- The ACCC forced Telstra to allow competitor ISPs access to its copper lines and telephone exchanges/COs. This means that any ISP can come into an exchange, install its own DSLAM, connect Telstra-owned lines to it and provide internet access to customers, regardless of who that customer's phone service happens to be provided by.
- Additionally, Telstra (and Optus) also wholesales their own DSLAM ports to competitor ISPs who don't/can't have their own DSLAMs in an exchange. They charge port fees for doing this (and thus these Telstra wholesale plans are usually more expensive than equivalent plans using a providers own DSLAMs), but it basically means that even relatively small ISPs can offer services nation-wide, even in remote areas where Telstra is the only company with equipment.
In most areas of the US though, companies that owns the lines aren't forced (as far as I know) to grant access to competitors. So your choices are usually:
- The local DSL monopoly (i.e. the telco that owns the lines in your area); and - The local cable monopoly (i.e. the company that owns the cable in your area)
In some areas you might also be lucky enough to have FiOS or another third or fourth option here, but vast areas of the country really only have one or two choices. Even worse, most DSL providers are still ADSL1 only (whereas in Australia, ADSL2+ up to 24 Mbps is pretty much ubiquitous).
I'm Australian but have lived in Wisconsin for an extended period, in a reasonably-sized city, and only had the choice of (very overpriced) cable, or AT&T ADSL1 (capped at 6 Mbps/768kbps). I chose the DSL as frankly, I don't want cable TV (and the provider didn't allow you to get JUST internet without TV). I much prefer the situation in Australia where I have 20+ ISPs to choose from and they all offer much faster speeds that AT&T DSL had.
There's no 'justification'. As I said, cheaper prices would be nice. But they, as profit-oriented businesses, don't appear to have any incentive to lower prices at this point in time (otherwise they would have)... demand must be remaining strong. It is us that needs to force them to lower prices by refusing to buy their stuff at that price point.
And the second point was that there hasn't been a price 'increase'. The price structures were set at a time when the AUD was worth much less than it was now and simply haven't changed (because apparently demand hasn't decreased). Plus the fact that if the AUD dropped to 60 US cents next month (entirely possible), Steam prices would remain unchanged as far as we are concerned, yet we would suddenly be paying about the 'same' as Americans again. Would this suddenly make our prices 'fair', whereas previously they were a rip off? Even though we (as Australians, earning AUD and paying for stuff in AUD) are paying the same actual amount in either case?
Yes and no. Almost everything costs significantly more in Australia than in the US, but Australian salaries and wages are also considerably higher for most types of job (you can make more in the US as a senior executive, sure, but for all blue collar jobs and white collar jobs in middle management or lower, i.e. the bulk of jobs that exist, Australian wages and benefits are higher... even at the low end, AU minimum wage is over double the US minimum wage).
Plus I wouldn't bet on AUD:USD remaining near parity forever... historically it's a very volatile exchange rate and it wouldn't be surprising if it suddenly fell off a cliff back to 70 cents or lower. I suspect that game retailers know this and think to themselves "well OK, we could reduce prices, but if/when the AUD plunges again, we'd have to hike them back up again".
Having said that, lower prices would be nice. At least we have the option of ordering games online from overseas sites if we don't want to get ripped off as much:)
Nah, it's because up until a few years ago, the Aussie dollar was only worth 50-70 US cents. The prices were thus basically equal in the US and Australia once you took into account the exchange rate.
Since the financial crisis though, the AUD has appreciated significantly against the USD (or more accurately, the value of the USD has been pummelled badly), with the result that for the last couple of years 1 AUD has been worth equal to, or more than, 1 USD. But of course game publishers and retailers aren't suddenly going to reduce the price of games by 30-40% to account for this - it benefits them to keep prices where they are and provided demand remains strong, they'll continue to charge what the market can (apparently) bear. Note that iTunes did the same thing until there was a public outcry, and recently they finally reduced iTunes prices down to the same as US prices (reflecting the fact that 1 AUD = 1 USD now).
