Experts from a world that no longer exists • Hacker News Board

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#171

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

raziel2701 wrote: post #37

nickdothutton wrote: post #23

What I found interesting is that the period for reappearance of “failed ideas” is roughly the length of a career. Coincidence or due to any real effect I don’t know. I wrote a little about it here: “Don’t be discouraged by the failure of technology or approaches of the past. If the problem is still important after all this time then it’s a problem worth solving. Don’t avoid unsuccessful solutions. Avoid insignificant…

I went through grad school and I saw how change comes about one funeral at a time. A big shot professor that has made their name with their pet theory/work will fiercely defend it against competing ideas, and people will defer to their expertise. It's not scientific, it's egotistic. They are a wall against progress that gets removed upon death. These professors can also create a dogma through their students who also…

[deleted]

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#172

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

redisman wrote: post #157

nly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

I don’t know how a pensions would work in tech. 95% of the companies won’t exist by the end of your career so who pays for the pensions?

[deleted]

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#173

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #121

pfdietz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milton Friedman was a supporter of taxes on pollutants. He recognized that negative externalities are a case where government intervention is needed, and thought Pigovian taxes were the best way for government to do that. Were he alive today he'd be advocating carbon taxes.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Most of the clips I see of him online show him berating young people who aren't wrong IMHO. A bit serendipitous, but his name popped up just now when I was searching for an article about regulation to make companies responsible for their own externalities: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-29/cop26-... Big investors really do think of themselves as universal investors…

Corporations (and consumers, and politicians) react according to their perceived costs and benefits. If the cost of pollution is not properly incurred, it will be overproduced. It's not a corporation problem (or a consumer problem), it's a market failure problem.

Friedman preferred taxes to solve this because that approach has the least room for rent seeking behavior, unlike approaches like subsidizing or mandating specific solutions.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#174

Post by aembleton » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:32 PM UTC

redisman wrote: post #157

nly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

I don’t know how a pensions would work in tech. 95% of the companies won’t exist by the end of your career so who pays for the pensions?

The stock market. You get a private pension.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#175

Post by fragmede » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:32 PM UTC

redisman wrote: post #157

nly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

I don’t know how a pensions would work in tech. 95% of the companies won’t exist by the end of your career so who pays for the pensions?

If only there were some sort of entity "above" corporations that governed, in some sort of way. They could provide security for society. Nope, that could never work.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#176

Post by ploika » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

redisman wrote: post #157

nly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

I don’t know how a pensions would work in tech. 95% of the companies won’t exist by the end of your career so who pays for the pensions?

Pension funds.

The company you work for will give X% of your salary each month to Willis Towers Watson or whoever, who invest huge sums of money on behalf of people like you.

Then you move jobs or the start-up fails or whatever, but your old money is still with Towers Watson, hopefully earning a decent return. You contribute to a pension in your new job too.

When it comes to retiring, you cash in your contributions from the pension fund (possibly having done some amalgamating and tidying up from the various jobs you've had) for some class of annuity and possibly a lump sum. All going well, it should be enough to live on in retirement.

If you're working and aren't contributing to a pension, I would strongly recommend it.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#177

Post by devops000 » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:36 PM UTC

You should consider the shareholder yield instead dividend yield

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#178

Post by nly » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:44 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #167

nly wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK the law was changed such that people were given the freedom to transfer out of their defined benefit schemes, and most were paid handsome lump sums for doing so because the schemes were desperately underfunded and wanted people out

How does paying a handsome lump sum to leavers help make them less underfunded? If the handsome amount is less than the value of the pension, rational people would leave it in there. If it’s more than the current value of the pension, rational people would take it out and the pension fund is thereby left worse off, right?

The guarantee on these schemes was on the fixed retirement income, which means as interest rates fell the present day value actually shot up.

I don't think these companies had a choice in the matter. Lots of people cashed out because they feared their pension scheme would collapse.

It should be noted that transfering out of these schemes is expensive because you're forced to take advice from an IFA

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#179

Post by ejstronge » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:45 PM UTC

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #153

throwkway69 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.cornelwest.com/books.html#.YZlPiWiIY4M

That was about 15 books, several I've heard of, but it's unclear about academic papers at least on that web page. He's clearly making an impact with his ideas.

Why does a scholarly work need to be labeled as an ‘academic paper’ when evaluating someone’s work? Did work from the 17th century not qualify because it wasn’t published in a journal?

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#180

Post by lostcolony » Sat, Nov 20, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #167

nly wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK the law was changed such that people were given the freedom to transfer out of their defined benefit schemes, and most were paid handsome lump sums for doing so because the schemes were desperately underfunded and wanted people out

How does paying a handsome lump sum to leavers help make them less underfunded? If the handsome amount is less than the value of the pension, rational people would leave it in there. If it’s more than the current value of the pension, rational people would take it out and the pension fund is thereby left worse off, right?

Just guessing, but, lump sum may be more than the current amount that the person has contributed, but less than what the pension guarantees but may not be able to attain. That is, person may have put in 100k; and a payout is 150k. That seems like a loss, except the pension may also be built around assumptions of 7% growth in that 100k per year; in reality it may be seeing only 3% growth. Better to get it off the books than have to service it in 30 years. And for the individual, better to get more and be able to invest it elsewhere, than to risk it in a pension that may go under or otherwise be unable to meet the level of return you expect. So, win/win.