171–180 of 201 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. But also for smaller companies whining about government regulation. The “regulation” is what’s expensive, not the government part. If they can’t afford government regulation, they can’t afford self-regulation either, unless their idea of self-regulation is “do nothing and keep the money.”
“do nothing and keep the money.” That's the best definition of deregulation I've seen.
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> "flyover country" that the tech sector has gleefully been shitting all over for a decade I'm a founder of an Indiana based tech startup. What people in flyover states don't like is seeing stuff like Theranos. They also don't understand operating businesses for 10 years that lose billions. People here do not see the "tech sector" as evil: every flyover state has programs to attract and create tech sector companies.…
As a Purdue grad who spent a decade in Silicon Valley and who currently works remote for a FAANG in a state adjacent to yours: Didn't go to the coast for the big starting salary. Went for the interesting job, the flexibility to move to another job without renting a new apartment, and the career growth. Best career choice I made. Good for you starting a tech company outside the tech meccas, it's a hard road. Remote wo…
Thanks. I think the hard road is getting easier every year. Access to capital is getting better, and as you said, remote work has been a game changer for talent.
> I'd like them to have a bit of self reflection about the role of government now that SVB has imploded.
What is remarkable is how much government intervention went into creating SV. You'd never know from listening to the scene. Regardless, I hope that the SVB situation ends well for everyone and we can get back to work building things that matter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "flyover country" that the tech sector has gleefully been shitting all over for a decade I'm a founder of an Indiana based tech startup. What people in flyover states don't like is seeing stuff like Theranos. They also don't understand operating businesses for 10 years that lose billions. People here do not see the "tech sector" as evil: every flyover state has programs to attract and create tech sector companies.…
Its 100x more Twitter/FB/etc that generated the hate. Most people don't know what Theranos is.
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Sure, but that doesn't mean that we can't fight that. Indeed, I think it means we must work ardently against it. Capitalism's pretty neat, but it has known failure modes like monopoly and corruption.
It does mean you can't fight it with little advocacy groups or well-meaning think tanks. According to history, you need a strong labor movement led by principled socialists.
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No, laws (criminal codes) are how you get jail time. Regulations are rules passed by administrative bodies, those rarely, if ever, result in jail time. There’s a lot of reason for that, but administrative agencies often don’t have the full authority to send people to prison (I personally don’t think they should). Instead injured parties should be able to bring a suit, and I’m sure they will here.
That's nitpicking. Regulatory bodies are also created by laws. Laws that prescribe criminal penalties for bad conduct are still regulatory in nature. Most US administrative bodies refer criminal activity to the Department of Justice for prosecution. It's all part of the same apparatus.
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None of that will do anything, beyond, at best, chipping at some of the most egregious examples. We are a capitalist system. Economics and politics are inseparable, and the capitalist class has the power.
Is separation of economics and politics a benefit of authoritarianism? How does that work?
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The problem is is that the amount of debt is percentage of GDP, and therefore the interest rates that we need to pay are significantly higher now. This kind of analysis is hopelessly naïve without taking into account overall macro situation.
I always see people say the national debt doesn’t matter because it isn’t like household debt. However, I just fail to see how that is true. At some point the can won’t be able to be kicked down the road anymore. I guess everyone is hoping that it won’t be during their lifetime.
No country other than New Zeeland bothers to properly account for the asset side of the national budget. Increasing liabilities is fine if there's a corresponding increase in assets. But most countries are basically guessing about the second half. (This is also why we see so many wasteful privatisations where national assets are sold off for way less than they're worth)
Suppose they'd hedged away their interest rate risk. There'd just be another party on the other side of those swaps who'd have gotten wiped out instead, right?
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It seems reasonably likely they would have also been cut if Clinton had been president, due to the review requirement that was built into the regulations themselves. The 2015 law that required ECP brakes also required before they went into effect the government ask the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review the safety assumptions that the regulations had been based on and report whether or not those assumptions…
Unlikely they would have been cut under Clinton. And I don't think the required review you are talking about is concerned with safety. It's money. The review that is required is actually a financial review that decides if the cost of the safety regs in question exceed the cost of potential accidents. This analysis had already been done. However, the Trump admin had the calculation done again, I would assume after put…
(b) Emergency Braking Application Testing.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary shall enter into an agreement
with the National Academy of Sciences to--
(A) complete testing of ECP brake systems during
emergency braking application, including more than 1
scenario involving the uncoupling of a train with 70 or
more DOT-117 specification or DOT-117R specification
tank cars; and
(B) transmit, not later than 18 months after the
date of enactment of this Act, to the Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of
Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation of the Senate a report on the results
of the testing.
(c) Evidence-Based Approach.--
(1) Analysis.--The Secretary shall--
(A) not later than 90 days after the report date,
fully incorporate the results of the evaluation under
subsection (a) and the testing under subsection (b) and
update the regulatory impact analysis of the final rule
described in subsection (b)(2)(A) of the costs,
benefits, and effects of the applicable ECP brake system
requirements;
(B) as soon as practicable after completion of the
updated analysis under subparagraph (A), solicit public
comment in the Federal Register on the analysis for a
period of not more than 30 days; and
(C) not later than 60 days after the end of the
public comment period under subparagraph (B), post the
final updated regulatory impact analysis on the
Department of Transportation's Internet Web site.
(2) Determination.--Not later than 2 years after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall--
(A) determine, based on whether the final regulatory
impact analysis described in paragraph (1)(C)
demonstrates that the benefits, including safety
benefits, of the applicable ECP brake system
requirements exceed the costs of such requirements,
whether the applicable ECP brake system requirements are
justified;
(B) if the applicable ECP brake system requirements
are justified, publish in the Federal Register the
determination and reasons for such determination; and
(C) if the Secretary does not publish the
determination under subparagraph (B), repeal the
applicable ECP brake system requirements.
There are hard tradeoffs here, and one failed bank doesn't mean the wrong choice was made. As I remember it, the reason for weakening these regulations was that Dodd-Frank is/was extremely expensive to comply with, and that created a banking sector where only the biggest banks could survive and it made no sense to start any new banks.
I conducted Dodd-Frank Act Stress Tests for one component of a large bank. For a $400B portfolio I was able to do it with a team of 4 people including myself plus a $100k/year license to Barra and it takes about a week of the whole team’s focus. The thing is, we were already employed by the bank to run risk management and the bank already had the subscription to the software. So from the bank’s perspective it was clo…
did SVB do any risk management either?