SovietDissident

Is that you, Dave Smith? :)

I cannot believe braindead Biden is a) the candidate, and b) has a very solid chance of beating Trump. The man can hardly get through a sentence. The emperor has no clothes! (https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1286130348888403976?s=20)

Yes, Trump has been a fantastic disappointment. At least he didn't start any new wars (sorry mustache man!). Some part of me cannot believe the fiscal/budgetary travesty perpetuated by the Republicans in federal office. They took Obama's deficits and tripled them. The same deficits and Fed policy they (rightly) harped on for the previous 8 years.

One thing I would say is don't put too much faith in the polls. Republican voters are notoriously unwilling to talk to pollsters. Trump will say Covid is outside of his control and you're welcome for all the welfare checks; the minute they put Biden on stage, some percentage of the electorate will realize he's actually senile. My guess is that it'll be close.

Yes, FB is a private company and all that. But they have clearly been censoring speech and cannot be protected by common carrier rules, as they are a publisher.

This change of designation, of course, would be a significant financial blow, once they started losing lawsuits. But you can bet that if one considers their gov't influence and status as a money-spigot for leftist politicians, they have no fear of this actually happening.

It's only the little people who have to worry about running afoul of the law---not HRC and not FB. Welcome to the late Roman Empire.

Everyone agrees* that the gov't should at its root fundamental level handle infrastructure. Water, the most essential element to human life, should have been prioritized over over every other foolish pet project. Let's hope it gets done; looks like it's going nowhere: https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-droug...

*I don't agree, but let's go with it

Taking morality out of it for the time-being, taxes serve as an additional barrier to entry for smaller companies; these tech giants have hordes of lawyers and accountants to make sure they pay very minimal taxes (if any). These companies are also multinational, so they can keep money overseas and search for tax havens globally---a choice smaller companies don't have.

The point is: you can give big companies whatever rate you want, but they're in the strongest position to circumvent it, and they will. The better choice is to lower taxes substantially and give the smaller companies a chance to accumulate capital faster, so they can compete.

I agree that the primary cause of all this is government interference regarding barriers to entry. However, did the regulation help insulate these companies against competition in the first place or did they use their money and power once established to pass laws that would keep competitors at bay? Lobbying reaps disproportionate rewards---those CEOs who stick by their non-rent-seeking principles are leaving big money on the table and will likely be replaced by shareholders. (Econ Talk had a good podcast on this recently.)

Regarding trust busting, it is worth noting that these tech giants give an immense amount of money and support to the left. Might as well give Warren some bipartisan support so we can thrash them a bit---it would be sweet poetic justice to attack these statist zealots with the very government power they worship.

There are a lot of problems---namely: debt, cost of living, and third-world immigration---that this generation has to face.

That being said, we are still probably the second-richest generation in the history of the world. Look at the squalor people lived in only 80 or 100 years ago: whole families in one-bedroom houses with no central heat or A/C, a chamberpot in the corner of the room, wood-burning stove providing all heat and cooking, and almost certain death by most diseases. If they wanted to start a business, they'd have to save enough capital to start a brick-and-mortar enterprise in a local market.

We have the ability to buy a $500 computer and start a business or learn a new skill from anywhere. We have access to wondrous modern healthcare (yes, which gov't interference has increased the price of, but the quality is nonetheless excellent). Cars are much better than they used to be---your 10-year old Japanese car with power windows will run until the bumpers fall off, and then probably keep going.

I'm certainly nowhere near where I want to be financially, but perhaps I'm striking an optimistic tone today because I watched They Shall Not Grow Old over the weekend. One of the veterans talks about how he was retreating after an offensive and saw a fellow 16-year-old writhing on the ground in pain after being blown to bits. He knew the boy was done for, and put him out of his misery. By comparison to what they endured, we live in Heaven-on-Earth.

The road and bridge infrastructure in this state is completely falling apart. The water infrastructure was built for a population half or a third of what exists currently, during the Pat Brown era. Calpers has half a trillion $$ in unfunded liabilities, which the younger generation---many of which still live with their parents---is supposed to pay for.

