There's no alternative

Len Sassaman?

It feels like the youngest generation are more enthralled by the big media/tech regime online than we were 20 years ago though

Sure we used AIM and MSN Messenger but we also used IRC, visited forums and looked at newsgroups.

So many people these days don't even own laptops. Their entire digital footprint comes through apps on restrictive mobile platforms.

Likely only a shameful % of the company will float.

Expect a Facebook-style stock offering with 90% of the voting power in a special share class not available to retail.

The product is a minimum of 25% cocoa solids and the oils are listed after that on the ingredients list, which means by weight they are more cocoa than oil.

Sarcasm woosh.

Not in the US they aren't, since they're made by Hershey and not Nestle and so are a completely different product.

I had a coworker who would fly to SE Asia a few times a year, he'd always bring back a small suitcase of insane KitKat flavors from Tokyo airport (or nearby). One time he had a bunch of varieties of green tea KitKats, never seen anything close to that in the US.

Cadbury have TimeOut but it's not quite the same. (It's lighter, less chocolate and less dense)

Clearly intended to be the direct competitor though, since "Have a break, have a KitKat" is the KitKat slogan, and timeout is also a break.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/316651552

My manager is a good developer. But he's also a terrible manager.

I have very much seen that too!

Labels like "adult", and "successful" etc are all for other peoples benefit rather than our own. It's all a facade.

I'd probably measure maturity in terms of how one navigates relationships.

When it comes to my partner, being vulnerable, knowing when it's ok to share that I don't feel like an adult, that i'm scared or lack confidence, and when to put on a strong front and say it's all going to be ok, to make her feel safe, is the essence of what I consider to be a "grown ass man".

But we're also planning a trip to the Lego House, Denmark together and we don't have kids. So there's that.

There's something about the responsibility of raising a child that differentiates adults, and I don't think there's an analog to that experience.

Personally, the older I get the more `adult` just means you have an empathetic understanding of causality.

Do you have any evidence that they’re subsidizing US customers? It’s possible the fees are higher in the UK due to it being more expensive to operate the funds.

Most of their funds are incorporated in Ireland (the UK doesn't have native ETFs, they're all European but can be listed on the LSE)

Investors in the UK are not partners in Vanguards mutual structure, and Vanguards UK platform ("Vanguard Investor") is not run by Vanguard but by a third party (FNZ, a New Zealand fintech).

OCF for VT, a global equity index ETF in the US, is 0.06%

UK equivalent (the Global All Cap Index Fund, or perhaps the VWRP All World ETF) is 0.23% and 0.19% respectively, and the latter excludes small caps and both have fewer holdings than VT

Invesco's All World ETF in the UK, tracking the same index is 0.15% and HSBC have an index fund tracking the same index also at 0.13%

Vanguard UK have a 0.15% platform fee whereas the best UK alternatives are completely free.

Vanguard UK recently introduced a minimum nominal platform fee on top which screwed over small investors.

Vanguard are no longer cheap and not on our side.

Thanks. Are you sure the cost of the fund is higher because it’s a fund and not an ETF like VT? The platform fee seems strange, but I wonder if other companies collect that fee somewhere else?

There are no practical differences between funds and ETFs in the UK, except the fact that the latter are live quoted.

Mutual funds are cheap and have no tax disadvantages for us. In fact, outside of tax sheltered accounts, mutual funds are a lot easier to manage for tax purposes.

No, Vanguard just think it's fine to charge us 4x as much

VWRP, which I mentioned, is also an ETF

Very interesting. Thanks for the information!

Damn, what?! I didn't know the UK rates were higher. But yeah the old Vanguard brand that Bogle built is strong.