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The Ponzi Career

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Re: The Ponzi Career

#261

Post by john_moscow »

oblio wrote: post #256
john_moscow wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if you have a reasonable population growth rate. And this isn't happening anymore. So we are boosting population numbers through immigrants that will never afford the kind of housing and retirement the previous generation had. And we are boosting the stocks through printing more money, that also drives real estate prices insane. That's a recipe for a social conflict. Once the majority can't afford a h…

Why do you need population growth rate? You can just have each individual self fund their retirement, no Ponzi shenanigans.

Because otherwise if you graduate at 25, work until 65, and expect to die at 85, your retirement contribution during work years needs to be half of your retirement check. If you are aiming for the same income level, 1/3 of your income needs to go towards retirement.

In reality, people cannot put aside that much, so the % is much lower, relying on higher returns (private) and population growth (public).

Re: The Ponzi Career

#262

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

john_moscow wrote: post #207
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #10

It’s just more top signals. There’s too much money floating around if people want to invest in nonsense like this. When equities correct from the current Shiller PE ratio higher than 1929 I think you will find less people want to invest in a career token for someone. https://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe The Bowie Bond part of the post was fascinating by the way. Had never heard that story. He issued them in 1997 which i…

>When equities correct from the current Shiller PE ratio higher than 1929 I think you will find less people want to invest in a career token for someone. The government is actively preventing a correction by minting new dollars at unprecedented rates [0]. In this environment, the Shiller P/E doesn't make sense anymore. The pressure in the society is building up and it's gonna eventually blow up, but it will follow so…

I totally agree. We are already past where a correction should have occurred. They are just delaying and making the inevitable crash more violent with money printing. Like a volcano that hasn’t erupted for a long time.

Re: The Ponzi Career

#263

Post by bsanr2 »

joosters wrote: post #32
bsanr2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting the contract on the blockchain allows it to be traded like, but not as, a security while the SEC et al. drag their feet on classifying crypto-tokens as securities. Something like that.

So it's a way to dodge the law? (while ruining the environment, of course)

It's a way to engage in activity that is superficially distinct enough that the law has not yet caught up with it, like driving for Uber or owning an AirBNB. It remains to be seen if the "innovation" in question is tangential to the main purpose (skirting an existing activity whose lawful bounds are already well-defined), or if it isn't, and the tech is instead truly transformative. You may think you know, but nothing really matters until a court, regulatory body, or legislature weighs in.

Also Proof of Stake.

Re: The Ponzi Career

#264

Post by grog454 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #13

I enjoyed the piece. Personally, I want no part of it, but I think it might work well for people who are not me. I've always been "on my own." My life really is a series of watersheds, where I've been the only person to believe in me, before the event, and a whole bunch of folks seemed to believe in me, after the fact. Not a particularly good setup for selling "Chris-Tokens™." Not a bad thing, in the long run. It hur…

It's interesting to me that you think you don't have the personal skills to "sell" yourself yet most of your business is centered around consulting and app development as a service. How can these be successful without convincing people you know what you're doing? Do you work with someone who has those soft skills? Or maybe you mean something else.

I can relate to a lot of what you said. Specifically, I've overheard people say things like "grog454 does it so how hard could it be?" when deciding to try to get in to software dev (they failed). 10+ years ago a talented comp sci major was openly hostile toward me when I spoke or gave a presentation on multiple occasions.

I like to think I know what I'm doing. My personal software projects made me a millionaire before age 30 with no outside investment and minimal employees (0-1). Like you, I think I lack soft skills in the traditional sense of convincing other people that I know what I'm doing. I am routinely approached by recruiters for FAANG, and will occasionally begin the interview process just to see what it's like. In 4+ processes I've gotten to the final round of interviews but never received an offer.

What I do have is a different kind of "soft skill". Search algorithms love me. I attribute the success of my projects and (apparent recruiter magneticism) to clever SEO more than anything else, followed by luck, followed by a kind of relentlessness with which I approach my work, followed by meaningful software dev skill / business acumen. 100% of revenue is from end-users, 99.9999+% of which have no clue who I am.

I don't mean to come across as hostile, but its eye-opening to see what "I've always been on my own" and "not expect much from others" looks like to other people.

Re: The Ponzi Career

#265

Post by blaser-waffle »

pjc50 wrote: post #257
LB232323 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a character flaw or lack of skills in not being able to "sell yourself". It's a sense of dignity and pride as a working person. You are not a commodity, you are a human being. You may look like a commodity to a business owner, but you refuse to allow yourself to become one. Honesty and honor are worth more than money. There is money to be made in making yourself into a sort of corporate dog, but it will leav…

> You are not a commodity, you are a human being You know who else talked about the commodification of labour? M- is dragged off stage by angry HN audience (Seriously, this is an interesting and important discussion to have - the dignity of labour and non-financial values - and it's interesting to watch a number of conflicting arguments made here which have been made loudly and vehemently by various historical figure…

> You know who else talked about the commodification of labour? M- is dragged off stage by angry HN audience

I mean HN is the news aggregator for ycombinator, an entrepreneurial startup incubator.

Doesn't mean there aren't good points there, but this is a tech news site for technology capitalists. This is the culture that gave us hackathons and death marches and veneration of guys like Steve Jobs.

