation of faith-based groups capturing education, I'm afraid doesn't stack up. Maybe it has done in places like the USA, but it's not the same flavour back here in Australia.

To be fair @Paxter, I don't think it reflects the views of many parents or students in the Catholic Schools themselves. Like most of these things, I think it's a beat up of a small vocal minority. The Catholic sector is a large component of the education system but I'm guessing the vast, vast majority of people who send their kids to those schools do so because of the quality of the schooling and not because of the religious background. As I understand it in NSW, two thirds of students are in government schools and one third are in independent schools. Of those independent schools (mostly faith-based, but also a fair few non-religious schools), the Catholics represent about half of the independent sector. I don't believe organised religion has "captured" a large segment of education, they have actually ceded a lot of ground historically. Church schools were the earliest form of organised education and provided those services at scale to the general population that government never did until the 20th century. So their position is historical and not really indicative of religious creep or anything. It's like saying that the charities sector has been "captured" by religion. It's true, almost all of the largest charities in Australia are faith-based, but that's because those faiths were the ones who actually established them in the first place (dare I say it, religious people can also be very servant-hearted and positive to the community, and that's often their way of living out the charitable parts of whatever doctrine they follow) and did that work when not a lot of others were. So maybe you need to amend your explanations...

As much as Kwarteng had to go because of bad policy and the market not trusting him, the fact that Truss is still there is hardly reassuring. Kind of ironic that the tax-cutting trickle-down evangelist is finding that free markets, big business and investors are a double-edged sword. One gets the feeling that Rishi Sunak is really the only Tory who could calm the bond markets down from here. Whether it's by changing the leadership rules, or convincing Truss they have the numbers to do so and getting her to resign of her own accord, the Conservatives have to get him in if they want any chance of salvaging anything other than complete annihilation at the next election.

It remains to be seen how complete the U-turn is. Jeremy Hunt is a moderate, so that helps, but Kwarteng has done a lot of damage in such a short time and confidence in UK fiscal policy isn't going to bounce back that quickly.

Big market rally despite the higher-than-expected inflation news, but we've seen this story before. In previous months there have been big rallies off seeming bad news (e.g. Fed tightening or a bigger inflation print) but the market has given back its gains in the next few days. Hard to see how this one holds up, with core inflation still on the rise, but I guess people are taking heart from the fact that the general gauge seems to have peaked.

I'm assuming Bailey's three-day exit is a moral hazard thing. When they first did it, they said it would be for two weeks and he's sticking to it. If they keep extending it, then it does become a case of moral hazard (or more than it already is, I guess!). So yes, financial stability concerns are coming into the overall picture now. Plus a China COVID resurgence, etc. So a tricky time for investing, but I'm still ready for a nibble here or there if something comes up in the sweet spot. I'm okay if I'm not investing right at the bottom, I'll still have some cash ready to deploy if things really drop more. EDIT: Re the BoE's intervention, they probably shouldn't have put a specific end date on it, but now that they have I think they're bound to it. I bet there are lots of speculators that are ready to pounce.

Yes, I think that's one of the main issues here. The centre-left has essentially moved to the right in order to win power but in conceding much of the policy ground, they now have a disconnect with their core supporters who are still on the centre-left. Still, Albo will have more staying power than someone like Turnbull who did the opposite thing from the right, because I get the feeling Albo has more support in the party room than Turnbull ever did. At the same time, a lot of the current problems have to do with the Coalition straying from their lane too. While the COVID stuff did unprecedented damage to the budget, and couldn't have been foreseen, the Liberal government really weren't fiscally sensible in the way that most conservative governments are. The tax cuts weren't paired with other reforms to raise revenue, for example. I think the Coalition made the same calculation as the GOP did in the US - distract everyone with the culture wars and don't really do anything else besides a tax cut.

