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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • I worked in the superannuation industry for a while. I wouldn’t say that super is exactly a scam but it’s a terrible mess and the fees we pay on super in Australia are insane. Basically we have a lot of parasites taking a cut and that ends up making the standard funds poor investments. Median returns on the super funds are around 5.6% pa (over the last ten years for the standard “balanced” option) at a time when stock market tracking funds have appreciated by over 8% pa. A lot of that is being lost in inefficiencies and fees.

    By comparison Americans with a 401k invested in the NASDAQ would have made 17.3% pa over the same period.

    We’re getting a terrible deal with superannuation, and for many it’s the difference between retiring comfortably or retiring in poverty.






  • Even worse I can think of two other cases of the Federal Police and ASIO doing similar things:

    • Scott Rush, one of the “Bali 9”, was imprisoned in Indonesia after a tip-off from the AFP. This followed his parents alerting the AFP in advance and them reassuring the parents that they’d keep him out of trouble - then waiting until the crime had been committed and tipping off the Indonesian police to take the credit.
    • Jean-Philippe Wispelaere was a defence intelligence officer with mental illness who was imprisoned for selling secrets to Singapore. The “secrets” turned out to be publically available maps - not secret at all - and hadn’t committed any crimes until the sting operation by an Australian government organisation and the FBI. He was eventually arrested by the FBI and remains in prison today.

    I guess for police it looks good on your resume to have caught a bad guy, and it’s easier to track if you’re making it all happen in the first place.