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Kaal posted:If you want an even better rewards program, set up an automatic savings account that rounds up your purchases and diverts it to your bank or credit union. You’ll definitely get a better rate without needing to pay a mega corporation to do that for you. I get like $50-75 on average per month for credit card rewards, by not carrying an active balance and making notes about the rewards for the month/quarter. The only things I don't charge are things that specifically cost more to use a card (eg., utilities) or things that give me a rebate up front for automatic debit (eg., cellphone). It's never worth it to carry a balance because you'll wipe months worth of "gains" very quickly at current interest rates, but rewards can get you a little more back than a bad savings account. Even better for big purchases like appliances and such. Contractors and small business owners can make a killing doing this if they're allowed to use their own cards for purchases to be reimbursed quickly later. I wonder if they'll target these groups to run interference.
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Sep 22, 2023 20:56
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The Mayor of Dallas, Texas - who is a black Democrat that was recently re-elected a few months ago with 99% of the vote because he was running unopposed - has mysteriously announced he is changing party and becoming a Republican.
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Sep 22, 2023 21:29
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Tiny Timbs posted:Their insurance got worse and they got rid of the credit card New President Wayne Peacock wanted to bring USAA back to its core business of insurance. They spun off retirement accounts and cut everything not directly insurance down to the bone. They basically don’t issue mortgages anymore. Basically everyone using USAA would rather have all those things they cut than a small subscriber payment each year, but business poo poo heads gunna business poo poo head.
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Sep 22, 2023 21:42
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FlamingLiberal posted:I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that some either sugar daddy GOP funder or political operative paid him off to switch, and that he will run for a higher office soon. That’s the only practical reason here. Maybe? I don't think he has any personal, political, or business connections to any major Republican donors. It's also not like Texas has a shortage of conservative Republicans who want to run for office. He's not a beloved statewide figure either. He already won the election just a few months ago, was unopposed, is term-limited, and says he isn't changing his policies, so its hard to see what the practical reason for it is. His professed answer that he just now realized that Democrats were more interested in trying to score points instead work together to solve problems and the belief that someone needs to be a Republican mayor for a big city are obviously nonsense explanations for why he is doing it now. It's very strange. Nobody in the city council or the state Republican or state Democratic party apparently knew it was coming either.
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Sep 22, 2023 21:42
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Feels like someone who committed some sort of crime and knows somebody in his party knows and is trying to pre-deflect by saying they are only going after him because he's a republican.
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Sep 22, 2023 21:47
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A quick read shows that his two biggest policies as mayor have been getting more cops and cutting property taxes. So I'm guessing he's just very mad that the Democrats keep making it harder for him to give all the money to cops.
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Sep 22, 2023 21:55
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Maybe? I don't think he has any personal, political, or business connections to any major Republican donors. It's also not like Texas has a shortage of conservative Republicans who want to run for office. He's black, and there is a shortage of Black republicans, so I'm inclined to believe recruitment was a possibility. It sounds like he was always a conservative though, so I think the practical reason is coming out of the closet
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Sep 22, 2023 21:57
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:USAA used to have a 2.5% cashback on everything card. It was the best general use cashback credit card. They discontinued it and now just offer the 1.5% one. Yeah they downgraded my 2.5% card without any fanfare. RIP. Every time I’ve had to use their insurance services (house and automobile) they’ve been pretty horrendous to me, and were once so negligent they almost got my wife arrested for stealing a rental car, but other people have had good experiences. I’ve heard the quality of their services can vary pretty widely depending on which back-end “bucket” they put you in. I believe it, because there’s no way anyone would be happy with having to call a dozen times a day every day for several weeks to get a chance at speaking to an adjuster. Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Sep 22, 2023 |
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Sep 22, 2023 21:59
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ummel posted:I get like $50-75 on average per month for credit card rewards, by not carrying an active balance and making notes about the rewards for the month/quarter. The only things I don't charge are things that specifically cost more to use a card (eg., utilities) or things that give me a rebate up front for automatic debit (eg., cellphone). It's never worth it to carry a balance because you'll wipe months worth of "gains" very quickly at current interest rates, but rewards can get you a little more back than a bad savings account. The thing that I’m trying to point out here is that while you may get a rebate, you also are paying more. The typical US credit card processing fee ranges from 1.3-3.5%, with the average being 2.24%. So even if you got $75 back from the fees you paid at the end of the month thanks to 2% cash back, you also paid your card company $18. While the incentives for using an American credit card are clear, the reality is that we are losing money on it collectively every month because those fees are directly inflationary. This sort of thing is also exactly why credit card companies prohibit stores from separating out the card fees on receipts. By hiding the fees that we are paying, it makes it seem credit card companies are providing a lot more of a benefit than they really are. The European alternative, where the fees are a tenth of what they are in the United States, is a clear improvement for the average citizen.