Another factor to consider is the fact that AUD:USD is quite volatile. We might think that game companies are just being evil not reducing their prices in Australia to account for the changing exchange rate, but it is perfectly possible for the AUD to plunge very quickly back down to ~70 US cents (indeed, it fell from $1.10 to 0.90 over the course of just a few days late last year). Until there is a solid track record of the AUD holding its position near USD parity for at least a couple of years, you can see why they'd be reluctant to reduce prices (because let's face it, people won't look on them favourably if the AUD drops again and they have to RAISE prices back up...)
It'll generally be H2O or AT&T that you'll want to use if you're visiting the US from another country. AT&T uses fairly standard frequencies that are common in the rest of the world (basically, most modern tri or quad-band phones with the usual 2100/1900/900/850 frequencies will work fine). T-Mobile on the other hand uses a weirdo 1700 Mhz frequency for 3G (HSDPA, HSPA, HSPA+) which is supported by virtually zero non US-market devices.
And for a good laugh ask to see your hosts "hot water heater tank" I am told we're the only country in the world that doesn't use tankless, its a trip, they're these giant closet sized steel tubes.
Not true, hot water tanks are plentiful here in Australia too. Personally, my home has a conventional 'tank' style water heater, though it's natural gas fired, not electric.
Admittedly Rinnai tankless water heaters ~are~ relatively common here (certainly more common than in the US), but they don't represent 100% of hot water heaters. I'd say it's about 50/50 here, and usually depends on when the home was built (the Rinnais became very common from the mid-90s onwards or so).
Fully agree about US power cords though: they have to be the flimsiest and most useless plug style out there. Not only from a safety perspective, but just the general engineering of them... especially the non-grounded (2 prong) plugs, which wiggle around in the socket and tend to fall out if you so much as glance at them the wrong way. Oh and the lack of physical power switches on the outlets themselves... that's annoying too. I really miss the Australian-style plugs when I'm in the US (they are chunkier than US style, but not as chunky as UK)... they aren't perfect but at least they click solidly into the outlet and don't move around!
The US might not be Europe but it's fairly similar to Australia. Same size as the lower 48. 'Surburban sprawl' type city layouts (in most cases). Huge distances. And it has European-level fuel prices (yes, due to taxes)... yet has survived just fine (and thrived, in fact - the AU economy is doing very well at the moment).
Higher fuel prices (or change in general) will drive innovation. I don't think it's all doom and gloom for America if fuel prices go up, even substantially. People and businesses will adjust.
Yeah it's kinda funny hearing Americans complain about USD $5/gallon fuel. It's $6-$7 USD/US gallon here in Australia and has been for a long time (yes I know it's due to taxes).
And Australia is quite a comparable country to the US: it's the same size as the lower 48, has massive distances between centres and fairly sprawly suburban-type cities similar to many US cities. The world hasn't ended here (far from it, our economy is booming) and it won't for the Americans either.
Huh? Whinging and whining are two completely different words (though they have similar meanings). 'Whinging' is a word commonly used in the UK, Australia, NZ etc. but not in the US very much.
It means complaining, nagging, having a bit of a sook about something... it carries a connotation that the person doing it is getting something off their chest and perhaps making a bigger deal about something than is really necessary (e.g. "Mark was constantly whinging about the awful weather"). A child might whinge about having to do his homework.
'Whining' is similar but carries an additional connotation of a whining or annoying tone of voice (which ~isnt'~ implied by 'whinging'). A 'whine' is a sound, after all.
(NB. The above is written from my understanding of the two words as an Australian - some may disagree with the definitions I've given, but the overall point I'm trying to make here is that 'whinging' is not a misspelt version of 'whining', but is actually a different word altogether.)
Interesting, you're doing it from largest to smallest denomination. That's the opposite of what happened here in Oz: the $5 was first, and we worked our way up from there, introducing one polymer banknote at a time.
Come to think of it, the Canadian approach makes more sense: start with the notes that have the least circulation, so that if problems arise, it affects less people. In Australia the very earliest $5s that were rolled out had a 'bug' (so to speak) with the printing: you could rub the Queen's face off;) They fixed it pretty quick though.
The point is, for the banknotes at least, you can't see the number unless you pull the corner of the bill out of your wallet. So it does require a fair bit of extra effort to figure out how much you have compared to just looking at the colours (which are visible even edge-on... don't need to touch the bills at all).
