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My job is to watch dreams die

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Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#41

Post by jakarta »

sudonim wrote: post #21

I've been following the housing bust. In 2009, I remember reading a resignation later by a guy who made his "F * you money" betting for a housing collapse. He blasted the big banks, ivy leaguers, and old boys network. I bought complex derivatives (SRS, SKF) but lost betting against the market. I read http://calculatedriskblog.com for a while and educated myself about the macro factors in the markets. Through "calcula…

Not to quibble, but I would say that using SRS and SKF doesn't really qualify as using "complex derivatives" to bet against the market.

For most investors there really wasn't an optimal way to do this, using ultra-short ETFs carried a lot of drawbacks. The best way (which I found and put 50% of my PA into) was to go long a Canadian insurer which had a ton of credit default swaps on most of the levered investment banks.

The other thing I would say is that, unless you are somehow exacerbating a problem (e.g.: somehow creating rumors to cause bank runs) then picking up cheap insurance isn't the same as being the guy controlling the predator drone in a strike. You'd instead be simply offsetting someone else's risk.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#42

Post by davidw »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #32
davidw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I suggest picking up a newspaper from time to time? The Economist (which is actually a magazine that calls itself a newspaper) is pretty good too, although they don't tend to do the human interest type of things as much as real newspapers do. If you haven't noticed foreclosure rates and done some thinking about what that meant in human terms, you were simply not paying attention, to put it very directly. (And may…

I'll pass on reading paper news and wasting time flipping through things that don't interest me just to get a good story every once in a while. Id rather consume news via sites like HN where I get interesting stories all the time and get to chat about it with the community.

> Id rather consume news via sites like HN

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. ... If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#43

Post by Splines »

sudonim wrote: post #21

I've been following the housing bust. In 2009, I remember reading a resignation later by a guy who made his "F * you money" betting for a housing collapse. He blasted the big banks, ivy leaguers, and old boys network. I bought complex derivatives (SRS, SKF) but lost betting against the market. I read http://calculatedriskblog.com for a while and educated myself about the macro factors in the markets. Through "calcula…

... from something that would be extremely traumatizing when done with bare hands.

The military acknowledges how traumatizing this could be.

From section 7.4 in this doc (http://library.enlisted.info/field-manuals/series-2/FM21_150...):

Killing a sentry is completely different than killing an enemy soldier while engaged in a firefight. It is a cold and calculated attack on a specific target. After observing a sentry for hours, watching him eat or look at his wife’s photo, an attachment is made between the stalker and the sentry. Nonetheless, the stalker must accomplish his task efficiently and brutally. At such close quarters, the soldier literally feels the sentry fight for his life. The sights, sounds, and smells of this act are imprinted in the soldier’s mind; it is an intensely personal experience. A soldier who has removed a sentry should be observed for signs of unusual behavior for four to seven days after the act.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#44

Post by tptacek »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say that about every Reddit IAmA.

So be it then. That's when the upvote system takes over to filter in the good this community sees.

No, this is a community that has guidelines in addition to a voting system. It isn't Reddit.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#45

Post by eric-hu »

vladd wrote: post #25
Retric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds suspiciously like you have 1 year to either get a new loan or live with zero rent which is not that bad of a deal IMO. Because, your underwater on your mortgage it's free rent, otherwise you should be able to either get a new loan or sell within a year.

In my country you're responsible with your full wealth for your debt (and there's no personal bankruptcy law - it applies only to businesses). They'll retain 1/3 of your salary until they fully recover the difference, if there's any left after the foreclosure.

Is it all right with you if you share what country this is?

What happens if you become unemployed during this time?

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#46

Post by count »

tonio09 wrote: post #35

this was very emotional article. very sad indeed. isnt it weird that all front page articles on reddit are overtly emotional? it seems that plain groundbreaking research papers will never make it to the frontpage...

You realize that reddit is one of the most visited sites on the Internet now, right? It's not the little lisp-hackers, YC-funded, nerd-centric community that it started as, and it will never be that again. 19M uniques tends to alter things.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#47

Post by pavs »

count wrote: post #46
tonio09 wrote: post #35

this was very emotional article. very sad indeed. isnt it weird that all front page articles on reddit are overtly emotional? it seems that plain groundbreaking research papers will never make it to the frontpage...

You realize that reddit is one of the most visited sites on the Internet now, right? It's not the little lisp-hackers, YC-funded, nerd-centric community that it started as, and it will never be that again. 19M uniques tends to alter things.

Your reddit experience is as good as the sub-reddits you follow.

Subscribe to sub-reddits of your interest and you will only see stories from those sub-reddits on your front page. Stick with the default options and you only see the top stories from default selected sub-reddits.

In a way its like twitter and facebook, the quality of tweets and wall posts you will see are only as good as the people you decide to follow.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#48

Post by mirkules »

pseudonym wrote: post #2

Both interesting and depressing. No matter who you think should ultimately take the blame for the housing crash, it's easy to forget how many people other than just the homeowners are affected by this crap.

The irony, of course, is that people's economic hardships are creating jobs. Which means there's enough money in foreclosures alone to warrant having an employee to evaluate the extent of foreclosures. It's sickening.

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#49

Post by jackpirate »

arethuza wrote: post #40
patrickk wrote: post #4

There's a Hollywood blockbuster waiting to be made out of a story like this (as noted in some of the Reddit comments). Something along the lines of Fight Club (grimy house scenes, top-notch monologue) or Lord of War/Up in the Air (someone doing a toxic job but good at it).

If you want a fictional account, rather than a documentary like the excellent Inside Job , I think a black comedy in the style of Dr. Strangelove might be more appropriate.

Thank you for Smoking might be a little closer?

Re: My job is to watch dreams die

#50

Post by jerf »

mirkules wrote: post #48
pseudonym wrote: post #2

Both interesting and depressing. No matter who you think should ultimately take the blame for the housing crash, it's easy to forget how many people other than just the homeowners are affected by this crap.

The irony, of course, is that people's economic hardships are creating jobs. Which means there's enough money in foreclosures alone to warrant having an employee to evaluate the extent of foreclosures. It's sickening.

Broken window fallacy. Jobs aren't really being created. The people in question are doing the economy a service by facilitating the correct valuations of these assets, so their jobs are bringing value to the economy, but it's value they shouldn't have had to bring in the first place. The net impact on the amount of wealth in society is still hugely negative, as is the "jobs" impact.

(These people are the cleanup crew, in the "broken window fallacy" story they are the ones making the new windows and installing them. They aren't the ones who broke the window.)

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