And the Democrats chose to spend $100 billion on an effing train to nowhere.

Whether he happens to be correct or not (a broken clock is right twice a day), Krugman has zero credibility. He has a Nobel Prize, so people listen to him, but the man is a dyed-in-the-wool Keynesian who takes no responsibility when his prognostications fail to materialize again and again.

Where are the specific examples, you ask? There's an entire podcast devoted to smashing his (often-contradictory) arguments: https://contrakrugman.com/

How many years do people spend in Prussian-model government schools or private schools with mandated State-sponsored curriculum? 12? And the average person isn't imparted enough skills to work on anything besides a precarious assembly-line or perpetual min-wage job?

The story here is not an indictment of robots taking menial jobs; rather, it is an indictment of the atrocious education system that teaches people NOTHING of value. Maybe even less than nothing, since it propagandizes and infantilizes them.

If Walmart ran the schools and produced a bunch of know-nothings as a result, we would never hear the end of it. But somehow the State gets a pass. Even worse; they get more money!---per capital spending has increased 3x in the last 60 years with worse results.

Colleges sell themselves as providing remunerative employment training when it suits them, and hide behind this excuse when kids (esp. Humanities majors) can't garner gainful employment. "What, you thought you were paying $200k to increase your earning potential?! Crazy kids---this is all about personal development. Life is about more than money!" (Try not paying your student loans back, and you can see exactly how little they care about money.)

Even if we pretend that the majority of people attend college not for the purpose of increasing their value to employers and getting out of their parents' house, but for personal edification, colleges don't even accomplish this ostensible goal! Most students are more ignorant in most subject matter than the day they step foot on the campus - https://www.nysun.com/new-york/students-know-less-after-4-co... ; https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-c.... Often they're propagandized for four years, saddled with debt, and told that they got an "education", so it's nobody's fault but their own if they can't find a decent job.

Three cheers for the AWS certs and modern-day educational options and good riddance to the corrupt university system (propped up by taxpayer-subsidized monies, of course).

Yep, tariffs are probably a bad idea. Obama did those too (his economic ignorance knew no bounds). Two wrongs don't make a right.

It's impossible to tell exactly what would have happened in a bankruptcy, but the entire company would have almost certainly been restructured, which would have meant generally clearing out the dead wood: shuttering factories, renegotiating anachronistic/extravagant union contracts, etc.

Coercing private citizens to pay for mismanaged companies and subsidize the gold-plated pension benefits of Baby Boomer employees is utterly immoral.

#thanksobama for throwing taxpayer money at GM, only to have them do their inevitable restructuring a few years later than otherwise.

The ongoing travails of the unnecessary drug war.

This is exactly how I would have imagined a trip would go. $85 billion market cap for a car that can't travel to most areas of the globe at all or with severe inconvenience? Give me a break.

Electric cars have been around for 100 years, and they've been consistently inferior. We've perfected the car with the internal combustion engine. Empower automobile engineers to make marginal improvements, but otherwise: can we please spend precious capital elsewhere? Think of all the cures or improvements to human life this money could have gone towards, rather than this stupid electric car will-o'-the-wisp. Build some nuclear power plants! Go to Mars! (In fairness, Elon's trying the latter, as long as Tesla doesn't become a financial albatross around his neck.)

Why must the history of humanity always be the story of one step forward and two steps backward?

Right, taxes should be higher on everyone else.

You voice a lot of similar conclusions I've come to, as someone who's mid-level and came through the bootcamp/practical application route.

One of my coworkers has a Math/CS degree and I feel like he's light-years ahead of me when it comes to solving algorithms, to address just one facet of your comment. He can see the underlying problem/solution at a much deeper level. At the same time, I think that teaching the deep theory first would have been too abstract to me; it makes more sense now that I have some practical experience and have encountered real-world problems that need to be solved.

Which would be fine if the companies acknowledged that they are having trouble hiring because they're extremely picky.