I'm with you on the lack of numbers on the coins though - you're right: learning that a dime is 0.10 and a nickel is 0.05 is the same kind of exercise as learning which colour banknote is which denomination in other countries. Still, it would be nice if they put the numbers on to ASSIST that learning (after all, the coloured banknotes DO also have the numbers on them). When I first went to the US I was always getting them backwards, because retardedly, the coin with the smaller value (nickel) is BIGGER than the coin with the larger value (dime) (and of course the quarter is bigger than both of them).
Thing is, it's impossible to manipulate the prices so that it always rounds in a particular way, unless you control exactly how many (and which) items are bought in each transaction. Thus it's not forcing businesses to take a loss of revenue - they'll get up to 2 c MORE in some transactions, and up to 2 c less in others. It evens out the same. People paying with debit cards will sometimes pay more, sometimes less, so again, I don't think they get favorable treatment.
I cannot for the life of me believe that they've done this in Australia, NZ, most European countries etc. but it would be impossible in the US. Do you think those other countries don't have greedy businesses too? Sure they do, and they are equally protective of their revenues. But, as mentioned, they don't actually take a revenue hit from this. In fact they supported it because it reduced the wasted time handling those useless 1 cent coins. So there isn't a need for an army of inspectors checking POS machines (notwithstanding the fact that you couldn't get away with rounding up incorrectly anyway, since the customer would notice on their receipt!)
Besides, the worst case scenario is 2 cents. If businesses will really cheat in the way that you say (and I don't see why they would unless they are fundamentally different than businesses in every other country that's done this), then hell, just make the law "businesses can always round up to the next 5 cents". They get their few cents of precious revenue, you don't need inspectors/enforcement, and the rest of us get the benefits of not having pennies. Are there really that many people that are going to get enraged over 'losing' 2 cents (considering you 'lose' orders of magnitude more than that just through inflation each year).
I hear Canada is moving to the polymer banknotes too. Having lived in both Australia and the US, I can say the polymer bills really are superior in every way. Can't tear em (seriously, try to - you will fail, unless you actually use scissors or something to get it started), goes through the wash without a problem, much harder to fake. The polymer notes were invented in Australia but now a lot of countries are using them.
Not to mention the fact that in all the polymer-note-using countries, the bills are different colors and sizes for each denomination (which has nothing to do with them being polymer admittedly). US currency is really irritating - you look in your wallet and see a ream of greenish paper (well, linen), side on, all the same size. You have no way of telling how much money you have without pulling it out, flicking through it, and looking at the demoninations. In Australia though and because they are different sizes and colors you can peek in your wallet and with a quick glance say "Ah yes, two yellows, an orange and a blue - I have $130". (Two 50s, a 20 and a 10)
Hehe yeah, I love that silver coin sound. Same thing here in Australia with the 1966 50 cent coins.
1966 was the first, and only, year that the 50 cent coin was minted with 90% silver. 1967 onwards they are just a crappy blend of worthless metals, and sound totally different. You would never find a 1966 50c just floating around in change in Australia though, as unlike your example, they actually LOOK different too (they are round as opposed to the 12-sided shape of the standard 50c piece, so people would have identified them and removed them from circulation many decades ago).
Statistically, if you go shopping and buy more than one thing, it's just as likely to get rounded down than up.
We ditched the 1c (and 2c) coin in Australia years ago, when I was still a child. But we still have prices like $4.99 and $18.87 etc. Rounding occurs to the nearest 5c, but only the TOTAL of a transaction is rounded.
So if old cat lady went and bought only one can of 99 cent cat food, then yeah, she'd have to pay a buck. But if she bought three cans, 3x.99 = 2.97, so she'd pay $2.95, saving her an entire 2 cents! In practice, since prices are pretty random, the products you buy and the amount of each you buy aren't really predictable, it evens out the same - sometimes it rounds up, sometimes down.
Oh and only cash transactions get rounded. If old cat lady paid with a debit/credit card, she'd pay only $0.99 for even the single can.
Yep, I use both Hotmail and Gmail regularly. Gmail is awesome - maybe 1 spam a month ends up in the inbox, and it never puts 'good' mail in the Spam folder.
Hotmail OTOH appears not to even have a functioning spam filter. Nothing's ever in mine, everything ends up in the inbox (and yes I've checked my filter settings). Plenty of spam there too.