As much as the tax cuts are Reagan-like, the broken promise is as much a comparison to American Republicanism. Say whatever you like in order to win power, talk about how full of integrity you are and how the other side lies all the time, and then promptly go ahead and lie yourself and do the opposite of what you've said. That's a pretty stark, bald-faced reading of it, but there is some truth there. Either way, it seems the issue is moot at this point because Labor aren't going to repeal them - at least for now when Albo hopes the (admittedly forgetful) electorate will have forgotten. Yes, we've talked a lot about raising taxes and funding services. I'm not a blanket proponent of Stage 3 (watering them down would be okay), for me it's always been a structural reform thing - we need to move away from income tax and move towards more reliable sources of government revenue with an ageing population. I know people aren't a fan of increasing the GST. But there are plenty of other revenue raisers out there that wouldn't touch the lower income group at all - capital gains tax concession, inheritance tax, land tax. We also need to talk about EV taxes; petrol excise will go down as people transition to electric vehicles, but roads still need to be maintained. I wouldn't phase it in right now when we want more people to be taking up EVs, but later on down the track there should be some sort of EV tax.

I don't think it's completely indefensible. There are plenty of families with a single income earner in the 120-180K crowd living in the capital cities with those associated housing costs, who are also having some struggles. Yes, if you're on a smaller income of course you're going to be worse off than those people and could do with more help rather than the 120-180K crowd, and you could also make the case that this 120-180K lot has benefited from Stage 1 and 2 at the lower brackets as well. So the reduction in taxes is unwise and too generous, but I don't think it's completely indefensible to do something at those levels. An article in the SMH (behind a paywall) says "Even with stage 3 cuts taken into account, Australia is still on course to have the highest average income tax take in decades" and that "our heavy reliance on income taxes is due, in part, to our relatively low reliance on taxing other things, such as land and consumption activity". So there is also an economically structural argument to be made for cutting income taxes, though it should be paired with finding other sources of revenue (e.g. inheritance taxes, capital gains) if this were the case. We're always sanguine about broken election promises when they're policies we personally didn't agree with anyway. But put the shoe on the other foot - if the Coalition decided to bring a pro-environment platform simply to win over independents and won the election, and then suddenly pivoted post-election to becoming the friend of coal, oil and gas again, I'm guessing you'd feel differently about election promises. Or if this Labor government decided they weren't doing a federal ICAC after all. I agree that good policy should be at the forefront of the decision-making process, but election promises are still important and shouldn't be dismissed straight away. I agree balanced budgets are silly for developing countries that need more expansionary policies and development, and the IMF probably goes too far on this. However, the developing countries still need to be able to service their debts. Which is a lower bar than a balanced budget, but still a bar that some dysfunctional countries don't clear.

Markets look a bit precarious with oil about to take off again (potentially fuelling inflation) and the Fed still looking to be hawkish after US unemployment fell to 3.5%. Still, I'm beginning to nibble away a bit with my pile of cash. Certainly not going all in, and I've liquidated a few precarious holdings (which satisfied my 15% stop loss rule, taking profits). But some of the big dividend-paying blue chips will make it through the financial storm and possibly in a stronger position (the weaker players having been taken out of the game) so if their valuation looks good, I'm taking an interest. The level of cash in my "investing money" is still pretty elevated (about 25%) but I think I've done the bulk of my selling (unless stop-losses trigger more) and cautiously adding a few stocks to my buying watchlist.