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Sep 22, 2023 22:22
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Fetterman should be dressing like Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and also carrying around big loving cane with a skull on it or something.
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Sep 22, 2023 22:27
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FlamingLiberal posted:I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that some either sugar daddy GOP funder or political operative paid him off to switch, and that he will run for a higher office soon. That’s the only practical reason here. Looking at his policies as mayor, it's not really shocking that he changed parties. His primary political priorities were increasing police budgets, cutting taxes, and slashing government spending, and he routinely feuded with the city council (which generally opposed all of those stances). If anything, it's more surprising that he was a Dem in the first place. As best as I can tell, it's just because he started his political career in urban districts that were so deep blue that the GOP didn't even run candidates there. If he'd run as a Republican in Dallas he'd have lost. Now that he's broadening his political ambitions beyond the Dallas area, he can shed the blue facade and align with a party that matches his political positions and has better statewide prospects anyway.
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Sep 22, 2023 22:41
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Kaal posted:The thing that I’m trying to point out here is that while you may get a rebate, you also are paying more. The typical US credit card processing fee ranges from 1.3-3.5%, with the average being 2.24%. So even if you got $75 back from the fees you paid at the end of the month thanks to 2% cash back, you also paid your card company $18. While the incentives for using an American credit card are clear, the reality is that we are losing money on it collectively every month because those fees are directly inflationary. look man here was the original post by you: Kaal posted:If you want an even better rewards program, set up an automatic savings account that rounds up your purchases and diverts it to your bank or credit union. You’ll definitely get a better rate without needing to pay a mega corporation to do that for you. if I set up an automatic savings account and divert it to my bank or credit union, no I do not get a better rate. most stores do not reduce the price for me because i used a debit card (some do, but certainly a small minority). most stores in the usa do not tack on a credit card fee. they just eat the fee. as a consumer, you pay x$ whether you use a credit card or cash. if all of the stores did reduce the price for people paying cash or debit, then sure just make your own "rewards program" (which is still not a rewards program whatsoever, thats just a savings program which some banks literally already offer).
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Sep 22, 2023 22:55
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If I spend $100 at the store it makes no difference to me what percentage of that is paid to a credit card company. It costs the same no matter how you pay. If the credit card company gives me 2% back, then I have effectively paid $98. Again, this is entirely independent and in no way related to credit card processing fees paid by a retailer.
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Sep 22, 2023 23:03
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Let's put it this way. 95% of businesses pay more in CC processing fees than city B&O taxes. gently caress CC middleware.
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Sep 22, 2023 23:04
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Judgy Fucker posted:Gold bars stamped with “Swiss bank corporation” is some Saturday morning cartoon villain poo poo The bags that the money was in had big green $ signs on them too.
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Sep 22, 2023 23:55
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BiggerBoat posted:The bags that the money was in had big green $ signs on them too. Fuxking hell that's literally the one goddam thing the court told him not to do
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Sep 23, 2023 00:06
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Biden is going to the UAW picket line https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1705325183697932561
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Sep 23, 2023 01:11
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Bar Ran Dun posted:New President Wayne Peacock wanted to bring USAA back to its core business of insurance. Yeah, I only use USAA for a checking account for the free ATM usage at this point. Everything else is crap now. The last straw was when they decided to hand over their entire investment program to a couple other entities a couple years back. Everyone's investment accounts went to one of these two entities, and it was completely random which bucket you got throw into. One was relatively reputable. Wells Fargo or Fannie? or something like that. The other entity was Victory Capital which all I can say was a complete shitshow. I just cut my ties and immediately moved my portfolio to a smaller third party firm my dad had been using for years and they've been pretty good.
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Sep 23, 2023 02:13
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Kaal posted:The thing that I’m trying to point out here is that while you may get a rebate, you also are paying more. The typical US credit card processing fee ranges from 1.3-3.5%, with the average being 2.24%. So even if you got $75 back from the fees you paid at the end of the month thanks to 2% cash back, you also paid your card company $18. While the incentives for using an American credit card are clear, the reality is that we are losing money on it collectively every month because those fees are directly inflationary. What? Credit card processing fees are paid by the vendor not the consumer? If an item costs $100 you pay $100, there isn't some secret charge not shown on your receipt that causes you to be charged $101. It has no effect whatsoever on your rewards. There is an argument to be made that vendors adjust their prices by 1.5% or whatever to cover the fee but everybody is paying that adjusted rate whether they use a card or not.
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Sep 23, 2023 05:28
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D-Pad posted:What? Credit card processing fees are paid by the vendor not the consumer? If an item costs $100 you pay $100, there isn't some secret charge not shown on your receipt that causes you to be charged $101. It has no effect whatsoever on your rewards. Some places definitely give a cash discount because of fees, though I agree it's not the norm particularly at large retailers.