Re: The Ponzi Career

#266

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

grog454 wrote: post #264
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #13

I enjoyed the piece. Personally, I want no part of it, but I think it might work well for people who are not me. I've always been "on my own." My life really is a series of watersheds, where I've been the only person to believe in me, before the event, and a whole bunch of folks seemed to believe in me, after the fact. Not a particularly good setup for selling "Chris-Tokens™." Not a bad thing, in the long run. It hur…

It's interesting to me that you think you don't have the personal skills to "sell" yourself yet most of your business is centered around consulting and app development as a service. How can these be successful without convincing people you know what you're doing? Do you work with someone who has those soft skills? Or maybe you mean something else. I can relate to a lot of what you said. Specifically, I've overheard p…

Actually, most of my business is not actually around that stuff. It's the shingle I hang, but I worked as a wage slave for most of my life. I'm now at the point where, if someone wants to work with me, I will do so, on my own terms, and try to make that clear, so I don't really get a whole lot of approaches (not surprising. I'm not complaining).

I am currently keeping my dance card [very] full, working for nothing, on stuff that interests me. I would have been happy as hell to work for others at a fraction of the cost of many, as I don't especially care about the money, as I do about the working environment and project goals.

I like working. I really do. I just get quite tired of having my work destroyed and hamstrung by others[0], so I'm actually living the dream, these days.

Recruiters..love me...until they find out that I'm not young. Then, the call gets interrupted, and I never hear from them again. I've taken to just making sure everyone knows my age up front, so we don't waste each others' time. That seems to have stopped a lot of those types of contacts.

And I have not "always been on my own," as I worked on huge teams, consisting of people all over the world, but I haven't found any team that was willing to cut me much slack. I've always worked in environments where I was expected to hold up my end of things without a need for much extra support. No safety net. The trapeze is all mine.

[0] https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02

Re: The Ponzi Career

#267

Post by grog454 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #266
grog454 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to me that you think you don't have the personal skills to "sell" yourself yet most of your business is centered around consulting and app development as a service. How can these be successful without convincing people you know what you're doing? Do you work with someone who has those soft skills? Or maybe you mean something else. I can relate to a lot of what you said. Specifically, I've overheard p…

Actually, most of my business is not actually around that stuff. It's the shingle I hang, but I worked as a wage slave for most of my life. I'm now at the point where, if someone wants to work with me, I will do so, on my own terms, and try to make that clear, so I don't really get a whole lot of approaches (not surprising. I'm not complaining). I am currently keeping my dance card [very] full, working for nothing, o…

I see I made the erroneous assumption that your living was based on your personal / business projects. I too was a wage slave at a relatively chill software engineering gig until my business became financially successful.

The "always been on my own" was a quote from your original post.

Re: The Ponzi Career

#268

Post by pavlov »

ornornor wrote: post #227
pavlov wrote: post #116

> "By letting other people invest in you, you are incentivizing them to promote your own story and do their best to increase your tokens' value." In 1946, the US Supreme Court established the so-called Howey Test to determine if an investment opportunity is a security offering. These are the Howey criteria: "Under the Howey Test, a transaction is an investment contract if: "It is an investment of money; "There is an…

Mike Merrill has been doing this for a while (kmikeym.com) and didn’t seem to run in legal troubles. He’s in the US of A.

That doesn’t mean anything. There were hundreds of ICOs in 2017, and the SEC only sued a handful of them. The rest were not different, they just lucked out of prosecution.

Re: The Ponzi Career

#269

Post by hundreddaysoff »

bradleyjg wrote: post #202
hundreddaysoff wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, garden-variety West Coast ER doc here. Right now, I'm an independent contractor who makes ~$200/h. In a few months when my small company gets acquired, I'll be a W-2 who for various reasons will make ~$160/h before CA taxes. So, clearly not starving, and maybe even undeserving to be in the top 10--15% after working just ~24--36h/wk in night shifts. But won't make $$MILLIONS$$ and won't get as much as your avera…

If I’m understanding the situation correctly you’ll be in the 97% percentile of individual income while working on average 30 hours a week. You also can pick up and move anywhere in the country and be pretty confident of finding a comparably paying job. As mentioned, involuntary unemployment is all but unheard of in your profession. Within the hospital you’re near the top of the pecking order. Outside work your profe…

Not complaining, just giving y'all some interesting and updated information about my profession's economic situation and wondering why at least the patient end of the deal isn't getting any better. I'm pretty happy with my lot in life.

May be 97% by hourly pay but that implies I can work as many hours as I'd like. But I effectively already work all the hours I can work for various reasons, making my family 80--90th percentile.

Unfortunately, due to the physician oversupply and other forces I described, it's getting very hard to find random doctor jobs anywhere in the country. Just another interesting thing about medicine that is changing.

Re: The Ponzi Career

#270

Post by adkadskhj »

toast0 wrote: post #231
adkadskhj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having a few months to a year of expenses on the side fixes this. It doesn't, for me. I'm sitting at ~12mo with full expenses. I budget everything, so i do me full expenses, all the niceties, enterainment, etc. If i lost my job i could probably stretch it to ~24mo with the fat cut away. Still, i worry. Keep in mind i do partially agree with you, paycheck to paycheck is a massive concern for people. It's why i obses…

I know someone on the internet saying you shouldn't worry doesn't mean you won't worry, but ... you should try to worry less :) If you have the wherewithal to put away a year of expenses, and the self-restraint to double that if you needed to, I'm pretty sure you could find some gainful employment during that time. You could also probably stretch things a bit farther if you really had to by doing things you'd rather…

I agree, and i appreciate the post.

As a bonus though, my worry results in true appreciation for my current status. I feel undeserved, and compared to middle America i often struggle to imagine how they get by.

I make enough to budget nicely. I can start paying off my mortgage. I can start saving for retirement. Yea, it's far from perfect, but i truly feel like i "make enough" for a happy life. I have money to work towards my goals, be it retirement or whatever.

I can't imagine making half as much and still being expected to retire. To have safety. The state of the world confuses me. But i am grateful nonetheless.

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