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Why YC went to DC

ycombinator.com

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Re: Why YC went to DC

#371

Post by pdonis »

ejstronge wrote: post #352
pdonis wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t see how the issue of repackaging CDS and related products by a financial rating agency has anything to go with the government. The financial rating agencies are creatures of government regulation. > If you’re saying that the government forced buyers to abandon due diligence I said no such thing. I said that government regulations forced lenders to accept more default risk--meaning they were forced to lend t…

> said that government regulations forced lenders to accept more default risk--meaning they were forced to lend to people they would not otherwise have lent to because the risk of default was too high. That's what "subprime mortgages" means, and those were a huge contributor to the crash. The ratings agencies are free to rate things as they wish - unless maybe you’re saying there’s a government directive to misrate t…

> please clarify how the government is compelling lenders to make loans that don’t pass the lender’s underwriting criteria

It didn't. Instead it required the lenders, by law, to change their underwriting criteria so that loans which the lenders would previously have chosen not to make, because they were not within their underwriting criteria, were now within their underwriting criteria. It also passed laws forbidding lenders from refusing loans to people who met their underwriting criteria. This was all done on the theory that encouraging home ownership was a good thing and that lenders had been arbitrarily refusing loans to people and needed to be stopped from doing that.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#372

Post by whimsicalism »

bumby wrote: post #120
whimsicalism wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military has lots of waste and graft, but it is also not terrible at hiring very competent/smart people through their commission system (unlike a lot of the rest of government). I am skeptical that churn is a cause of problems, almost everywhere I have worked in government has by far the opposite problem. The smartest people I've met either have plum book positions, military officers, or work as prosecutors.

(by plum brook, do you mean NASA? If so, I've met some smart people from there and other NASA posts, but also met some of the worst employees that epitomize some of what the discussion is against - very toxic, against any new ideas, refusing to retire, shirking duties etc. at one point one org had an average age of 59+, that's very indicative of a refusal to move on). > it is also not terrible at hiring very competen…

the plum book is a list of politically appointed positions in the federal government, including positions at NASA and elsewhere. i wasn’t referring to the plum brook facility

Re: Why YC went to DC

#373

Post by malcolmgreaves »

gbacon wrote: post #367
lol768 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radical suggestion (maybe I'm too British): health insurance not being tied to employment or work whatsoever?

Here’s a radical suggestion: stop calling welfare-for-doctors insurance. If you want insurance, those are known as major-medical policies under which the sniffle visits are still the patient’s responsibility — just like how insured car owners pay for their own oil changes. With “health” “insurance,” neither side has price sensitivity. Patients ask whether it’s covered and if so, back the truck up to get as much as po…

Take a look at Switzerland's medical system for how nationalized health insurance can work well. When the insurance system isn't privatized, it isn't for profit. This drives prices down to become affordable, even without insurance.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#374

Post by jononor »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #132
candiddevmike wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Automate government-driven compliance standards - enable small businesses to sell into large companies/government entities, automatic certification when using pre-approved cloud solutions. I don't see how this will end well. I appreciate the reasoning behind it, but this is not a good solution. I'd prefer to see more "startup friendly" compliance frameworks that don't require tens to hundreds of thousands of doll…

Try ISO 27001. Everyone says it's more onerous, but for startups, it's actually a lighter lift. It is a lot worse for big companies than SOC2, but it's a lot easier for startups.

Interesting! Do you have any resources or tips on how startups / small companies can keep the ISO 27001 process lightweight? On a first scan, it seems that the amount of mandatory processed and documents is quite high...

Re: Why YC went to DC

#375

Post by dghlsakjg »

robertlagrant wrote: post #258
dghlsakjg wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Canada and there isn’t a spending limit. The decision of how to treat is made by the doctor. The doctor is then paid. In my experience living on both sides of the border, you get far more care up here since there is no bullshit with finding a facility that accepts your insurance, and cost isn’t a consideration for doctors or patients. People will occasionally travel to the states for drug/therapy trials not…

> If you want the proof of it, remember that a huge majority of Canadians live close enough to drive to the US for health care, but don't I don't understand this point. Obviously Canada offers healthcare, and what it offers is no doubt good. That doesn't mean that it offers everything that can possibly be done. People just won't be aware of what can be done, and/or don't have US health insurance to pay for what can b…

My point is that one of the arguments against universal healthcare in the States that gets trotted out is that Canadians have waits so long or that the healthcare is so restricted that they are dying or that they can't get care.

If people were actually having to wait that long that their health was seriously threatened, they would likely be engaging in medical tourism on a much bigger scale. If you needed surgery or you were going to die/be permanently disabled and the Canadian system wasn't able to provide it, people would be driving across the border, flying to Mexico/Thailand/wherever, or doing whatever else they needed to not die or have their life impacted.

But that doesn't happen. What it tells you is that, as much as some Americans paint a false picture to slander single payer healthcare, and as much as some Canadians complain about waiting, the Canadian system is still better than any alternative available to the participants, despite the alternative being a quick drive away for most of us.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#376

Post by temp20240604 »

bowsamic wrote: post #354
temp20240604 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope that doesn’t necessarily follow.

Yes it does, just purely logically

I took the “them” to mean the 50000 in which case it doesn’t. If it is the 500 and the 50000 are not all “AI related” then that tells us something.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#378

Post by cameroncairns »

singleshot_ wrote: post #364
cameroncairns wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a practitioner, just a startup cofounder affected by these changes.. not legal or tax advice. You can read the applicable text here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/174 Section 174(c)(3) ``` (3) Software development For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software shall be treated as a research or experimental expenditure. ``` That being said.…

Super post, thank you. As to software “development,” when you finish your software and publish it and get customer installs, then what happens? More software development? Or is ongoing operation/bug fixes still R&D under (c)(3)? I think your average software person has a strong belief about the answer to this question but having read some of the code&reg in the area, I share your opinion that this section needs more…

Pretty sure any updates to the software count as additional R&D. Just running software you've already created doesn't count though. Something interesting we were asked was how much of our cloud costs involved developing software vs running existing software to determine if those costs must also be amortized over 5 years.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#379

Post by dang »

luma wrote: post #101

Why should healthcare be tied to employment? "Quit fucking around" and institute a national, single-payer plan that covers everyone, like every other modern industrialized country.

Please don't take HN threads on tedious generic flamewar tangents, let alone nationalistic ones. They're repetitive and nasty and we're trying for something else here.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40566761.

Re: Why YC went to DC

#380

Post by dang »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #212
luma wrote: post #101

Why should healthcare be tied to employment? "Quit fucking around" and institute a national, single-payer plan that covers everyone, like every other modern industrialized country.

[flagged]

As you certainly can't post like this to HN, I've had to ban the account again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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