Exactly this. I'm mid-level, trying to switch jobs. Several front-end javascript positions I interviewed for asked me anything from pretty tough algorithms to "how does Angular do namespacing" to object-oriented questions relating to Java to how to style a page and add event listeners to it without ability to reference the docs, etc.

The questions per se are not undoable, but the the sheer magnitude of the corpus they can ask questions from is what's so difficult. I accept this and try to cover as much as I can in self-study and outside courses, so I can better in future interviews. But it is a substantial burden timewise, and seems to be of diminishing marginal utility regarding actual, on-the-job performance, which is pretty annoying. Oh yeah, and then they reveal that they want to pay me $75k per year for a mid-senior position, in California. I know people who make that starting out of college as Account Managers for bigger CPG (consumer packaged goods) or pharma companies, with a company car and cell phone. (Granted, I think those jobs would be boring and also at-risk over the long-term, but the time spent/compensation difference seems out of whack.)

If there really were a shortage, companies would check for fundamentals but relax their standards and offer more on-the-job training for candidates. And wages would be significantly higher! Should get rid of H1Bs as a start, and see if that helps.

The criticism here is that google's leaders and employees have explicitly advocated on behalf of and contributed to leftist causes, which promote the view that taxation should be greatly increased to decrease inequality, pay for government programs, or myriad other reasons. When Trump was elected, they had company-wide meetings concerning the sad state of the country, where melancholy leftists could vent their unhappiness (no such reaction greeted Obama's election). James Damore was harassed and eventually fired when he accepted the (fake) invitation to challenge "Social Justice" orthodoxy concerning gender. They didn't address his evidence, but rather went after his livelihood.

My point being: they are one of the richest companies in the world, committed to a leftist worldview. The fact that they do everything they can to funnel money away from the poor, downtrodden, socioeconomically-disadvantaged, marginalized, etc., which they so loudly proclaim "need our help!"---the word hypocrisy doesn't even cut it.

An example: Facebook removing actual statistics on campus rape (i.e., "hate speech") and kowtowing to the completely false SJW/feminist narrative that 1/4 college women are raped.

https://i.sli.mg/oNjASl.jpg

"Soon the scale hit 265. Mr. Cahill started weighing and measuring his food again and stepped up his exercise. He got back down to 235 to 240 pounds. But his weight edged up again, to 275, then 295.

His slow metabolism is part of the problem, and so are his food cravings. He opens a bag of chips, thinking he will have just a few. “I’d eat five bites. Then I’d black out and eat the whole bag of chips and say, ‘What did I do?’”"

The article is light on the details post-TBL, but it sounds like recidivism in terms of diet is probably a major root cause of weight gain. Also, maybe it's hard to tell whether they're doing steady-state cardio or high-intensity interval training (steady-state cardio has been shown to paradoxically cause weight gain in people). In any case, it sounds like they need more guidance and check-ins post-show.

ZH may be early and there may be some separation of the wheat from the chaff that one must do, but their general bearish theme resonates as true based on the data.

The BLS numbers are phony. They monkey around with the denominator, so drop-outs from the workforce are not counted. They also count one person losing a good full-time job but gaining multiple part-time jobs as a net positive. Never mind those numbers---all you need to know is that the adult labor force participation rate is at its lowest in about 4 decades.[0] The ratio of average income to home prices is about twice that of the 50s/60s (over 3.3) Also, if unemployment were measured as it was decades earlier, the unemployment number would be much higher. Outside of tech, where tons of money has flowed thanks to the Fed's helicopter money and investors seeking higher returns (as interest rates are ~0), the economy has been doing lousy. Yet all we're told via mainstream sources is that the Fed and Obama saved the day and shutup about it already!

As others have noted, this expansion is long-in-the-tooth, at least by historical standards. Companies' inventories are up, which also signals an economic slowdown in the works. After QE1, QE2, QE3, and bond buying totaling $4 trillion (!) of expansion of the monetary supply, we've had a paltry sub-3% GDP growth (0.5% in the first quarter of this year!). A former Fed board member admitted recently that they "front-loaded" the recovery; indeed, it should be noted that this "recovery" is almost a direct result of the Fed's actions regarding monetary expansion. This also explains the fantastic increase in asset values (classic cars, houses, art, stocks, etc.)

