481–490 of 877 posts
Is it outrageous to say we need to end this quarantine right now? At this point, the cure is worse than the disease.
Literally killing people for the sake of "the economy" is a disgusting notion to even attempt to defend. The system is entirely broken.
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Conversely, when I was in 6th grade, I begged and pleaded with my parents to try a new distance learning pilot program our state was doing. They allowed me to do it for 7th grade, and the lack of oversight and discipline led to me being a complete year behind in mathematics when I went back to regular school for the 8th grade. I never recovered, and ended up dropping out 2 years later. Sure there is redundancy in ele…
Missing any math in any year is a disaster. There is a real continuity in math teaching starting from addition through high school. I've seen so many people who gave up early on, and they have _no hope_ of making it up later on.
It was really frustrating for everyone. I just wasn't in a position to basically teach them a few years of high school math from zero foundation.
And you'll see the same pattern in pretty much any of the books written over the years about the challenges the author faced in the first year of their MBA program.
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Tech people will be hit much harder by this than they think. The STEM world is largely in denial because ultimately SV grew because of the last major recession. That won't be happening this time. Startups are having massive layoffs right now, and each week bring companies further and further down the chain lay people off. I strongly suspect we'll see more major layoffs next week. Most big tech companies are driven by…
100% agree. The housing market in the bay area will go down even more. The last year changes in tax rules such as lower deduction for mortgage interest and municipal taxes had already weakened the market. With RSUs going down, even less people will be able to buy housing, driving the price down. I think my house lost 8% in the last year, pre-COVID19. Sucks for me as a home owner, but I really believed the housing mar…
If we use the SP500 as a benchmark for RSU valuation, in 2020 those regressed, at their lows for the year, to mid 2017. They are currently at September of last year. In the past year, SP500 is up a quarter percent. I don't think tech workers were doomed in 2019, and nobody was buying a house on the assumption that RSUs would appreciate at 50 percent per annum.
> If we have layoffs, in FAANGs, I suspect a lot of folks will not be able to pay their mortgage.
Indeed million dollar mortgages are high stakes. If foreclosures actually become an issue I imagine the politicians will step in to bail someone out. Maybe the lenders, but probably homeowners directly since they vote. It's entirely possible we see a democratic congress throw out the SALT limits from the tax reforms.
Thats 4.8% annualized. The real figure is 1.17% for 3 months. It's quite impressively small really, considering everyone is sitting at home, and many aren't working at all.
Not when you factor in that shutdowns didn't really start until the very end of the quarter. According to Wikipedia[1], earliest state stay-at-home order was March 19 in California and 19 states either waited until April or never issued a stay-at-home order. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_local_governmen...
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Sure, we can let a million folks in the USA die because we love our capitalism, but 80%+ of the USA disagrees with that false dichotomy.
First of all, that number is clearly exaggerated. No current evidence supports the claim that a million people in the USA dying of covid is remotely plausible. Now to the substance of your argument: this has little to do with capitalism. If most people are not working for a long period of time, in any society, even a non-capitalist one, then that society will rapidly become dramatically materially poorer. We make cho…
What's implausible about this? Is Covid 19 less lethal outside NYC? Can R remain below 1 anywhere in the country, without a lockdown?
This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…
This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…
So, how is it that people employed in essential businesses have not become rich in this pandemic? After all they are in high, crucial demand and could/should command better wages than programmers at this time. Sure, some of those raises would increase the price of goods, but that would be offset by hefty UBI checks to everyone. How is it that people who endanger their lives working in supermarkets don't get raises, b…
With 22 million out of work, it's easily to replace an "essential" meat packer. It's far harder to replace an engineer or doctor even if they aren't essential
That's why white collar workers make so much money in the first place...
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If 20% die but 8 out of 10 are very old and sick, then globally 4% die who are healthy or not very old. 4% of an (healthy not very old) population dying still means overall the economy would contract by 4% (because product/service demand is down 4%), which would still be the greatest recession in the last 8 decades. Your comment ("not much") is thus completely false.
Sure, but the idea that this virus kills 20% of all people is stupid. You just made that number up. We don't have much we can do to treat this disease. Nobody believes it would ever go that high. If somehow it does, even more than 80% will be old and sick. 4% of a population dying also does not mean the economy contracts by 4%. You just... made that up too. Lastly, you've assumed that a 4% annualized economy contract…
I did not claim that. I just took this percentage from the hypothetical situation you used to build an argument (you yourself said if 10-20% die then it wouldn't mean much to the economy.)
«4% of a population dying also does not mean the economy contracts by 4%.»
Yes it does. Basic economics. With everything being equal, the size of an economy is linearly proportional to the number of persons. A population half the size of another one will buy half the number of cars, half the food, will spend half on entertainment, etc. So if 4% of average individuals die worldwide, consumption (thus the economy worldwide) is down 4%. Like I said, it's basic economics.
«Lastly, you've assumed that a 4% annualized economy contraction from one month in a quarter means that we'll see 4% by just keeping this going»
No I don't assume that. Read again what I wrote. I am only talking about the impact of a certain percentage dying, not about the impact of the lockdown.
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> My question is how much, if any, social unrest this will lead to. There is deep rot at the heart of the American system, and something is going to have to give. The economy has been broken for the lower 50% for a long time now. This course is unsustainable. I try not to get explicitly political on here, but Bernie Sanders was, as far as I can see, our last shot at reversing the trend from within the current system.…
"Bernie Sanders was, as far as I can see, our last shot at reversing the trend from within the current system" If anything, Bernie Sanders was our first, worst shot at structural economic change. In fact, every candidate on stage during those Democratic debates was running far, far to the economic left of Barack Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore or either Clinton. With some historical perspective, you might see that the tid…
Now, that doesn't completely invalidate the point! There's a genuine "economy" of votes around "I take a stance for X, you give me votes, I continue to take that stance, you continue to give me votes", which can function even in the midst of cynicism. But it's much less reliable or efficient when that's the case; when the politician, as a person, doesn't base their platform in their genuine beliefs. In fact I think the prevalence of this mentality is one of the major causes of our current situation.
There's almost nobody left among our politicians who has any real conviction. I think John McCain did. And call me naive, but I believe Bernie Sanders is authentic when he's talking about these topics. He's been doing so since the seventies. Career-politicians who do nothing but appease voters might do an okay job at running the show, but they will never truly change the system that got them elected.
This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating. My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remembe…
It still surprises me that America has such a culture of leasing cars they can't afford for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month. Here in the UK if you said you were going to buy a car, most people would instantly assume you mean second hand. There's not much of a culture of buying or leasing new cars here, and even less of leasing cars that you really can't afford (outside of petrolheads anyway)
Americans also spend a lot of time in their cars, I went from a short commute to a long commute (1 hour each way), and found I got almost exponentially more critical of my car the longer the commute.
Suddenly the practical vehicle I didn't mind driving 15 minutes, was an eyesore to look at after an hour, and the NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) wears on you exponentially with time.
I started browsing cars to buy that would have been borderline financial suicide for how much I made, just because of how important the comfort and aesthetics became to me.
Couple this with their tendency towards financing things, and how cheap automotive related expenses are in the US, and it's the perfect storm.
I ended up changing jobs to one 10 minutes from my house, and it's downtown so parking is just done at various pay lots a few blocks from my office so nobody ever sees what I drive, and suddenly what I drive is irrelevant again, I was back to being content with my 15 year old Camry.