coward123

Man, if I had even a tiny % of the dollars I saw companies waste on things like this when I rolled in as a consultant, I'd be retired on my personal island. Some of my favorites were when they would demand I fly to some office at the last minute, only to discover that the people I needed to work with were located in some other part of the country, where I would basically twiddle my thumbs for weeks waiting for some access to something or some piece of information, for the supposedly most high profile thing in the entire company that was supposedly costing them huge $$ for every minute we sat around.

Still though, my absolute favorite was the quasi-government project requiring very costly and involved background checks for us to even be on the project, in which all of us would be working from home and where we had to work through two layers of people in order to do anything. As in, I had to talk to someone, who could talk to someone, who theoretically were blessed enough to put their hands on the keyboard, somewhere. It was 6 months of the most ridiculous meetings I've ever experienced, and then they were mad that we hadn't done anything. :-(

When I think about when I was most productive or when I saw people who had gone though a monumental burst of productivity, it was a combination of:

1) They had the raw skills, IE: experience, tech knowledge, etc. 2) They had the domain knowledge, IE: they knew what needed to be built and had a complete mental picture of the functionality / features / pitfalls / tradeoffs. 3) People stayed the eff out of their way. Very few if any meetings, limited if any oversight - they were allowed to go into their cave for weeks / months and just get the job done.

I had a moment in my career where I produced a year+ worth of work for a team, by myself, in just a couple of months. I saw other people do similar feats at different points. But, it all came crashing down as soon as someone on high decided we'd better start having meetings, better add some more people to that team, better get more project / product /program managers involved... I'm not saying that a 10x developer should be anti-social or even anti-process, but I will say that overhead kills productivity. Further, I am convinced that any reasonably skilled, experienced developer can become a 10x when put into the right framework to allow them to be productive.

Haven't read the article yet, but I re-learned the language my family lost about 3 generations ago. Studied over there in university, returned to my ancestral village... felt like it filled in a missing piece. It feels a bit like a superpower now to be able to read news in another language (or two) in order to get a different perspective on the world.

He / she likely means the IRS or other government regulatory bodies.

I get that, and yet the root of my observation is simply that there are are already existing valid political boundaries. The core problem with legislative and congressional districts is that they are utterly arbitrary and subject to change based on political whims (yes I understand there is also a nominal census reasoning as well). My point then is simply: could there be permanent, non-arbitrary boundaries that would no longer be subject to political manipulation?

I'd actually be ok with them using less expensive finishes so long as the houses themselves were built to last more than 20 years... there's a house I drive past regularly in a development where it's obvious that the sheet siding wasn't even put up square. I mean - what do the studs, the foundation, the insulation, etc in that house look like if they couldn't even get the seams on the siding to hang correctly? The finishers all get swapped out every 5-15 years as fads change, and they are the easiest things for homeowners to do themselves (IE: a little Home Depot style remodel). But, it gets a lot harder to fix things in the walls that weren't done correctly from the beginning.

We've already got states, and under those states we have counties. I don't understand why we can't mandate that congressional and legislative districts must conform to county boundaries (which is fundamentally where people live, vote, are regulated, etc anyway). My guess is this would result in a simple and fair answer and that couldn't possibly work because politics.

I'm sure there is a German or two here who can chime in with the specifics, but the parent poster shared a somewhat abbreviated version of the story. There are multiple kinds of high school in Germany (and other European nations) whereby you can opt into the right kind of school to fit your talents and needs. So what they likely meant was Gymnasium, which is traditionally viewed as a university bound high school program. Other students will go to other kinds of more hands-on schools that I'd say are no less rigorous or well-rounded, just different.

Solid analysis. If I might add some factors about my particular market that might be similar to other people's markets that I believe confound the issues:

-- Builders are not building the kind of properties that buyers want. In my market these are suburban tract housing generally at a sub-$500K price point with low-end construction materials and finishes. Thus, buyers say "there's nothing to buy" because they aren't the kind of houses they want. They end up buying them anyway because it's all they can afford and/or other factors like proximity to work or family. But, looking at days on market, etc, relative to other properties, it's pretty clear buyers of these homes are acting more out of desperation.

-- Obsolescence. We have a lot of (older) houses in our area that are simply not conducive to modern living and until someone is able to do major overhauls, they will always be less desirable. Think tiny parlor rooms, bedrooms that barely fit a double bed, kitchens closed off from the rest of the house, single bathrooms, etc.

-- Non-turn key properties. My market is such that many local buyers live paycheck to paycheck and will not be able to afford renovations of any kind. Thus, the people buying non-turnkey properties are our out of area newcomers (of which there are many) but these buyers are such that they tend to want more amenities than our existing housing stock can provide. So basically anything not turnkey is sitting longer even in a competitive market.