A bit late to the party, but I agree that taxation has to be a government thing. Bracket creep is what it is, and should be moved only when the government of the day decides to. As it is, bracket creep can be a good thing as it builds in some resilience to government revenue. Re: the Stage 3 tax cuts specifically, I think it's a bit much to compare it to the Truss-UK situation and I think it's a bit alarmist to deal with it in those terms. Yes, I lean Liberal voter, but hear me out on the three points of changing: 1. Stage 3 doesn't mess with the top rate (which stays at 45%) and simply moves the kick-in rate from 180K to 200K. Now that top rate of 45% has been set at 180K since the 2008-09 tax year, literally 14 years ago. If you were dealing with bracket creep you'd actually move it far higher than 200K, so moving that top bracket out is really a nothing burger. 2. The lowest bar of Stage 3 is cutting the rate from 45-120 from 32.5% to 30%. This should be relatively uncontroversial at least in terms of equity, as it affects a large proportion of people. Of course, you can debate whether taxes should be cut at all, but I certainly don't think this tax cut could be billed as inequitable or a giveaway to the rich. So there you have two big parts of the tax cut which I would characterise as certainly not a giveaway to the rich. That leaves the last part, 3. The 120-180K going from 37% to 30%. This is the only part that could be rightfully billed as a giveaway to higher earners, but even then I don't think it's as bad as it looks. The cut probably is a bit too steep and looks it on paper, and it will affect the budget the most given the amount of people in that bracket and the steepness of the cut. But again, looking at the historical record, it was way back in 2011-12 that this 37% rate applied to 80-180K. The people below 120K have already been dealt with. But for 11 years that rate has stuck and a whole lot of people will have crept themselves into that 120K+ range. So - yes, we can obviously have a debate about whether taxes should be cut in the first place. But I don't think they can be billed as massive giveaways to the rich. Two of the three components of Stage 3 tax cuts aren't, in my view, that inequitable in favour of the rich, and even the third one isn't as bad as it looks. Politically, I also have a problem with Labor breaking their election promise. It was obvious the budget was going to be in bad shape (yes because of Coalition spending), it was obvious inflation in services and NDIS would be an issue, and at the same time Albanese repeatedly said, again and again, that Stage 3 would stay. It's pretty poor form to say something that prominent and then talk about breaking it less than 6 months later and certainly opens Albanese up to the charge that he deliberately lied and said whatever he needed to say to get into power, and then will do what he actually wants later on. Especially after all his talk of integrity. The Morrison government was certainly bad on that front, but Albanese won't come out looking good if he reneges on this.

Yes, I think in reality the premium for Twitter is more than that. Elon's bids have been the only thing supporting the stock price in the past however many months and the price has been held hostage at his whims. Even when the share price declined, it was due to people assuming the move wouldn't go through. These past couple of days are seeing a major bounce in stocks but I think many investors will think twice after being suckered into the last bounce. I'm still thinking the China property crisis and economic slowdown haven't really been factored into a lot of things. Even though Truss/Kwarteng have taken out the top rate tax cut, it was only a small portion of the deficit (though a very visible one) and there will still be concerns about a large UK deficit and the BoE's potential withdrawal of bond buying support in the next couple of weeks.

Well the June lows are being tested and the market is giving every indication that they'll crash through substantially. I don't think this is a "buy the dip" situation yet, but I do think that will come earlier than people are expecting. Lots of things to potentially spook markets at this time: Ukraine/Russia war, potentially nuclear developments UK fiscal policy meltdown and possible currency crisis Coordinated interest rate rises across the globe Inflation that might still not behave I'm itching to put a little more into equities but telling myself to wait a bit longer.

Volatility is opportunity, if people have the stomach for it. My own particular stocks have come off the boil a bit - I had a good run in the past 2 years, but I think I need to rotate a few and refresh my portfolio. My investments are in the ASX so most probably won't know the companies, I'll mainly talk sectors. In YTD 2022 I'm almost exactly even, which I guess is an okay result considering the ASX200 (the benchmark I measure my performance against) is very mildly down YTD. Winners: My energy stock is up a bit, but has gone sideways for most of YTD 2022. It had a good run last year (+50%) so I think most of the gains have been made, and I may trim them a bit. My banking stock is mildly up, that's a long-term hold as I'm not too fussed about getting big capital growth so long as they keep paying a nice dividend, which they are. Flat: My various mining stocks, which are a big sector in the ASX, are flat altogether. Losers: My telco stock is slightly in the hole for YTD 2022. They were my longest and biggest holding and are sitting at +40% over two years, so it may be time to trim that one too as I've probably squeezed the most out of it that I can. My Vanguard Global ETF (VGS) has followed the US markets, has yo-yo'ed but overall down 15% YTD. I still have a high cash balance (25%), and in current conditions am likely to want to retain a 20% cash balance in my investing portion of my money. But if I trim the energy and telco, I'll have some funds to play with and make a buy somewhere. I'm not sure what I'll put it into yet, but I'm staying away from tech, discretionary consumer. A large-cap gold/copper miner on my watchlist is looking quite tantalising, having dropped 50% since I started looking at them. The thesis being that (1) they're at good book value, (2) they've spent most of their capex and should be getting the returns in the next few years, (3) gold is falling but may rebound with geopolitical uncertainty and currency devaluations, and (4) copper is needed for EV electrification and usually follows an economic recovery. But I'm playing the waiting game as gold may fall further if interest rates continue to rise at a fast clip and in any case, I'd rather not try and pick the bottom, I'll try and snap them up once they start an uptrend.

