Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

beanlog.vercel.app

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 512 posts

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#91

Post by phreeza »

rockbruno wrote: post #65
vasco wrote: post #32

The venn diagram of internet users that read about super specific financial products, decide to buy them, while not even understanding the need to keep an emergency fund such that a move like this leaves them with under $200 in their account seems to be growing. It seems to be a weird mix of wall street cosplay and financial ineptitude.

I have witnessed this working at FAANG where people usually have the choice to allocate their grants into either risky options or safe, straight cash. The amount of people I see going all-in into the riskiest option and then proceeding to not understand why they lost their "compensation" (?) when the stock drops frightens me.

Do any faang still pay in options still? Google is mostly RSUs these days.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#92

Post by jtc331 »

rockbruno wrote: post #65
vasco wrote: post #32

The venn diagram of internet users that read about super specific financial products, decide to buy them, while not even understanding the need to keep an emergency fund such that a move like this leaves them with under $200 in their account seems to be growing. It seems to be a weird mix of wall street cosplay and financial ineptitude.

I have witnessed this working at FAANG where people usually have the choice to allocate their grants into either risky options or safe, straight cash. The amount of people I see going all-in into the riskiest option and then proceeding to not understand why they lost their "compensation" (?) when the stock drops frightens me.

Options? Or RSUs?

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#93

Post by afiodorov »

You took one for the team. If the world ran on good software, you'd not cautiously deposit only $25 first and you'd not be tempted to stress-test the system with the $10k deposit. If the world ran on good software, the second $9.975k deposit wouldn't have bounced. Don't worry, I'll get back at them in my work by making the users suffer until they understand what good software is!

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#94

Post by cmeacham98 »

ianai wrote: post #84
Jenk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a strange human phenomenon, particularly visible online. Some folk see a title like that and it triggers a "How can I blame the author?" urge within before they even open the link.

That’s definitely a thing too often. The “middlebrow rejection” or something like that. But in this case the OP got a message saying they had exceeded the limit and would get a refund. Then they repeated the transaction at the limit for a total of 20k. From reading comments here it sounds like the author both misinterpreted things and also compulsively over deposited to test the governments software. Testing governme…

Maybe I was primed by the author because I was reading their article, but I understood it the same way they did - the entire $10k was rejected because it put them over the limit. I probably would have tried the same $9975 transaction they did.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#95

Post by ianai »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #94
ianai wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s definitely a thing too often. The “middlebrow rejection” or something like that. But in this case the OP got a message saying they had exceeded the limit and would get a refund. Then they repeated the transaction at the limit for a total of 20k. From reading comments here it sounds like the author both misinterpreted things and also compulsively over deposited to test the governments software. Testing governme…

Maybe I was primed by the author because I was reading their article, but I understood it the same way they did - the entire $10k was rejected because it put them over the limit. I probably would have tried the same $9975 transaction they did.

Didn’t they see at that point they were already down 10k? That’s what I thought they meant, from reading it.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#96

Post by sudden_dystopia »

Are bonds issued by a dysfunctional government that is severely in debt in the middle of a couple of years of consistently tumultuous world events really “risk free” anymore though?

These bonds only match inflation as defined by the government via CPI. But there is a strong argument that real world inflation is significantly higher than CPI.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#97

Post by ricardobeat »

tluyben2 wrote: post #45
hanoz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But not all of it at 0% interest as he seems to think.

Why? Both emails says the purchase of bonds failed and a refund will be processed; you cannot expect that to give you any interest right?

10k of it is still in the bonds, which will be paid back with interest.

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#98

Post by pid-1 »

> 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 risks discussed!

Re: I accidentally loaned all my money to the US government

#99

Post by ur-whale »

OP should count themselves very lucky they're (eventually) getting an actual cash refund and not some sort of IOU only redeemable against future income tax due.

When you deal with an entity that has the monopoly on legitimate violence, your bargaining power is - unsurprisingly - borderline nonexistent.

Post reply on HN