Stereotype or not, it wasn't me that originally stated Americans preferred it. It was the person I was replying to (the GP to your post). You seem to be of the impression it was me stating my opinion on the matter... I wouldn't actually know one way or the other. I was just seeing what the parent to my post said, and saying "I don't know why that is"...
Indeed... 'corn fed' meat is not the norm in most of the world. Here in Australia it's almost all grass-fed. Then again, we don't have the harsh winters that necessitate keeping cattle indoors for several months each year, so it's easier just to let em roam free and munch on the grass all year.
Incidentally, I honestly don't know why Americans prefer corn-fed meat. It seems fattier than grass-fed and doesn't taste 'right' to me, but I suppose that's simply because I grew up eating 'our' meat and got used to that taste. As you say, a preference thing.
The other problem in Australia is the ~variability~ of the supply of water. When it's dry, you really need that extra infrastructure... but most of the time it'll sit there being relatively unused.
It's not true that the east has lots of water. Generally it either has too much, or not enough. "Not enough" is far more common than "too much". Right now it's wet: two consecutive La Nina summers with consequent flooding and heavy rains. Dams are all basically full. Crop yields are up (at least, in the areas where they aren't under 6 feet of water!)
However just a couple of years ago we were at the tail end of an almost decade-long drought. Worst in a century they say. Many towns completely ran out of water and had to have it trucked in daily (reasonable sized towns too, like Goulburn NSW). And even in the large capital cities things were looking grim... here in Canberra our dams were only ~20% full at one point. For a couple of years, we were on the highest level of water restrictions that existed - no watering of gardens/lawns/washing of cars/filling of pools permitted, and minimal water allowed for personal use. Similar stories in Sydney and Melbourne. And when a drought is so, so long, you begin to think it will never rain again and the seemingly absurd prospect of a major city with millions of people literally running out of water starts to look increasingly likely (scary!)
Sydney built an expensive desalination plant in response to this threat. Canberra's building another dam (or technically, they are massively expanding one of the existing 4 dams that feed the city). Of course, as soon as these projects got underway, the rains started falling properly again for the first time in 9 years. The desal plant sits basically idle now (since Sydney dams are back to almost 100%) Still, I'm sure it'll be needed one day so I don't see it as wasted expenditure.
You're absolutely right that huge volumes of water flow into the ocean in Eastern Australia that could be tapped to provide for the cities. Generally this is of a 'quick and heavy' nature (thunderstorm runoff). So in the long term I think the cities are OK. The big problem is that most of our agricultural areas are inland of the Great Dividing Range, so water that falls there flows inland into the Murray Darling basin. And rainfall out that way is very erratic... and even in good years, it's not that high. Australia is a very dry continent once you're off the narrow coastal fringe between the east coast and the Divide (only 50-100km wide for the most part). No amount of dams will help the inland because the rain simply doesn't fall often enough. You'd have to divert water from the coasts (which is essentially what the Snowy Hydro Scheme was about (and is largely what allowed cultivation of the inland to occur in the first place). But I don't think there's the appetite these days for such massive and expensive infrastructure projects to be honest.
Also as far as I know, Australia still exports far, far more food than it imports. I'm sure I've read recent figures showing we produce 4-5x what we need to be self-sufficient... so I don't think we are reliant at all on imported food. We might ~choose~ to import some food rather than grow our own, but if worst comes to worst and we suddenly were completely isolated from the rest of the world, we'd be fine.
Yep, met a cheesehead on the Internet a decade ago and now we're married. Living in Australia (my hometown) at the moment but thinking about trying the US out for a few years soon. Probably Madison rather than the GB area though... don't want to live ~too~ close to the in-laws haha.
On paper, yes. In practice, I don't think that law has ever been used against individual gamers. There're plenty of people, including in the NT and WA that imported MK with no issues, and in some cases Customs even inspected the parcels and let them through anyway. The authorities are really only interested in large scale commercial breaches of these rules.
Not that that excuses the law being on the books in the first place. Fortunately it seems as if the days when you needed to worry about this will soon be behind us...
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You hit the nail on the head. In Australia:
- The ACCC forced Telstra to allow competitor ISPs access to its copper lines and telephone exchanges/COs. This means that any ISP can come into an exchange, install its own DSLAM, connect Telstra-owned lines to it and provide internet access to customers, regardless of who that customer's phone service happens to be provided by.
