Short Takes: Paying Cash, Breaking up Telcos, and more

I’ve noticed an increase in the number of businesses offering discounts for paying in cash.  I’m happy to see this for two reasons.  One is that those who pay in cash (or some equivalent)  have been subsidizing credit card users who collect various perks at others’ expense.  The second is that I’m happy to have some of my purchases not contribute transaction fees to Canada’s banking oligopoly.

Here are some short takes and some weekend reading:

Teksavvy has some advice for the CRTC aimed at improving competition among internet providers.  The most interesting one is to “Examine functional or structural separation, where large providers are split into two distinct companies. Under such an arrangement, one company owns and operates a network and sells wholesale access to it to all comers on an equitable basis. The other purchases that access on the same terms and rates as every other competitor, and then offers it to customers as retail internet service. Canada's big telcos currently do not want wholesale-based ISPs to exist so they are intent on killing them off – splitting them in two would change that.”

Tom Bradley at Steadyhand makes the case for focusing on the fund returns that clients get (money-weighted returns) rather than funds’ time-weighted returns.  This puts the focus on helping clients improve their investing behaviour.

Robb Engen at Boomer and Echo explains the pitfalls in the ways people try to avoid probate fees.