401–410 of 512 posts
I was (pleasantly) surprised to see that the analogous website for Mexico, where you buy government-issued bonds called Cetes, is significantly less confusing to use. That is not at all what I expect when comparing government websites between my native Mexico and the US! (Paying taxes is another example of something with much, much better UI/UX in Mexico, but there probably are not many other examples.) Also, the ref…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's no wonder that people vote for less government influence in the US. They just never had a good experience with it so they want to get rid of it as a band-aid solution.
Government Can Do Nothing Right has been the propaganda line of the right-wing of the American business community since the end of WWII. A lot of the business community resented the social democratic reforms of that time (those ’50s white picket fence times) and so they sought to first argue that government was useless, and then later prove it through their government-sucks politicians.
Why is the government's solution so much crappier? Why can a private company streamline a web experience much better?
Is the purchasing limit per calendar year or is it over a 12 month period?
I'm missing the logic of the second 10k. He had already exceeded the limit. Why did he think that doing it again would change the outcome? It looks to me like he was going to get the extra $25 returned to him and have 10k in bonds. It's definitely vague though.
They assumed the government's software would do this: (1) Purchase #1 for $25 successful --> reduce remaining limit from $10000 to $9975. (2) Purchase #2 for $10000 rejected and refund pending --> DO NOT reduce limit since you know the purchase didn't go through. (3) Purchase #3 for $9975 within limit --> allow purchase, reduce limit to exactly $0. Instead, at step 2, the software seems to handle the purchase by unco…
I thought this was funny. Weird comments in the thread about how he/she should have known better. Author is not making a complaint to demand internet outrage. There is no inflammatory justice warrior content here. Sheesh! Author admits they screwed up, decided to share the screwup, and who hasnt been trough that exact dunder blunder? Fun short read 8/10.
I was (pleasantly) surprised to see that the analogous website for Mexico, where you buy government-issued bonds called Cetes, is significantly less confusing to use. That is not at all what I expect when comparing government websites between my native Mexico and the US! (Paying taxes is another example of something with much, much better UI/UX in Mexico, but there probably are not many other examples.) Also, the ref…
Also, the US tax system is partially the result of lobbying by parties such as TurboTax [1].
I'm glad I live in NZ, another smaller country with great online systems for government interactions.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r-block-sp...
But good lord is that TreasuryDirect site the worst site on the Internet. Every single time - and I mean every single time - I instinctively click the back button to go back to a prior screen only to be presented with an error message and thrown out of my session, requiring another visit to the god-awful virtual keyboard and navigation through menu after menu of curiously similar, poorly-worded options. They can do better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if someone makes an honest mistake and types and extra number, it's OK to both 1) don't process any amount and 2) hold the money for two months. That doesn't feel right to me. E.g. I buy shares and mistype the ticker or buy extra. It processes but then I notice my mistake and I can either fix it by selling, or decide ir doesn't matter and keep the shares. What doesn't make any sense is the broker keeping the money…
Have you ever paid taxes in the US? The IRS loves creating scenarios that lead to them incorrectly holding big wads of your cash.
I thought this was funny. Weird comments in the thread about how he/she should have known better. Author is not making a complaint to demand internet outrage. There is no inflammatory justice warrior content here. Sheesh! Author admits they screwed up, decided to share the screwup, and who hasnt been trough that exact dunder blunder? Fun short read 8/10.
Any website worth anything would have done a real time check on the users balance and only allow the leftover amount to be used to buy the bonds I.e if I already have $2K worth of bonds then I should be allowed only another $8K worth of bonds. How difficult is it to build this simple business logic into the user experience? Not a lot specially with the resources at their disposal. But unfortunately I can guarantee th…
Your pseudocode already failed the unit tests. The limit is 10k per year, and you can hold I bonds for 30 years. Someone can have 300k of I bonds in their account balance.
(Not that it would be hard to do it correctly.)
> They're zero-risk bonds with an interest rate that always matches or exceeds inflation The caveat is that you must agree with how your govt. calculates inflation. Also, your personal expenses might not be well represented by official inflation. Finally, like any bond, if you sell them before they mature you might get smaller (or higher) returns. Not saying this is a bad investment though, I just rarely see those ri…
> The caveat is that you must agree with how your govt. calculates inflation. This is an easy caveat to make as there are many other parts depending on how the US government calculates inflation. And there aren’t alternate inflation calculations out there, and certainly no consumer financial instruments pegged to them. For all its flaws, it’s the best we have. I think it’s not discussed because it’s such a sunk risk…
There are several.
CPI-U, CPI-W: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/overview.htm
PCE deflators: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/categorie s/21