- Additionally, Telstra (and Optus) also wholesales their own DSLAM ports to competitor ISPs who don't/can't have their own DSLAMs in an exchange. They charge port fees for doing this (and thus these Telstra wholesale plans are usually more expensive than equivalent plans using a providers own DSLAMs), but it basically means that even relatively small ISPs can offer services nation-wide, even in remote areas where Telstra is the only company with equipment.
In most areas of the US though, companies that owns the lines aren't forced (as far as I know) to grant access to competitors. So your choices are usually:
- The local DSL monopoly (i.e. the telco that owns the lines in your area); and
- The local cable monopoly (i.e. the company that owns the cable in your area)
In some areas you might also be lucky enough to have FiOS or another third or fourth option here, but vast areas of the country really only have one or two choices. Even worse, most DSL providers are still ADSL1 only (whereas in Australia, ADSL2+ up to 24 Mbps is pretty much ubiquitous).
I'm Australian but have lived in Wisconsin for an extended period, in a reasonably-sized city, and only had the choice of (very overpriced) cable, or AT&T ADSL1 (capped at 6 Mbps/768kbps). I chose the DSL as frankly, I don't want cable TV (and the provider didn't allow you to get JUST internet without TV). I much prefer the situation in Australia where I have 20+ ISPs to choose from and they all offer much faster speeds that AT&T DSL had.
You forgot the lightning bolt...
There's no 'justification'. As I said, cheaper prices would be nice. But they, as profit-oriented businesses, don't appear to have any incentive to lower prices at this point in time (otherwise they would have) ... demand must be remaining strong. It is us that needs to force them to lower prices by refusing to buy their stuff at that price point.
And the second point was that there hasn't been a price 'increase'. The price structures were set at a time when the AUD was worth much less than it was now and simply haven't changed (because apparently demand hasn't decreased). Plus the fact that if the AUD dropped to 60 US cents next month (entirely possible), Steam prices would remain unchanged as far as we are concerned, yet we would suddenly be paying about the 'same' as Americans again. Would this suddenly make our prices 'fair', whereas previously they were a rip off? Even though we (as Australians, earning AUD and paying for stuff in AUD) are paying the same actual amount in either case?
Yes and no. Almost everything costs significantly more in Australia than in the US, but Australian salaries and wages are also considerably higher for most types of job (you can make more in the US as a senior executive, sure, but for all blue collar jobs and white collar jobs in middle management or lower, i.e. the bulk of jobs that exist, Australian wages and benefits are higher ... even at the low end, AU minimum wage is over double the US minimum wage).
Plus I wouldn't bet on AUD:USD remaining near parity forever ... historically it's a very volatile exchange rate and it wouldn't be surprising if it suddenly fell off a cliff back to 70 cents or lower. I suspect that game retailers know this and think to themselves "well OK, we could reduce prices, but if/when the AUD plunges again, we'd have to hike them back up again".
Having said that, lower prices would be nice. At least we have the option of ordering games online from overseas sites if we don't want to get ripped off as much :)
Nah, it's because up until a few years ago, the Aussie dollar was only worth 50-70 US cents. The prices were thus basically equal in the US and Australia once you took into account the exchange rate.
Since the financial crisis though, the AUD has appreciated significantly against the USD (or more accurately, the value of the USD has been pummelled badly), with the result that for the last couple of years 1 AUD has been worth equal to, or more than, 1 USD. But of course game publishers and retailers aren't suddenly going to reduce the price of games by 30-40% to account for this - it benefits them to keep prices where they are and provided demand remains strong, they'll continue to charge what the market can (apparently) bear. Note that iTunes did the same thing until there was a public outcry, and recently they finally reduced iTunes prices down to the same as US prices (reflecting the fact that 1 AUD = 1 USD now).
Another factor to consider is the fact that AUD:USD is quite volatile. We might think that game companies are just being evil not reducing their prices in Australia to account for the changing exchange rate, but it is perfectly possible for the AUD to plunge very quickly back down to ~70 US cents (indeed, it fell from $1.10 to 0.90 over the course of just a few days late last year). Until there is a solid track record of the AUD holding its position near USD parity for at least a couple of years, you can see why they'd be reluctant to reduce prices (because let's face it, people won't look on them favourably if the AUD drops again and they have to RAISE prices back up...)
