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There seemed to be some chance of a change of the terrible tax treatment of ETFs recently, does anyone have any news about that? Are there any reasonably low cost passive investment options in Ireland that could get close to the cost and flexibility of just buying and forgetting an All-World...

There is a risk but for the time being it seems to be be very difficult to quantify what the actual risk to health is - comparisons with packets of cigarettes just seem glib and unscientific. It is practical and sensible to take reasonable precautions like only using the right kind(s) of fuel...

I would assume that the open fires of old and the use of coal, damp wood, turf etc were much more polluting than modern enclosed stoves with dry wood as fuel; it doesn't ring true that we are only just discovering such a massive health risk. That is not to say that it's impossible that this has...

Intuitively one might expect that if opening the door of a wood-burner is equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes that this would be picked up in epidemiological studies and we would have had a pretty clear idea of these serious health risks for decades. I accept that there is a health risk from...

These comparisons seem meaningless and just make it harder to actually quantify the risk (the information I have found so far only states there are "increased" risks, that there are "concerns" from scientists etc.) It's clear that wood smoke is toxic, containing both carcinogenic chemicals and...

I am curious about this point, is it because internal insulation will be less effective somehow? I'd guess that it's not easier to retrofit external insulation.

I agree with you. I would also imagine that the big drop in smoking & drinking and general improvements in healthcare since 1990 would make it very hard to determine just the effect of the reduction in air pollution. That said, everyone old enough will remember how awful the smog was in Dublin...

Indeed there are plenty of reports to this effect, I don't have any reason to doubt that air pollution has negative health effects. The question remains however, what is the extent of the effect? Is it in the range of the danger of living in an area with low radon emissions or is it more like...

It seems pretty clear that there are risks from low-level exposure to particulates that a solid fuel fire will generate. What is not clear to me is what these risks actually are. The EPA website seems to have good information but I was not able to find a guide as to what the actual risk of...

Many ETFs will have a significantly lower TER than that (e.g. VTI is 0.03%, SPY is 0.09%) - I guess there are probably a lot of more exotic/niche ETFs that are higher. An ETF screener is a good place to start looking: https://finance.yahoo.com/screener/etf/new

As the article also mentions, there is no problem at all to pay fees of whatever size for active management providing the return also justifies those fees. I don't think it's controversial to say that in most countries the best investment approach for an average investor over the long term...

Agreed. I did not intend to suggest that price fixing was any sort of solution, my question was more whether or not perhaps SF has the inclination to (as you say) "fix the unattractive investment environment." I suspect not but perhaps could be surprised.

Quite a good summary of the depressing reality of tax-efficient investment options in Ireland I thought: https://www.theislandinvestor.com/post/the-irish-investment-market-is-pathetic Is there any investor advocacy group actively trying to change government policy? My perception of SF is that...

There's a new book out that I found very good - "The warm dry home" by Peter Ward. He recommends a humidity controlled vent similar to the one you describe but also able to warm the air that it draws in to reduce humidity (https://www.vapourflow.com/). I have no personal experience of these...

I expect most investors do not have a problem with paying tax on their gains. My concern with deemed disposal is how unnecessarily complex it makes what should be a simple investment method. The rules are not only complex (can you imagine how painful it must be to do a tax return if you were...

Generally speaking I think the current policy works pretty well. One thing that can become a bit tedious is too many back and forth posts from only two individuals in rapid succession (often repeating the same points, usually getting more and more fraught with each other). Perhaps to...

If you are going in winter then the weather will be great and any of the many beach resort hotels will be good options (Palm, One&Only, Westin/Meridien, JBR, JBH, Al Qasr/Madinat Jumeirah, etc etc etc).

Assuming you are traveling in the next month or so then it's low season and you can book somewhere swanky in Downtown (the area next to the Burj Khalifa) like the Address or the Palace for reasonable rates - would be worth it for a night. It will be too hot/humid to spend much time outdoors...

I assume that Guess_Who has identified a few programmatic trading strategies that have a positive return (currently - no guarantee that will continue of course). It could be that the strategy loses most often and hits a stop loss or perhaps it trades very infrequently and mostly wins - if it...

What leads you to think there would be a difference? It sounds like you understand the need to control risk so your downside should be limited as long as you stick to your strategy.