The Fed is a private cartel. It is the third central bank in the history of the U.S., and was created so the banks would no longer be forced to compete with each other. It is not independent of politics (far from it)---for example, Yellen knows she should raise interest rates, but knows that the Democrats will be thrown out of office if she does before 2016 (see the minuscule 25 basis-point increase that caused huge market turmoil late last year), and a Republican would throw her out the day he was sworn in. Even if you don't believe the "conspiracy", the fact of the matter is that central planning is disastrous, and it is especially disastrous when it comes to the price of currency (i.e., interest rates), as that affects everything else in an advanced economy (especially long-term capital investments).

ZH has done a good job keeping us apprised of these developments. They operate under the assumption that the current fiat currently standard cannot survive, and they are right. Of course the timing is virtually impossible, but I (like them) predict a bad recession in the next year or two. Over the longer term, the system will inevitably collapse.

[0] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/07/02/percentage-w...

"disastrous privatization of the economies of the Post-Soviet states that's lead to massive human suffering and political failure"

Communists around the world killed between 60 million and 100 million people (there is debate among scholars as to the exact number).[0] Stalin killed the "wealthy" peasants, enslaved Eastern Europe, and carted millions off to work camps in Siberia (where they would eventually die or become broken people). Pol Pot killed 2 million of his own people as a "social engineering" experiment (after studying Rousseau). Mao killed 45 million in 4 years. Can anyone say "massive human suffering and political failure"?

It's true that the Post-Soviet states have had mixed results, based upon which have privatized industry and enacted pro-freedom policies, and also based upon which people retained trace Enlightenment notions of the government's relationship to its citizenry. Estonia, for example, has flourished: "The foundation was laid in 1992 when Mart Laar, Estonia’s prime minister at the time, defibrillated the flat-lining economy. In less than two years his young government (average age: 35) gave Estonia a flat income-tax, free trade, sound money and privatisation. New businesses could be registered smoothly and without delays, an important spur for geeks lying in wait."[1] In Russia, a heavy-industrial and resource-based country (partly thanks to Stalin's 5-year-plans and massive capital theft from the Eastern Bloc countries), former Communist officials assumed ownership of state assets during the transition, and it predictably has not done as well.

Again, we can argue that liberalization has not occurred to a great extent in countries such as Russia, where a strongman still rules. (It's probably the case that places with massive natural resources have had greater struggles, as there was probably better opportunity for collusion by the political oligopoly. Less resource-rich countries have on-average fared better.) We can have an intelligent discussion comparing each of those countries based on the different policies they have enacted. However, to drop historical context of life (and death) during the Soviet era is completely ludicrous.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_...

[1] http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/ec...

Neat. Question: what happens if there's a car in back of the Tesla? Does does the Tesla disregard him and whether or not he has time to stop as well?

Edit: Certainly the top priority is avoiding the car in front of you, and you should slam on the brakes to do it. However, once you stop, the Tesla should release the brakes (if there's an imminent collision from the rear) to minimize the impact to the Tesla driver and the car slamming into the back of him. Would be cool if the Tesla engineers added this (if feasible).

If someone were very rich in NYC, between federal, state, local, sales taxes, etc. they would pay ~60% of their income in taxes. Now, many of them pay capital gains, have wealth managers who set up different financial vehicles, and whatnot. But this is exactly the point: individuals will pay as little tax as possible, and the rich spend more money than most getting around these punitive taxes. Further, it should be noted that the wealthy are the most mobile; if they don't like tax policy in a certain country, they will move their assets off-shore (see the original article). What I'm saying is that on a "practical" level, these high taxes don't work! (Hence the consistency in the tax revenue coming in per year despite tax levels, as I cited.) You're better off having lower taxes and actually having the rich pay them.