Big drop and market selloff today, seems like a good time to resurrect the thread! The question is whether equities will retest (and potentially crash through) the June lows. Seems everyone was expecting good news on inflation and got disappointed. Personally I think it'll be somewhere in the middle...at least for Australian equities, a tough next few months but not a gigantic crash. US markets probably a bit more susceptible to that, but we'll have to see.

As an aside, I also tend to believe that retail investors who know what they're doing have some advantages over professional fund managers. While it's true that professionals have more access to information and capital, they have some major handicaps versus the amateur investor. Fund managers have lots of overheads (and hence have to beat the market by a greater degree than retail investors, who only have to worry about brokerage), they are worried about reporting short-term performance, and often their hands are tied by investment mandates, client direction or ESG concerns. And compared to a retail investor, a professional fund manager usually can't increase their cash allocation (even when that might be prudent) or include ETFs in their mix as that's seen to be a copout for a professional to do.

I took a stab at trading for a while and that didn't work, it was incredibly difficult, so I can well believe the horror stories that over 90%+ of day traders lose money. I'm definitely not cut out to be a day trader and it seems that generally there's an inverse relationship between trading activity and returns. I imagine the vast majority of investors - both retail and professionals - trade too much and account for the high percentage of failing to beat the market. Playing options/derivatives is also a losing proposition to a very high degree. But I do believe that patient and well-researched investors still have a chance. Diversification or index funds are a safe bet and will give you market returns, but concentrating holdings in 6-10 stocks that you can keep very close tabs on gives you a chance of beating the market (and yes, conversely also gives you a chance of doing much worse than the market). But for the past three years that I've kept monthly records, it's worked. I'm sure over 20 years, it may not necessarily hold up, but for now I'm happy with my investing principles and system. My portfolio does have a mixture of individual stocks and broad market-based ETFs (none of those potentially dodgy thematic ETFs), so I'm hedging my bets a bit both ways anyway. And in Australia, we have compulsory superannuation (employers must pay 10.5% of your pay into a diversified fund that you can't access until you're 60+) so I tend to view the superannuation as my "safe diversification" and my more active portfolio as my play money, so I'm not going all in on one method or the other.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. My personal belief is that most investing methods work, so long as they're based on a general correct theory and the investor follows them consistently. So if you're a more macro investor, or if I'm more quantitative, both ways can work and they probably work better than either of us trying each other's, because we're more comfortable and knowledgeable following our own systems. No system has a 100% success rate but if you're consistent and get more than half your decisions right then things should take care of themselves.

Personally I think crypto is a massive Wild West. If you're into it, good luck to you. But I'm not particularly sympathetic to people who lose money to hacks or Ponzi schemes and then call on the government to compensate them or complain that the environment is unfair or untrustworthy. I thought the whole point of crypto was that it was a deregulated environment free from government control, so you have to take the bad with the good. Hgh risk, high return and all that. There's a reason that "boring" bank accounts and mainstream investments have lower returns, but are safer and compliant with all sorts of regulations.