It'll generally be H2O or AT&T that you'll want to use if you're visiting the US from another country. AT&T uses fairly standard frequencies that are common in the rest of the world (basically, most modern tri or quad-band phones with the usual 2100/1900/900/850 frequencies will work fine). T-Mobile on the other hand uses a weirdo 1700 Mhz frequency for 3G (HSDPA, HSPA, HSPA+) which is supported by virtually zero non US-market devices.
And for a good laugh ask to see your hosts "hot water heater tank" I am told we're the only country in the world that doesn't use tankless, its a trip, they're these giant closet sized steel tubes.
Not true, hot water tanks are plentiful here in Australia too. Personally, my home has a conventional 'tank' style water heater, though it's natural gas fired, not electric.
Admittedly Rinnai tankless water heaters ~are~ relatively common here (certainly more common than in the US), but they don't represent 100% of hot water heaters. I'd say it's about 50/50 here, and usually depends on when the home was built (the Rinnais became very common from the mid-90s onwards or so).
Fully agree about US power cords though: they have to be the flimsiest and most useless plug style out there. Not only from a safety perspective, but just the general engineering of them ... especially the non-grounded (2 prong) plugs, which wiggle around in the socket and tend to fall out if you so much as glance at them the wrong way. Oh and the lack of physical power switches on the outlets themselves ... that's annoying too. I really miss the Australian-style plugs when I'm in the US (they are chunkier than US style, but not as chunky as UK) ... they aren't perfect but at least they click solidly into the outlet and don't move around!
The US might not be Europe but it's fairly similar to Australia. Same size as the lower 48. 'Surburban sprawl' type city layouts (in most cases). Huge distances. And it has European-level fuel prices (yes, due to taxes) ... yet has survived just fine (and thrived, in fact - the AU economy is doing very well at the moment).
Higher fuel prices (or change in general) will drive innovation. I don't think it's all doom and gloom for America if fuel prices go up, even substantially. People and businesses will adjust.
Yeah it's kinda funny hearing Americans complain about USD $5/gallon fuel. It's $6-$7 USD/US gallon here in Australia and has been for a long time (yes I know it's due to taxes).
And Australia is quite a comparable country to the US: it's the same size as the lower 48, has massive distances between centres and fairly sprawly suburban-type cities similar to many US cities. The world hasn't ended here (far from it, our economy is booming) and it won't for the Americans either.
Huh? Whinging and whining are two completely different words (though they have similar meanings). 'Whinging' is a word commonly used in the UK, Australia, NZ etc. but not in the US very much.
It means complaining, nagging, having a bit of a sook about something ... it carries a connotation that the person doing it is getting something off their chest and perhaps making a bigger deal about something than is really necessary (e.g. "Mark was constantly whinging about the awful weather"). A child might whinge about having to do his homework.
'Whining' is similar but carries an additional connotation of a whining or annoying tone of voice (which ~isnt'~ implied by 'whinging'). A 'whine' is a sound, after all.
(NB. The above is written from my understanding of the two words as an Australian - some may disagree with the definitions I've given, but the overall point I'm trying to make here is that 'whinging' is not a misspelt version of 'whining', but is actually a different word altogether.)
Yeah. $6 ~trillion~? Lol ... how did that NOT raise eyebrows earlier than this?
Interesting, you're doing it from largest to smallest denomination. That's the opposite of what happened here in Oz: the $5 was first, and we worked our way up from there, introducing one polymer banknote at a time.
Come to think of it, the Canadian approach makes more sense: start with the notes that have the least circulation, so that if problems arise, it affects less people. In Australia the very earliest $5s that were rolled out had a 'bug' (so to speak) with the printing: you could rub the Queen's face off ;) They fixed it pretty quick though.
The point is, for the banknotes at least, you can't see the number unless you pull the corner of the bill out of your wallet. So it does require a fair bit of extra effort to figure out how much you have compared to just looking at the colours (which are visible even edge-on ... don't need to touch the bills at all).