Practically speaking, high taxes are not an effective way to tax the wealthy, but they are an effective way to send capital overseas. If you want another example, look at the $2.1 trillion in U.S. corporate cash being held abroad, which hasn't been repatriated because companies refuse to pay the high U.S. corporate taxes, and use it to buy foreign companies/assets like Minecraft for a couple billion instead.[0]

[0] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-04/u-s-compan...

This was my reaction as well.

When she tells the story about the gentleman who is wary of academics concerned with income inequality, I think it's interesting that she seems to be writing precisely the kind of account that may lead to further scrutiny of his assets and people like him. I would say his concern is well-placed!

There are two ways to look at this issue. First, these rich people are just fleecing the "system" and governmental powers should be increased to prosecute them. Or, the "progressive" tax system is particularly punitive for high net worth individuals, and they will continue to shell out millions to wealth managers while tax laws are actively hostile to their assets. (Tax collections have been ~19% throughout U.S. history, even when tax rates were as high as 90%.[0]) On a purely "practical" level, tax codes should be simplified and taxes lowered so that it's more economical for those of high net worth to comply with the intent of the law, rather than skirt it. As an added bonus, it would also help economic growth generally.

[0] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487035149045756029...

The question is: why have disability claims skyrocketed at least since the 90s? Are Americans that much more disabled (than people of the Depression, WWII and Vietnam generations, and beyond)? It strikes me as being highly implausible. Based on some of the data presented here and elsewhere, it seems like it's become another welfare program for many people, with some "deserving" individuals in between. Some people, when not forced to work for their survival, will eschew it. Others see it as free money, and just work for cash on the side.

To the moral question of the safety net: is it just for one to have earned X dollars (and spent Y amount of one's life) working at a job, only to have the fruits of one's labor forcefully taken away to fund his neighbor's welfare/housing/food/schooling/etc.? I would argue no.[0] If someone is disabled or destitute, he can appeal to the charity of his family members, fellow human beings, or philanthropy to help him out. There are plenty of people (many on these boards, I imagine) who have excess resources and would surely help a starving man in the street or an orphan.

Indeed, voluntary aid would fix the issue of worthiness which you raise: if you are worthy of help, you will be judged worthy to receive it. (Charities and mutual aid societies have existed since at least the 19th century, and have proliferated even more-widely since.[1]) If not, time to start providing value to others (i.e., labor) and receiving money in exchange. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

[0] http://philo.abhinav.ac.in/Objectivism/Ayn%20Rand%20-%20The%...

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/objectivist/2011/11/18/america-b...

I mean, I like LA a lot better, but I think even that is too expensive, especially when you're getting hit with CA taxes. I moved to Tennessee. No income tax, friendly people, fewer NIMBYs and restrictive building policy, fewer feminist harpies, etc. Apparently many others have had the same idea, since people are streaming into the state from places like NY and CA. You'd be surprised how much tech is here as well. Unfortunately, winter is way worse and there are no real beaches, but you can always buy a plane ticket.

So he has a Muslim name, which is why this story went viral. Because racism. I hope everyone is equally outraged by the nonsense that happens all the time[0][1] to kids who aren't named Mohammad in public schools.

Sending your high IQ kids to school with adults who are batting 85 should be regarded as parental malpractice. And the notion that people defend public schools and tell us taxpayers they just "need more money!1!!1" flies in the face of reason and the facts (per pupil spending since the 60s has tripled with no change in test scores).[2]

Public schools suck by their very nature as state-controlled entities. If education is so important (especially today), why do we allow our kids to be taught and schools administered by the equivalents of DMV employees? Of course the poorest kids with broken families suffer the most.

And what happens when charter schools actually succeed? The Teachers Union is there to try and shut them down, with the help of sympathetic politicians (see NYC and de Blasio)[3]

[0] http://www.roanoke.com/news/columns_and_blogs/columns/dan_ca... [1] http://wjla.com/news/local/family-of-md-boy-suspended-for-po... [2] http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2015/mar/02/da... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/nyregion/success-academy-c...

Demonizing farmers for the water crisis is completely missing the issue. The fault lies at the feet of environmentalists and politicians who stopped building water infrastructure in proportion to the growing state population. LA is naturally a desert. SF cannot supply all of its water locally. Water infrastructure is necessary for humans to live in most regions of California and we have been living off infrastructure investments made 50+ years ago.