So my point in all of the above is to say that in some markets, I believe there is more inventory than believed, but because it is not in line with market expectations you end up with the general public believing there are limited opportunities.

What you are missing here is that Jimmy Carter was a man of the people. A guy who liked rock and roll and a cold beer. He was the ultimate Washington outsider. And buried in the article is an important note about how of course the record collection was whisked away when along came Reagan. So you might see this article not so much through the lens of being about a record collection, and more about a zeitgeist and how it was swept away.

>The sooner we collectively decide that housing shouldn't be a market

Then how would you recommend houses trade ownership?

>so developers are incentivized to build more housing

How do you prevent the development of shitboxes (it's a technical industry term)? Because that's what builders build when they need to hit a particular price point at scale. Houses that are quickly built out of low end materials and will decay over about twenty year period unless a homeowner invests considerably in upgrades.

>one shouldn't be "priced out" of the home they've lived in for 20 years

I'm in full support of the concept, but when you start to look at the causes of this, it gets complicated quickly and many of the causes aren't even directly related to housing. It's not just as simple as property tax moratoriums.

1.5 hours is like Eindhoven to Amsterdam, IE: from one end of the country to the other... really not bad (IE: trains are fun, have wifi, etc) but I'm wondering here if part of the problem is that you are far away from where you might have more connections?

Either way, whether you are in some tiny village or the big city, get out of your flat and down the street - to the pub, the gym, the church, etc. Whatever your thing and whoever your people are, they are out there somewhere and it's just a matter of figuring out where to find them. Yes you have to put yourself out there and that can be hard (I'm horribly shy and introverted myself) but that's the cost to connect. I'm wondering - even though Dutch people are wonderfully poly-linguistic, I'm gathering that you might be foreign and I'm wondering if you are concerned about your language skills? Is that feeling like a barrier for you? Best way to improve on that is get out and start interacting.

I work in a field where we are negotiating over price daily. We often are using "weird" numbers because we know it will push our price just over a competitors, and because the sellers will find our number psychologically "interesting" over those competitors. We also make sure our escalation numbers are not "normal" for the same basic reasons. It has worked well for me, though I'm not sure it would make as much of a difference if my competitors were the kind of people who read articles on hbs.edu.

Not even close? I mean you may be on to something with your hypothesis about the current wave of social media companies, but not if you step back and look at the bigger pictures. People are always looking at ways to connect. The whole premise of social media through the lens of the consumer is to find and stay in contact with ones people - either meatspace friends or newly discovered ones online. So will FB age out? Yes probably at some point. Is Instagram too photo/video centric and lacks any substance? Absolutely. Twitter is the best overall current source for news and information (amazing!) but it's format is both its strength and weakness. The TL DR version of this is - sooner or later some next wave will come along because the core purpose is too central to humans.

I can’t help but think of that saying “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Yes, prices in many markets are very high and appreciating at a rapid clip, but if there are buyers, competition, and houses are continuing to move quickly, then it’s a bold statement to say they are overvalued and that we should predict a significant decline.

Very early on in their explanation of the experiment, I found myself asking "What is random?" I'm sure one of you smart mathematicians has a learned perspective on this, but to my thinking, a whole lot of hairless apes sitting behind their keyboards randomly beating patterns for entertainment is pretty random. So to say that one hairless ape is more random than another in their keyboard pounding is pretty subjective. I guess I'd further posit that a person over 60 might not really give a shit much so their keyboard pounding might be less enthusiastic compared to the 20-something. Is that really measuring randomness or something more like physical dexterity in mouse movement and keyboard pounding?

Pro tip: Ask your realtor who they recommend. Every serious realtor has a small group (1-3 max) mortgage brokers who they they have vetted. They periodically refresh their list if someone isn't getting it done for their clients as expected. There are lots of mortgage brokers out there, the realtors know who is good and who isn't because they work with them every day.

Also FWIW: Even here in small town America, lenders are dealing with tens of millions in volume every day. You will build a relationship with them over time, not on. any single deal.

You've got to realize that the Puget Sound region is an absolute outlier in every way, the perfect storm of restrictive geography with a high concentration of very successful companies. The only options are:

-- Reach a point in your career where you have the money to play the game.

-- Move farther and farther out from Seattle, somehow finding a way to put up with the commute.

-- Go full on remote. There are puddle jumper flights to lots of small towns in eastern Washington. You could buy a place here for half (or less) the cost of Seattle, hop a plane when needed (shorter flight than your Puget Sound commute), and otherwise work remotely. Not an option for everyone, I know, but for some it could be a real win (It worked for me when I decided Seattle was too expensive 12 years ago)

All I know is that the cost of Prime keeps increasing, the video content is lackluster, and the last six (!!) things I ordered they either sent the wrong thing, the order was lost in transit, or the item that arrived was clearly counterfeit junk. I live in rural America where retail is essentially dead, but the internet is a big place and I'd rather pay a bit more and know what I'm getting rather than the roulette wheel that Amazon has become for so many items.