I'm with you on the lack of numbers on the coins though - you're right: learning that a dime is 0.10 and a nickel is 0.05 is the same kind of exercise as learning which colour banknote is which denomination in other countries. Still, it would be nice if they put the numbers on to ASSIST that learning (after all, the coloured banknotes DO also have the numbers on them). When I first went to the US I was always getting them backwards, because retardedly, the coin with the smaller value (nickel) is BIGGER than the coin with the larger value (dime) (and of course the quarter is bigger than both of them).
Thing is, it's impossible to manipulate the prices so that it always rounds in a particular way, unless you control exactly how many (and which) items are bought in each transaction. Thus it's not forcing businesses to take a loss of revenue - they'll get up to 2 c MORE in some transactions, and up to 2 c less in others. It evens out the same. People paying with debit cards will sometimes pay more, sometimes less, so again, I don't think they get favorable treatment.
I cannot for the life of me believe that they've done this in Australia, NZ, most European countries etc. but it would be impossible in the US. Do you think those other countries don't have greedy businesses too? Sure they do, and they are equally protective of their revenues. But, as mentioned, they don't actually take a revenue hit from this. In fact they supported it because it reduced the wasted time handling those useless 1 cent coins. So there isn't a need for an army of inspectors checking POS machines (notwithstanding the fact that you couldn't get away with rounding up incorrectly anyway, since the customer would notice on their receipt!)
Besides, the worst case scenario is 2 cents. If businesses will really cheat in the way that you say (and I don't see why they would unless they are fundamentally different than businesses in every other country that's done this), then hell, just make the law "businesses can always round up to the next 5 cents". They get their few cents of precious revenue, you don't need inspectors/enforcement, and the rest of us get the benefits of not having pennies. Are there really that many people that are going to get enraged over 'losing' 2 cents (considering you 'lose' orders of magnitude more than that just through inflation each year).
I hear Canada is moving to the polymer banknotes too. Having lived in both Australia and the US, I can say the polymer bills really are superior in every way. Can't tear em (seriously, try to - you will fail, unless you actually use scissors or something to get it started), goes through the wash without a problem, much harder to fake. The polymer notes were invented in Australia but now a lot of countries are using them.
Not to mention the fact that in all the polymer-note-using countries, the bills are different colors and sizes for each denomination (which has nothing to do with them being polymer admittedly). US currency is really irritating - you look in your wallet and see a ream of greenish paper (well, linen), side on, all the same size. You have no way of telling how much money you have without pulling it out, flicking through it, and looking at the demoninations. In Australia though and because they are different sizes and colors you can peek in your wallet and with a quick glance say "Ah yes, two yellows, an orange and a blue - I have $130". (Two 50s, a 20 and a 10)
Hehe yeah, I love that silver coin sound. Same thing here in Australia with the 1966 50 cent coins.
1966 was the first, and only, year that the 50 cent coin was minted with 90% silver. 1967 onwards they are just a crappy blend of worthless metals, and sound totally different. You would never find a 1966 50c just floating around in change in Australia though, as unlike your example, they actually LOOK different too (they are round as opposed to the 12-sided shape of the standard 50c piece, so people would have identified them and removed them from circulation many decades ago).
Statistically, if you go shopping and buy more than one thing, it's just as likely to get rounded down than up.
We ditched the 1c (and 2c) coin in Australia years ago, when I was still a child. But we still have prices like $4.99 and $18.87 etc. Rounding occurs to the nearest 5c, but only the TOTAL of a transaction is rounded.
So if old cat lady went and bought only one can of 99 cent cat food, then yeah, she'd have to pay a buck. But if she bought three cans, 3x .99 = 2.97, so she'd pay $2.95, saving her an entire 2 cents! In practice, since prices are pretty random, the products you buy and the amount of each you buy aren't really predictable, it evens out the same - sometimes it rounds up, sometimes down.
Oh and only cash transactions get rounded. If old cat lady paid with a debit/credit card, she'd pay only $0.99 for even the single can.
>> Would be nice if they switch to the method virtually every other country on Earth uses; receiving the message is free*
FTFY :)
Yep, I use both Hotmail and Gmail regularly. Gmail is awesome - maybe 1 spam a month ends up in the inbox, and it never puts 'good' mail in the Spam folder.
