sleeping_pills

Yes but compared to the size of their economies - let's keep it simple by looking at the GDP - the UK would be hurt disproportionately more. The UK GDP is ~$2.5 trillion, the EU GDP (sans UK) is ~12 trillion.

Why do most Brits still assume the UK is a large market compared to the rest of the EU? The UK is no longer the empire it used to be, it is weak on it's own. The UK GDP is about ~$2.5 trillion, the EU GDP (sans UK) is ~$12 trillion. The UK economy is puny compared to the mainland Europe. I very much agree that a good trade deal would be beneficial for both sides, at this point the EU is under strong pressure to make an example out of the UK secessionist tendencies and the power is squarely on the European side.

London is perfectly fine on a 50k salary, provided you don't try to keep up with people who earn 3-4 times as much. It sounds to me that she was on an entry level or clerical/secretarial position (nothing wrong with that), but that's not what is usually associated with people who work in finance. The solution there is not necessarily to move out of London, but simply realize that in banks in London you are going to be surrounded by people earning >150k (and often much more) and there is no point in trying to keep up with them on a 50k budget.

Probably because at Apple the consumer is not the product.

You provide zero evidence that the US stocks are overvalued (I'm not saying they aren't) so you should refrain from demanding evidence from others.

Furthermore, why do you think the FED should've raised raters earlier? Supporting the stock market is not their mandate and it is thus not directly relevant whether and how long has the current bull market lasted. A big market crash just a few years after 2008 (and 2011) would've certainly had a dampening effect on recovery so they might have felt justified in increasing the money supply. Inflation is running low, economic growth and labor markets were very weak for many years after the 2008 crash. They had pretty good reasons to be supportive.

Ah the good old days of worry free high school chemistry/physics classes. My chem teacher poured out a pint of mercury and allowed us to push our fingers into it to feel how different it was from liquids like water. Good times.

That's very interesting actually. Do you have any links/references for this research?

Did you actually read my post? If yes, can you seriously not see the difference between writing/testing an OS and writing/testing the software that controls jet engines?

Open sourcing something like Linux works very well _precisely_ because it has a very large audience and is (relatively) approachable by hobbyists too.

On the other hand, aerospace engineering and software is narrowly specialized with a (relatively) small group of experts and code used in commercial/military aircraft is anything but approachable to hobbyists.

Then there is the fact that unit testing this kind of code requires engineering knowledge of the specific hardware involved (e.g. not just any jet engine, but one very specific model). Finally, let us not even mention the huge pink elephant in the room, namely that the absolute and vast majority of "hackers" does not have access to jet engines used in commercial (or military) airplanes and even fewer have the ability to conduct test flights.

While I agree with your statement that open sourcing code can help with improving it's quality, how exactly do you envision (paraphrasing) "hackers contributing pull requests" to code that controls engines on an airplane? Here you have an extremely specialized codebase which can perhaps be understood by a tiny group of professionals and it can actually be tested by an absolutely vanishingly small group of individuals under special circumstances. I don't think "hackers" could even begin to make useful critique of this kind of software, let alone contribute pull requests to it.

I agree with this. Fining a big organization effectively means fining their clients. They'll just pass on the costs.

Agree 100% but there are always idealists who thinks China is some miracle country pushing ahead of anyone else. China is basically your neighbor who just bought a second Porsche by taking out an even higher mortgage after his home price was marked higher by the bank. You can call that success. I call it unsustainable debt.

You can't just take the GDP growth on its own and say: "this number is fairly high compared to other countries". Yes it is, but china needs to maintain a ridiculous growth rate to pay for the costs and upkeep of its economic machinery. The GDP figure is propped up by vast amounts of investments that are financed by debt taken out on the basis that future growth will pay for it. Do you see the problem? Does it remind you of anything? Yes, it is exactly what the West is/has been doing.

China is doing the western policy of growth fuelled by debt. Betting on China is tantamount to betting on unfettered money printing shrouded in a veil of corruption and secrecy. Debt financed by production that is consumed by the west. A bet on China is a bet on the US. Let's not forget the massive exposure to western debt and assets. It's as simple as that.

To make things a touch more spicy, China also has an opaque shadow banking system that was tiptoeing around a meltdown just last year.

China is not doing anything clever, they are just really adept at kicking the can down the road.

The future of China is only as bright as the future of US is I'm afraid. To think that China can somehow survive if the western countries collapse or dwindle away is folly. There are no independent players. A deleveraging that is big enough to dismantle Europe or the US will most likely cause a global collapse. It's impossible to predict what will happen if that hits China. How strong is the central government? To what end are they willing to go to preserve their hold on power? Tianamnen Square 2020?

The "invest in China for ridiculous returns" ship has sailed long ago. If anything, I'd be looking at taking profit and hedging all remaining exposure to China with urgency.

I don't think most of them would be that stupid. Just lazy. In a government official's mind, if the 50 page IT security document was filled out then he can't be held responsible when the shit hits the fan.

Fairly extensive docs can be found here: http://mdf-data-flow-programming-toolkit.readthedocs.org/en/...