All men have benefited from the patriarchy, just like all women have suffered because of it. And, just to blow the minds of the "not all men" crowd, all men have also suffered at the hands of the patriarchy, and some women have found comfort in it. These two things can both be true at once, and both be a result of a really fucked-up system.

The tax mix in Australia has to change, and this year’s budget may be just the start. In 2010, Treasury said Australia had roughly 5 working-age people for every person over 65. By 2050, that number is projected to fall to 2.7, nearly half. This problem was highlighted in 2010 when Ken Henry handed government the most comprehensive tax review this country has produced in decades. It recommended, among other things, shifting the base away from income and onto land and cons

Financial advice should be free, or at least subsidised, and the federal government should be the one funding it. Not as a thought experiment. As an actual policy, because they made every Australian need it. They have a responsibility to help out where it counts. Superannuation is one of the best retirement systems in the world. I'll defend it to anyone who says otherwise. But it's complex enough that most people who rely on it have no real hope of understanding it without he

Two AI companies have just had a very bad month. An OpenAI model, mid security test, broke out of its sandbox and hacked a company, all in the name of performing the task it was given. It used stolen credentials, moved through systems it was never meant to touch. Nobody told it to attack anything, it just kept chasing the goal it was given, past the point anyone was watching. Days later, Anthropic admitted three of its Claude models did something similar, during "capture the

There are two people in the room. Why does he keep talking to me? Steph, my partner, is an equal owner of our business. We make decisions together. So why is it that the man sitting in front of us, trying to sell us his services, keeps talking to me, and really, only me? This has happened more times than you could imagine. And it never ends well for them. It does not matter how good your service is, if you direct all questions to me and expect that I am the final decision mak

A few months ago, I was having coffee at The Brown Moose (Great coffee if you're ever in St Kilda Rd Towers) with a colleague who is a BDM for hundreds of advisers. Our conversation turned to AI, and he asked if I was using it at all. I had been, I had been slowly putting together an internal document full of prompts that we could cut and paste into Copilot, ChatGPT etc depending on the type of work we were doing. He said I was doing more than most advisers he came across. Th

Twelve months ago the fear was mass unemployment. AI was going to take all of our jobs. It hasn't happened. And that fear seems to have gone quiet. What's happening instead is more interesting. AI isn't replacing us. It's raising what's expected of us. So, are we facing Augmentation or Armageddon? I'm still on the fence. My gut says augmentation, but it is far from certain. I've noticed a change in my behaviour recently. I used to come home from work, do the usual house thing

People here on LinkedIn are starting to sound eerily familiar. In fact. It could be the case that people…real people, are not here at all. AI has allowed us to produce content at a rate of knots that would not have been possible 5 years ago. And it seems like everybody has jumped on board. I saw a LinkedIn post the other day. It was telling a story, obviously written by AI. Em dashes everywhere. Phrases like ‘the truth of it is’ and ‘in today’s fast paced world’. There was no

I hooked up with Steph when I was 18. We were both in high school, and neither of us had any money. We married a few years later and our money has always been combined. So we never really had to face the question of who pays the bill, because we pay the bill. But for many people dating is alive and well. Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, all the apps getting people together for meals (and other activities). How do you figure out who should pay? Let’s look at an example and work it out

Ask any financial adviser how their fees have changed in the last five years, and you already know the answer before they say it. Up. Substantially up. The median adviser fee in Australia now sits at $3,960 a year. That is a rise of 58 per cent in five years. A comprehensive Statement of Advice, the document that used to be the entry point into our profession, now commonly costs between $3,500 and $6,500. The Financial Services Council itself has said the cost of advice has c

I am a white, middle-aged man in financial advice. So is most of the room at every industry conference and event I've walked into this year. Same suits, same haircuts, same well-meaning nods when someone mentions diversity from the stage. (To be fair, I never wear a suit) I'm not saying that to be self-deprecating. It's just the maths of our profession right now. And it's exactly why I think inclusion is one of the most underused business advantages available to advisers to

Running a business looks great from the outside. You set your own hours. You build something that's yours. You get to make the calls. That's all true. But it's also only half the story. What people don't see is the Tuesday afternoon where nothing has gone wrong exactly, but nothing feels right either. A client who's gone quiet. A number that doesn't add up the way you wanted it to. A decision you made six months ago that you're now not sure about. Nobody warns you that most o