Australian investor here; my wife and I are fortunate to be in a good financial position with surplus money for investing. While we were both working and without kids, we built up some investments (friendly competition - she has a property investment, while I've invested in equities). But now with two young children and only one of us working we're treading water financially, which we're comfortable with given the good start we had. We were both incredibly lucky to hold onto good-paying stable jobs with regular promotions during the GFC (2008-10), which allowed us to get into the property market and share market when both were at major historic lows. I know they say it's about "time in" the market more than "timing" the market, but for us that period was crucial for giving us a major boost early on. Others were not so fortunate as I had friends who lost jobs or had trouble progressing in their careers. But we got lucky. Now in Australia, Sydney in particular, housing affordability is atrocious. My wife believes in property investing; find a good agent, ride them hard, get good tenants, and then it's "set and forget" as rental income falls into your lap and the balance on the loan gets reduced over time. In Australia, there are also tax benefits as you can deduct the interest and maintenance costs from your income. Over time there is a good expectation of capital appreciation as well. I prefer the share market because I prefer the academic research on stocks (I have a maths/statistics PhD) as opposed to dealing with real-world problems with agents/tenants/maintenance issues. With kids, I haven't added any funds to my portfolio over the past few years so it's a closed system - if I want to buy some new shares I need to sell others, and I maintain some cash allocation. Gives added incentive to grow the portfolio organically. Currently its total value is around 150K. I have a one-pager of investment rules that I strictly follow (e.g. only investing in large-cap stocks, has to tick various fundamental analysis benchmarks, trailing stop-losses of 15% and picking entry/exit points on statistical trendlines). My portfolio is a mixture of individual Australian stocks and international ETFs. No crypto or alternative assets, no options/derivatives. I measure myself against the ASX200 and so far have beat the market for each of the past three years since I started taking proper records (though in 2020 I almost missed out on the COVID rally and only narrowly beat the ASX200 due to a late plunge into some energy stocks that saved my bacon!). Currently my portfolio is quite defensive, with a high cash allocation (30%) waitng to be deployed and otherwise largely defensive stocks - telco, energy, financial and some materials (which is a large component of the ASX). No consumer discretionary or tech currently. Some Vanguard ETFs too.

Wallabies did manage to apply some pressure in the final 15 minutes and you felt they had a chance of getting a win. It was a weird game in that throughout the match the Australians had the lion's share of possession without necessarily stretching the English defence.

Great game, although some fairly big refereeing mistakes. That being said, without the mistakes it wouldn't have had as much drama as a tie with so much play beyond the buzzer. I'm surprised no one seriously went for the drop goal attempt in injury time, there was ample territory and opportunity to do it. Australia look like a promising side again but I don't know how much of that is due to the ABs being a bit off the pace from what we have come to expect.

In other news, Pichot was defeated and Beaumont reelected for four more years, as predicted. Pichot has now resigned and the new vice-chairman is Laporte from French Rugby. Laporte has championed the idea of a Club World Cup, I guess a Rugby version of football's Champion's League. I fear the small nations are going to disappear soon after this and the world of Rugby will get irrevocably smaller.

Yeah. USA rugby has declared bankruptcy and I think a lot of other national boards are going to have significant financial issues. Even before COVID-19, Australian rugby has been seriously struggling. The Folau saga created a bad taste (for both sides) and financially Rugby Australia has been on a knife edge. Super Rugby is barely getting along and I wouldn't be surprised if a few clubs keel over from this crisis, and RA is in no condition to bail anyone else out. It's not a great time to be doing it, but Pichot's ideas for expanding into newer markets is really what world rugby needs, at least when this crisis is over. Having World Cup qualifiers and perhaps other short-form tournaments might be one way to build a stronger TV audience. The game is going to shrink, ossify and die if it keeps on going as it has been. At the grassroots level with schoolboys and clubs, there isn't much growth, at least in Australia.

Just to keep @Which Tyler company in this thread...! Results of the World Rugby elections will be revealed on May 12. Contested election between Chairman Bill Beaumont (English) and vice-chair Agustin Pichot, with Australia and a lot of smaller countries backing Pichot. From what I've read, Pichot is basically a proponent of a soccer-style World Cup qualification system and building the game in the smaller countries. Beaumont will probably win but whoever does get it is going to be presiding over a pretty big mess.