Sometimes the merchant does pay for a fraudulent transaction, and sometimes the issuing bank does. The credit card networks never pay. It depends on several factors including whether the card was physically present and whether it was swiped or used a chip.
There's a complete lack of enforcement for bike thefts (at least in the US cities I've lived in). Even if you have GPS coordinates that unequivocally lead to the thief, the police won't take any action. Maybe this is different in other countries.
Tire wear yes, brake pads no. I drive a Leaf and use the friction brakes so infrequently that they get sticky if I don’t switch to neutral and do a hard stop now and then. Regen braking is amazing.
10% annual is not huge at all, it would actually be on the lower end of a year that had positive gains. 10% average is what you should expect for the SP500 - and that tends to be driven by lumps, years with returns >20%.
50% is high from a historical perspective but there are plausible explanations for why it's not absurd.
I remember 7% being the historic average that all the classic investing books said. I think it's after adjusting for inflation and dividends. How are you calculating 10%?
By my understanding, 7% is average for any given year. Average for a year with positive gains would have to be quite a bit more to balance out even the occasional negative year.
> In an existing city, the cost to purchase land and buildings that would need to demolished, rezoned, and rebuilt as a higher density area with accompanying infrastructure is astronomical
This happens all the time in NYC, though. Anywhere from a several-story small/medium apartment building to a large skyscraper.
I think the limiting factor is much more likely to be air rights and zoning than safety standards.
I’m referring to cities that are currently not walkable due to huge lots with big box stores and hundreds of parking spaces and 6+ lane road crossings.
$500 stationary bikes are crap. Apple Fitness is only slightly cheaper than Peloton standalone - $10 vs $13 - so I don't think that would be a factor for many people.
The main drive of Peloton if you aren't buying their bike is the instructors and high quality classes - I struggle to imagine many people would care more about watch integration than class quality, and I don't think Apple will be able to win out on the latter anytime soon.
Apple has two hundred billion dollars in cash sitting in a bank account, a fitness ecosystem, and deep experience in fitness and video production. They've announced that the initial set of programs will include cycling, treadmill walk & run, yoga, core, strength, rowing, HIIT, and cooldown. They're planning to add new workouts every week, and have popular, properly licensed music (Peloton spent years illegally playing music, before switching to no-copyright music for a year. Today its in a better place).
I would not bet money on Apple losing on class quality, let alone variety.
You are forgetting families. Peloton is $12 a month, but the workouts are tied to one account - so your wife's workout gets synced to your apple watch.
Also Apple is offering yearly pricing that works out to $6.67/mo...and then there is the bundle which if you are in the ecosystem already essentially makes it a free service...
> and then there is the bundle which if you are in the ecosystem already essentially makes it a free service...
This is key. How many people would subscribe to Prime TV if they didn’t already have a Prime membership. My guess is not many. Luckily for Netflix people consume enough that it’s not really a killer. But with fitness you probably only need a single provider. That said, I’ve lost confidence in apple’s ability to execute, but this seems like a race they could easily dominate if done right.
We know that removing traffic calming devices causes faster and more reckless driving. Poorly designed streets in high-density areas tend to rely on heavy traffic as their primary means of traffic calming. The pandemic could also separately be playing a role, but its certainly not the only cause if it is a factor.
Renewables are already cheaper - solar in the US is the cheapest form of energy in the world. The remaining challenges are improving batteries for storing it, and continued panel efficiency to reduce the amount of space needed for generating solar power.
