It’s possible that the June announcement of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) board leaving interest rates unchanged is only the briefest of pauses – but it’s also possible that we won’t see significant rate increases for the next several months. This represents a big change in environment compared to six rate increases out of nine months since September last year, so it’s worth thinking about what a “flat” rate environment might mean for borrowers and savers.

Now I don’t smoke, never have – my body is, of course, a temple – so I can’t provide expert commentary on the realities of nicotine addiction. I do know from friends that it’s hard to give up.

But what I also know is this – as well as the clear health consequences of smoking, there is an enormous financial consequence – to the point where someone smoking a pack per day who has a mortgage could literally save $100,000 over 25 years by kicking the habit.

The Federal Budget is generally pretty good news for savers, especially those saving to buy their first home.

About two years ago the government introduced a savings initiative for first home buyers called the First Home Saver Account Scheme. This was designed to provide incentives for young Australians to earn higher interest and save enough money for a deposit on their first home.

But frankly, it was way too complicated, and we’ve heard consistently from financial institutions that take-up for these accounts were very disappointing.

Recently, I was one of many Westpac customers to get a letter telling me that the bank was going to start charging ‘interest on interest’ charges and fees for credit card holders from June 8, 2010.

This news spread faster than barking dog man getting some vocal reactions from the general public, consumer advocates, and even our Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan, who said: "Unfortunately this bank seems like it’s becoming a serial offender when it comes to taking its customers for a ride."

My attention was grabbed the other day by an article from a US website which posed the question – should you make additional extra repayments on your mortgage? Now of course – having been droning on about this for months here in Australia – my guess was that the answer would be yes.

But interestingly, the answer in the US is sometimes “no” for the reason that mortgage interest in the US has favourable tax treatment (a long story, but taxpayers who have a mortgage get a deduction on some of the interest paid).

This got me thinking that we often forget or underestimate the role of tax in choosing how to save or invest.

The Australia Institute recently published a study on profitability and market power amongst the big four banks – with the theme being that more regulation is needed to keep their fees, interest rates and other charges under control.

Now full disclosure to begin with – banks are advertisers who spend money with the business I lead – RateCity – so I can understand if some people think I’ve got a barrow to push sticking up for them.

But the plain truth is that the best answer for Australian consumers isn’t more regulation over what our banks can do; it’s more competition between them to get them really fighting harder over your business. I’m not here to stick up for the banks – but I am here to say that “information is power”, and that competition is the key to consumers getting a better deal from banks.

AC/DC’s fortune is probably the exception to the rule about rock stars. They’re supposed to live fast and die young...but it turns out that many of them haven’t! And in living well past their “use by date” given the hard-partying lifestyle, I’m sure there’s more than a few aging rock stars who are now well and truly broke as well.

Planning for a worst-case scenario and then having it NOT eventuate can be tricky.

We Australians are a funny lot. The rest of the developed world is mired in recession – in fact, here are two unbelievably sobering statistics from the US this week:

Ancient Rome.

One of the most vivid scenes involves various senior Roman politicians getting together to read the entrails of a bull to decide whether the next year will be good or bad....to which the natural reaction of us sophisticated 21st century types is to say “what a crazy superstition”.

Yet in December 2009, we’re still as guilty of looking for meaning in tiny things when it comes to figuring out the direction of the economy.