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Sep 23, 2023 05:56
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This is one of those things where at an individual level, it is in your best interest to use a credit card that costs the vendor a lot so you can get as big of a kickback as possible. But in a hypothetical scenario where those fees were much lower, the vendor could afford to sell things for cheaper and still make the same amount of money. This is a pretty common thing where everyone making the optional choice for themselves leads to a suboptimal outcome overall. Also, the credit cards with the best rewards are generally only available to people with excellent credit, so there's a bit of a "rich people get everything cheaper at the expense of poor people" thing going on.
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Sep 23, 2023 06:05
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Keyser_Soze posted:Fetterman should be dressing like Wilson Fisk/Kingpin and also carrying around big loving cane with a skull on it or something. Great name/post combo.
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Sep 23, 2023 06:14
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Killer robot posted:Some places definitely give a cash discount because of fees, though I agree it's not the norm particularly at large retailers. Yeah and some places will charge a fee for using a card but that is technically against their payment processor agreements and they can get in trouble and lose their ability to take cards because of it although it's almost never enforced. But both aren't that common and realistically it's just built into the item price which is why it has no effect on the calculation of how much your rewards are actually worth like that one poster was saying.
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Sep 23, 2023 06:37
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I know that I completely trust businesses to lower their prices by around a percent or so once processing fees are taken care of. There's no way that prices stay the same or suffer yet another regrettable bout of inflation.
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Sep 23, 2023 07:35
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Gyges posted:I know that I completely trust businesses to lower their prices by around a percent or so once processing fees are taken care of. There's no way that prices stay the same or suffer yet another regrettable bout of inflation. Businesses won't pass along more savings then they have to, that goes without saying. But businesses in competitive fields generally do feel a pressure to lower prices, and businesses that do not can just raise their prices to the margin they think they can get away with either way, so vendor greed really isn't any sort of argument against reform.
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Sep 23, 2023 09:07
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Killer robot posted:Businesses won't pass along more savings then they have to, that goes without saying. But businesses in competitive fields generally do feel a pressure to lower prices, and businesses that do not can just raise their prices to the margin they think they can get away with either way, so vendor greed really isn't any sort of argument against reform. Exactly. In the end it's all just an unnecessary extra step on the value chain. A business won't automatically pass the savings to customers, but it gives them margin to do so if they need it as a way to boost sales volume without going to net loss.
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Sep 23, 2023 13:27
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AlternateNu posted:Yeah, I only use USAA for a checking account for the free ATM usage at this point. Everything else is crap now. The last straw was when they decided to hand over their entire investment program to a couple other entities a couple years back. Everyone's investment accounts went to one of these two entities, and it was completely random which bucket you got throw into. One was relatively reputable. Wells Fargo or Fannie? or something like that. The other entity was Victory Capital which all I can say was a complete shitshow. I just cut my ties and immediately moved my portfolio to a smaller third party firm my dad had been using for years and they've been pretty good. If you have savings account, checking, homeowners insurance, and car insurance with them, you get some decent discounts on the insurance. I've never had trouble getting an insurance human, and they've always been good to me. But I could easily believe their service varies wildly in different regions.
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Sep 23, 2023 14:12
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Main Paineframe posted:Looking at his policies as mayor, it's not really shocking that he changed parties. His primary political priorities were increasing police budgets, cutting taxes, and slashing government spending, and he routinely feuded with the city council (which generally opposed all of those stances). quote:If anything, it's more surprising that he was a Dem in the first place. As best as I can tell, it's just because he started his political career in urban districts that were so deep blue that the GOP didn't even run candidates there. If he'd run as a Republican in Dallas he'd have lost. Now that he's broadening his political ambitions beyond the Dallas area, he can shed the blue facade and align with a party that matches his political positions and has better statewide prospects anyway. https://twitter.com/Johnson4Dallas/status/880552332886290432?s=20 https://twitter.com/Johnson4Dallas/status/629499378424680448?s=20 https://twitter.com/Johnson4Dallas/status/745623791942828032?s=20 https://twitter.com/Johnson4Dallas/status/746686247196712960?s=20 https://twitter.com/Johnson4Dallas/status/988878121616183297?s=20
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Sep 23, 2023 19:32
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mawarannahr posted:Increasing police budgets is a strongly bipartisan stance. Except Dallas democrats did not support him doing that
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Sep 23, 2023 20:27
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Bob Menendez should resign immediately cause hes been indicted on grift as a Democrat. However Donald Trump should super run for president with 4 indicts as a Republican including possibly treason. - Kevin
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Sep 23, 2023 21:27
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Except Dallas democrats did not support him doing that mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Sep 23, 2023 |
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Sep 23, 2023 21:49