Hotmail OTOH appears not to even have a functioning spam filter. Nothing's ever in mine, everything ends up in the inbox (and yes I've checked my filter settings). Plenty of spam there too.
Stereotype or not, it wasn't me that originally stated Americans preferred it. It was the person I was replying to (the GP to your post). You seem to be of the impression it was me stating my opinion on the matter ... I wouldn't actually know one way or the other. I was just seeing what the parent to my post said, and saying "I don't know why that is"...
Indeed ... 'corn fed' meat is not the norm in most of the world. Here in Australia it's almost all grass-fed. Then again, we don't have the harsh winters that necessitate keeping cattle indoors for several months each year, so it's easier just to let em roam free and munch on the grass all year.
Incidentally, I honestly don't know why Americans prefer corn-fed meat. It seems fattier than grass-fed and doesn't taste 'right' to me, but I suppose that's simply because I grew up eating 'our' meat and got used to that taste. As you say, a preference thing.
The other problem in Australia is the ~variability~ of the supply of water. When it's dry, you really need that extra infrastructure ... but most of the time it'll sit there being relatively unused.
It's not true that the east has lots of water. Generally it either has too much, or not enough. "Not enough" is far more common than "too much". Right now it's wet: two consecutive La Nina summers with consequent flooding and heavy rains. Dams are all basically full. Crop yields are up (at least, in the areas where they aren't under 6 feet of water!)
However just a couple of years ago we were at the tail end of an almost decade-long drought. Worst in a century they say. Many towns completely ran out of water and had to have it trucked in daily (reasonable sized towns too, like Goulburn NSW). And even in the large capital cities things were looking grim ... here in Canberra our dams were only ~20% full at one point. For a couple of years, we were on the highest level of water restrictions that existed - no watering of gardens/lawns/washing of cars/filling of pools permitted, and minimal water allowed for personal use. Similar stories in Sydney and Melbourne. And when a drought is so, so long, you begin to think it will never rain again and the seemingly absurd prospect of a major city with millions of people literally running out of water starts to look increasingly likely (scary!)
Sydney built an expensive desalination plant in response to this threat. Canberra's building another dam (or technically, they are massively expanding one of the existing 4 dams that feed the city). Of course, as soon as these projects got underway, the rains started falling properly again for the first time in 9 years. The desal plant sits basically idle now (since Sydney dams are back to almost 100%) Still, I'm sure it'll be needed one day so I don't see it as wasted expenditure.
You're absolutely right that huge volumes of water flow into the ocean in Eastern Australia that could be tapped to provide for the cities. Generally this is of a 'quick and heavy' nature (thunderstorm runoff). So in the long term I think the cities are OK. The big problem is that most of our agricultural areas are inland of the Great Dividing Range, so water that falls there flows inland into the Murray Darling basin. And rainfall out that way is very erratic ... and even in good years, it's not that high. Australia is a very dry continent once you're off the narrow coastal fringe between the east coast and the Divide (only 50-100km wide for the most part). No amount of dams will help the inland because the rain simply doesn't fall often enough. You'd have to divert water from the coasts (which is essentially what the Snowy Hydro Scheme was about (and is largely what allowed cultivation of the inland to occur in the first place). But I don't think there's the appetite these days for such massive and expensive infrastructure projects to be honest.
Also as far as I know, Australia still exports far, far more food than it imports. I'm sure I've read recent figures showing we produce 4-5x what we need to be self-sufficient ... so I don't think we are reliant at all on imported food. We might ~choose~ to import some food rather than grow our own, but if worst comes to worst and we suddenly were completely isolated from the rest of the world, we'd be fine.
It's more likely to be a lion, given that the lion is a traditional symbol of Britain.
Yep, met a cheesehead on the Internet a decade ago and now we're married. Living in Australia (my hometown) at the moment but thinking about trying the US out for a few years soon. Probably Madison rather than the GB area though ... don't want to live ~too~ close to the in-laws haha.
On paper, yes. In practice, I don't think that law has ever been used against individual gamers. There're plenty of people, including in the NT and WA that imported MK with no issues, and in some cases Customs even inspected the parcels and let them through anyway. The authorities are really only interested in large scale commercial breaches of these rules.
Not that that excuses the law being on the books in the first place. Fortunately it seems as if the days when you needed to worry about this will soon be behind us...