This is a must-read to understand what's been going on: http://www.hoover.org/research/dry-winters-tale

"Just as California’s freeways were designed to grow to meet increased traffic, the state’s vast water projects were engineered to expand with the population. Many assumed that the state would finish planned additions to the California State Water Project and its ancillaries. But in the 1960s and early 1970s, no one anticipated that the then-nascent environmental move-ment would one day go to court to stop most new dam construction, including the 14,000-acre Sites Reser- voir on the Sacramento River near Maxwell; the Los Banos Grandes facility, along a section of the California Aqueduct in Merced County; and the Temper-ance Flat Reservoir, above Millerton Lake north of Fresno. Had the gigantic Klamath River diversion project not likewise been canceled in the 1970s, the resulting Ah Pah reservoir would have been the state’s largest man-made reservoir. At two-thirds the size of Lake Mead, it might have stored fifteen million acre-feet of water, enough to supply San Francisco for thirty years. California’s water-storage capacity would be nearly double what it is today had these plans come to fruition. It was just as difficult to imagine that envi-ronmentalists would try to divert contracted irrigation and municipal water from already-established reservoirs. Yet they did just that, and subsequently moved to freeze California’s water-storage resources at 1970s capacities...

In reaction to these ongoing disasters and fearing a fourth year of drought, the legislature and Governor Jerry Brown placed a $7.5 billion water bond on the November 2014 ballot. It passed, but only a third of the money will go to construction of reservoirs canceled in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the bond’s provisions will fund huge new state bureaucracies to regulate access to groundwater and mandate recycling. The bond will essentially void more than a century of complex water law as the state moves to curb farmers’ ability to pump water from beneath their own lands. Bay Area legislators who helped draft the bill failed to grasp that farmers’ drilling and pumping is driven not by greed or insensitivity to the environment but by a doubling in the state’s population and a water infrastructure that has not kept pace. A better way to regulate overdrafts of the water table would have been to increase vastly the reservoir surface water for agriculture so farmers would have no need to turn on their pumps...

Continuing drought means vast tracts of westside farmlands will turn to dust. California’s nearly $30 billion agricultural export industry—led by dairy, almond, and grape production—is in grave peril. Its collapse would crush the economic livelihood of the Central Valley, especially its Hispanic com-munity. When the five-million-acre west side goes dry, hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs in a part of the state where the average unem-ployment rate still hovers above 10 percent. Farmers will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to further deepen their wells and save what water they can. Everything they and their predecessors have known for a century will be threatened with extinction.

Water use in California is being curtailed by those least affected, if affected at all, by the consequences of their advocacy. But environmental-ists, who for forty years worked to undermine the prudent expansion of the state’s water infrastructure, have a rendezvous with those consequences soon. No reservoir water is left for them to divert—none for the reintroduc-tion of their salmon, none for the Delta smelt. Their one hope is to claim possession of the water in the ground once they’ve exhausted what was above it...

Now that no more reservoir water remains to divert, the exasperated left is damning “corporate” agriculture (“Big Ag”) for “wasting” water on things like hundreds of thousands of acres of almonds and non-wine grapes. But corporate giants like “Big Apple,” “Big Google,” and “Big Facebook” assume that their multimillion-person landscapes sit atop an aquifer. They don’t—at least, not one large enough to service their growing populations. I have never met a Bay Area environmentalist or Silicon Valley grandee who didn’t drink or shower with water imported from a far distant water project. And as the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir drains, Bay Area man-made stor-age lakes will necessarily follow. Another year of drought will deplete even Southern California’s municipal reserves sooner rather than later. When Silicon Valley tech lords and academics can’t take a shower and find them-selves paving over their lawns and gardens or letting their pools stand empty, perhaps they, too, will see the value of reservoir water for people rather than for fish. The new dust bowl may see a different generation of Joads abandon-ing California for a wetter—and more prosperous—Midwest."