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Mother Who Gave Abortion Pills to Teen Daughter Gets 2 Years in Prison https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/us/jessica-burgess-abortion-pill-nebraska.html So this poo poo is really happening, and I can't believe it... I guess this is a 'where have you been' moment for me but this one really sucks
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Sep 23, 2023 22:08
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D-Pad posted:What? Credit card processing fees are paid by the vendor not the consumer? If an item costs $100 you pay $100, there isn't some secret charge not shown on your receipt that causes you to be charged $101. It has no effect whatsoever on your rewards. Everyone should read up on Tax Incidence. In short, the entity which is being charged a tax (on paper) is not always the same as the entity who actually bears the final cost of a tax. This is a well known phenomenon in Economics. Two examples: 1) Assume the government puts a tax on something you badly need to survive, like insulin. On paper, the tax is billed to the insulin manufacturer because it would be gauche to hit diabetics with it. But the insulin manufacturers know you're gonna buy that insulin. You're gonna fuckin' die without it. You'll pay absolutely any price, up to the point where you literally cannot pay. So the insulin manufacturer is going to simply raise prices by roughly the same amount as the tax -- they'll pass along the entire tax to you. You bear the cost, even though the dollars actually get transferred to the government by the insulin manufacturer and not you directly. 2) Assume the government puts a tax on some luxury product you easily can go without. Say, that gold foil some desserts are wrapped in. Once again the tax is actually on the manufacturer, not you directly. The gold foil manufacturers know you don't need the product all that bad. If the price goes up, you'll just substitute something else instead. Like equivalently tasty desserts but not wrapped in gold foil. So if the manufacturers raise prices, you're just gonna buy something else. So they don't raise prices. Which means they really do bear the cost of the tax - they can't just pass it off to you, since if they try you simply won't buy the product at the higher price. There's also scenarios where the tax is shared between both buyer and seller. (In fact, most are split.) The exact ratio of the split, 50/50, 20/80, 30/70 or whatever is governed by economic forces like demand for the good. Anyway, that's a long post to say: Just looking at who directly cuts the cheque to pay a tax (or, in this case, a credit card fee) is NOT sufficient to understand who is truly bearing the economic cost of it. Consumers absolutely bear an economic cost due to credit card fees. Even if the merchant is the one directly sending the money to Visa or whoever. Chimp_On_Stilts fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Sep 23, 2023 |
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Sep 23, 2023 23:34
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Chimp_On_Stilts posted:But the insulin manufacturers know you're gonna buy that insulin. You're gonna fuckin' die without it. You'll pay absolutely any price, up to the point where you literally cannot pay. This FYI is called value based pricing. A general transition has occurred across multiple segments of the economy from “cost based pricing” to “value based pricing “.
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Sep 23, 2023 23:54
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Quote is not edit. Oops.
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Sep 23, 2023 23:55
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Bar Ran Dun posted:This FYI is called value based pricing. My portfolio will be cost+ until they fire me!
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Sep 24, 2023 00:01
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Chimp_On_Stilts posted:Consumers absolutely bear an economic cost due to credit card fees. Even if the merchant is the one directly sending the money to Visa or whoever. I think you're missing that the post you're responding to was itself responding to some bad personal finance advice: Kaal posted:If you want an even better rewards program, set up an automatic savings account that rounds up your purchases and diverts it to your bank or credit union. You’ll definitely get a better rate without needing to pay a mega corporation to do that for you. This is bad advice because automatically transferring 1-99 cents from checking to savings every time you make a purchase is totally different from, and worse than, actually saving money on your purchase by getting credit card points. The fact that consumers as an economic class pay more because of credit card fees, that's irrelevant to whether a person can save money by using something other than a credit card. As was said in the post you're quoting. You and Kael are right that credit card fees are making prices higher for consumers, whether they use a credit card or not, than if they didn't exist. But it's incorrect to suggest a person can mitigate that effect on their budget by choosing not to use a credit card. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Sep 24, 2023 |
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Sep 24, 2023 00:46
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Why is it Democrats are slower to gang up on Menendez than they were on Al Franken. jfc
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Sep 25, 2023 00:58
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Craptacular! posted:Why is it Democrats are slower to gang up on Menendez than they were on Al Franken. jfc Because performative anti-Trump behavior is basically the one thing uniting the Party at this point. If Trump were being accused of direct receiving direct bribes instead of seeking to overturn elections, the dems would be much more vocal and immediate in calling for Menendez to resign IMO, if only to be perceived as being not-Trump on this specific thing. Plus, it's pretty easy to conclude that bribery (of the less overt type) is basically what drives our entire political system and there are certainly plenty of dems who don't care all that much about making an example of him.
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Sep 25, 2023 01:06
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Craptacular! posted:Why is it Democrats are slower to gang up on Menendez than they were on Al Franken. jfc Al Franken was going on during the Alabama special election with Roy Moore who was also having a sex scandal.
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Sep 25, 2023 01:15
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