JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Welcome back Jo.
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I wondered why the Easter Sunday thread wasn’t available. Best not to mention the main thing that kept coming up: I’m sure it was just technical issues.
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A quick check before writing this reveals the “no it doesn’t work” camp seems bigger than the “yes it does” camp.
The “it” being whether you can “control/influence” the overall interest rate impact on your credit card by the way you make your repayments.
Last year fed up with a certain bank and keen to close this last account with them I spent a few minutes online setting up daily automatic payments of the same small amount <$10.
Got a letter last week, complete with a bank cheque, from the old bank regarding the now closed credit card account. The covering letter apologised for their miscalculation on the credit card account with the cheque also including a little bit of a remediation compensation payment.
“We charged fees and calculated interest incorrectly on the account. This is our mistake and we’re sorry.”
Food for thought which I’m sharing because I have sworn off credit cards and so can’t replicate it to prove one way or the other but invite potential players to try it.
Action: Set up same <$10 automatic daily payment each day for a month. I did mine between 1-20 October 2024. Pay the full monthly instalment fee by due date.
Account was closed in November and took until this month for them to realise their “mistake”. Therefore, if you do try it bear in mind time lag AND if your account is still operating then any adjustment will probably be made through the account itself so keep an eye out for an entry such as interest rate adjustment on your account.
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I have always been charged a yearly fee for my credit card but I noticed now that I am now being charged a monthly fee instead (still the same price overall, thank goodness). Being Easter, can’t find out why. Any one know? (Comm Bank Card).
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I received the same letter, and payments, for two non-credit-card accounts. They were real, because the payments did arrive.
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Sounds like the bank to be with. Which Bank?
10
Not the ANZ as a guess? I ask because I switched away from them, fortunately with an e-mail saying that I couldn’t use bankcard with them. I realised that as I had cut the card up at the bank branch (since closed).
Over a year later I got a series of e-mails wanting a payment changed. I couldn’t get any response to e-mails so went into the local branch (since shutdown) with e-mails which took the girl about 3 minutes to agree. She then spent 25 minutes arguing the HO lot about they had got it wrong. Took that time before they admitted a mistake. Made me determined never to use them again.
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I just heard an owner of a Foodworks shop in Wagga Wagga explain how his new electricity contract has increased by $2000 per month for an annual total of $144000. He has his roof covered in solar panels and uses all his own power during the day. He then reminded us that all his suppliers face similar increases in power prices which feed into higher prices all round. Even with this attack on cost of living the polls show Albo ahead. What on earth are people thinking? This guy is killing me but I don’t like how the other fellow looks so I want to keep on being killed. Only leftists could think that makes sense.
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That is a 20% increase just for him. And the suppliers also get that impost.
As for Albo being ahead I am doubtful but then the other fellow has been woeful.
He should have been miles ahead. He had better pray for a big blackout this week.
70
I wonder how much the electricity cost is as a proportion of revenue.
Also wonder what the split up is in terms of connection fee, peak demand fee and energy fee.
My son is part owner of a service business in Melbourne and their electricity costs fell dramatically after installing rooftop solar. The business operates from 8am till 6pm and there is negligible electricity demand out of hours; unlike a food store running refrigeration.
I do not know what incentives businesses in NSW have to reduce electricity demand. Victoria has a number of energy efficiency programs that provide OPM to make upgrades. For example:
https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/victorian-energy-upgrades/products/cold-room-discounts
There are similar schemes for refrigeration.
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Refrigeration is a huge amount of the cost of electricity of a supermarket, both in store, in storage at the store and in warehousing.
I suspect that’s why the cost of refrigerated or frozen goods has risen so dramatically with the cost of electricity e.g. ice cream to name an obvious example.
Ultimately paid for by the taxpayer, of course.
20
Video.
Matt Walsh discusses TRUMP’s removal of the illegal immigrant, Abrego Garcia, girlfriend basher and MS-13 gang member who the Left want to re-import to America.
The truth is not what the Left and Lamestream Media are telling you, as usual.
https://youtu.be/AX1RQzQhh88
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I remain pleasantly surprised that the UK Supreme Court actually decided something that humans have always known and that is that a man wearing a dress or even taking hormones or castrating himself does not make him a biological woman.
I keep wondering how this can happen in one of the wokest and Leftist countries on the planet? It’s a good thing of course, but so surprising that there are still a few learned legal scholars left in that country.
It means that biological women can in fact have protected spaces which biological men may not enter.
This decision also has global implications, including for Australia in the case of Tickle vs Giggle in which a biological man is suing because he was denied access to a women’s only site. https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/roxanne-tickle-v-giggle-for-girls
The video is at: https://youtu.be/6OyOKCDYKjs
Are we seeing an outbreak of (un)common sense?
First TRUMP and then this UK Supreme Court decision?
Will this (un)common sense spread to Australia?
When I see stupid Australians quite likely about to elect a Green Labor Government, I have little hope.
30
Starmer announces 400 arrested for having opinions:
https://x.com/CatchUpFeed/status/1913535435361456365
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I suspect the number is much higher than that. And they even arrest British-origin people for praying or suspected praying (but never any recent immigrants taking over an entire street and praying to their entity).
10
Here is a calculation I would like to see done and could conceivably be the topic of a masters thesis if you were able to find a non-woke university to do it in. (I can think of no Australian “university” that doesn’t suffer from the woke mind virus.)
Calculate the amount of wealth drained from the Australian economy ever since fake conservative Liberal John Howard set the country on the road to economic ruin with “ruinables”.
The impact is surely massive and comes at the cost of capital that could have been used for useful projects, wealth drained due to closure of industry and higher costs for remaining businesses that are able to survive, higher interest rates, massively decreased standard of living (especially for low income earners) etc..
10
The HILDA report shows changes in lifestyles over the past 20 years:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-06/hilda-report-graphs-australian-life-changed-20-years/105009846
Australia’s productivity decline since 1975:
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/12/the-four-causes-of-australias-productivity-decline/
The consequences of Australia’s deindustrialisation:
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/australias-strategic-blindspot-deindustrialisation-and-the-threat-to-national-resilience/
Vote green! Lol.
10
Given that the Libs are very bad, they are still slightly less bad than Green Labor and Australia will take slightly longer to destroy under their reign.
Therefore it would be more sensible to elect the fake conservative Libs over Green Labor. So vote for Libs with either first preference, or preference them after your conservative party preferences but before Greens and Labor.
On the other hand, the alternative point of view is that the sooner Australia undergoes economic collapse, the better it will be to motivate conservative forces to get elected at the next election, assuming a Green Labor regime will allow further elections. This is almost what happened in America after TRUMP had the 2019 election stolen from him and America had to endure four years of Biden and his controllers.
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