311–320 of 473 posts
Credit cards also transfer wealth from people who pay interest to people who don’t. It’s a silly system, where everyone has to invest their time (optimizing for rewards, avoiding interest) in an ultimately negative sum game. I hate it so much.
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In the UK (which broadly follows the same rules), I get 0.25% with a Visa and 1.25% with Amex. Sometimes there are introductory offers for a few months.
And as a result of that, Amex is often not accepted.
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And often the credit card companies try to enforce this by writing wording into their contracts that try to stop merchants offering different prices for different payment methods.
This is true. In fact, if you come across a merchant that accepts credit with a minimum purchase amount or tacks an extra fee, you can take the receipt and call the terminal owner (visa/MasterCard) and report it. The receipt has a terminal ID, and it turns out the likes of Visa get really pissed if merchants do that. I know this because I used to work on a US military base. There was a sole merchant on a particular i…
I wrote a summary for you...
"Because they receive a rebate, credit rewards-card users often effectively pay less than the posted or cash register price for equivalent goods or services."
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In NYC, most independent shops give a debit card discount / credit card surcharge.
Card network rules in the US prohibit merchants from adding a surcharge for payment with a debit card. Most merchants are either unaware, or prefer not to care. If you are using a debit card at a business that assesses a card surcharge, point out that your card is a debit card when paying and refuse to pay the surcharge. If that does not help, there are online forms available from both Mastercard and Visa where you c…
It used to be true, but this changed many years ago.
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And often the credit card companies try to enforce this by writing wording into their contracts that try to stop merchants offering different prices for different payment methods.
This is true. In fact, if you come across a merchant that accepts credit with a minimum purchase amount or tacks an extra fee, you can take the receipt and call the terminal owner (visa/MasterCard) and report it. The receipt has a terminal ID, and it turns out the likes of Visa get really pissed if merchants do that. I know this because I used to work on a US military base. There was a sole merchant on a particular i…
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"I make $250k CAD a year, my experiences must be representative of, and relevant to, the masses," is a wild thought to have. Well, maybe I spoke too soon, because my private American healthcare turns out to also be about 8% of my gross income (of $60k)(before copays and my deductible)(and also it's crap). Twinsies! But yes I agree that it would be awful to have my health needs taken care of and a mere ~160k USD left…
Oh I certainly don’t think it’s representative to that of the masses, I was sharing an anecdote. I think either way both of us are in really good shape. In my experience the quality of American care is better in nearly every regard (having experienced both pretty intimately), but the simplicity and the peace of mind of the Canadian system has its benefits too. In either case you end up paying. > But yes I agree that…
It’s hard to put a real world number on what the cost to the consumer is for losing this data ownership, but it is not zero: these data are increasingly used for targeted pricing practices which extort additional margins from the consumer at a later date.
How hard is it for the wealthy to not smack everyone else around at every possible opportunity? What happened to noblesse oblige? (This is not a rhetorical question, I would love to hear others' take on the psychology and history of the subject. Really, how hard is it?)
The general rule with many of these causes is that unless you're willing to be absolutely committed, it's better not to be involved. If you cannot prove to yourself absolute fidelity perpetually into the future, it's better to not do it at all. The punishment for the apostate far outweighs the punishment for the infidel.
So your commitment has to be at least high enough to be willing to bear the resulting punishment for your apostasy. And if it is any less than that, you are strongly encouraged to just stay out of it. It's not that anyone is mean or anything. It's just that on the margin not-participating costs nothing and participating incurs a massive liability. That causes a shift in the window.
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That sounds really convenient! Is it a new building? I know the odd American or Canadian build will have that, but only the newer and more expensive ones.
I had that in Sweden 20 years ago. Typically our local municipality put fiber whenever they dug up anything, so fiber is everywhere.
Some kind of city(iirc) managed fiber and he can switch commercial operators (And speeds/prices) by contacting them to get new terms, that's an actually free market.