Here's something that I perceive the UK has going for it that the US doesn't - health care and child care. In the US, you could easily be spending > $1000/mo on child care, and for those families of child rearing age, a health insurance bill > $500/mo is pretty normal. So there's basically a mortgage into just those costs. Plus, with the design of US cities a car or two are practically a necessity, so there goes another > $500/mo too where in much of the UK you might get away with only one car or no car in a household depending on your location.

>Relatively crappy homes in town that were 100k back when I was looking are now north of 250k.

We'd need to know more about your area to really assess this... $250K really isn't very much money. In my area, you could afford that house on our minimum wage, even as just a single-income household. In fact, the mortgage on it would be less than our typical area rent.

I hear a lot of stories like what you are sharing about the beautiful 60 acres back in the 80s... let's just say that baby boomers for all their complaining about 18% interest rates actually had a whole lot of things working for them that we don't today. Competition is different because capital moves around the world easily.

Reverse mortgages don't prevent death. In my market, we have a lot of people of advanced age, and when they are gone entire neighborhoods will suddenly be available. From what I can tell, this is true in a surprising number of areas around the country.

I hate articles like this.

-- It paints the entire country as one real estate market, but real estate is local.

-- Interest rates are still super low by historic standards. If we have a small recession this spring it will likely benefit buyers. If interest rates go up, suddenly seller carry contracts and private lending becomes attractive again (IE: buyers have even more options to attain capital)

-- Cities aren't the entire country. If you want to buy a house and you can work remotely, there are a whole lot of very nice small towns and cities around the US where the quality of life is surprisingly high, they are great places to raise a family, and real estate is still very affordable.

-- Inventory - again, totally depends on your market. Locally everybody says there aren't any houses, but what they really mean is that there aren't any turn key houses that have all the amenities they want. Builders are building a lot of crap that isn't what buyers want - that is a problem. But there are a lot of older homes that someone could put in some sweat equity and have a great home at a reasonable price - but nobody wants to be first into those neighborhoods or to do the work.

-- First time buyers have more support than they realize. Not only are there FHA and USDA programs to help them, but states also have down payment assistance and various first time buyer programs.

I live in a town of 35,000 people, where the economies of several counties in each direction are based in agriculture. There are tech people here - and I expected there would be a lot more by now - but it is very slow growth. Internet service isn't bad, there is a small co-working space or two, but the bigger issue is one of demographics. We have a lot of retirees coming for sunshine and a perceived more affordable lifestyle, but younger people are slow to want to bring their families here even if they could be remote workers. There are a couple small tech firms (like under 10 employees), but none of the biggest issues is that there are really only two smallish employers who can offer any kind of competitive compensation. That risk - that you are reliant on remote work - keeps a lot of people from being willing to move here.

I've been on both sides of this, having been in a male-predominant industry and then in a female-predominant industry. In the male world, there was plenty of "mansplaining" and in the female world - I was actually really surprised at how female colleagues approached me. There were hilarious moments of "reverse mansplaining" where a group tried telling me all about the industry I had just come from, when none of them had any experience in that field. I remember a moment too where I was offering a business opportunity that would benefit all of them, but they very clearly did not think I was qualified simply by being a male - but would have been totally on board if I brought in a female partner. On the other hand, there were places where they wanted my opinion because there were (to me) weird gender role things at play - something like "we need a big strong man to defend us here, so let's get his opinion."

Men and women approach things in very different ways that even now with 40 years of life experience continue to surprise me. I think some of the bias is not intentional, but rather a lack of awareness, and frankly acknowledgement.

I suspect you are correct, but at the same time I think about 7 years ago what EV options were available. There could be a lot more options for car buyers 7 years from now. Realistically, the mandate is a starting point - it's just saying that new license plates go to EVs and the clock starts running on ICE. It's still a multi-decade switch over.

Keep in mind there are already states like Washington, which has mandated no new licenses for non-EV personal vehicles after 2030. This isn't to say that EV will completely replace ICE in that timeline (or even on a multi-decade timeline), especially for commercial and specialized industrial vehicles, but for Jane and John Q. Taxpayer, it certainly feels like the end of ICE vehicles as daily transportation is drawing to a foreseeable conclusion.

They probably were - I read the newspaper at breakfast every morning beginning at age 5 until I went off to college. For some people, learning to read is a process. For others, it's more of an instant epiphany. I've seen two year olds who were doing a pretty good job on Dick and Jane, so it isn't unrealistic to think by 4 they were clicking right along. There is probably someone here on HN who has researched all of this and could tell us more about the steps young minds go through and what works better / worse.

I still don't quite understand how their diet could have been this troublesome... frankly, when I backpack I have almost the opposite problem, as walking gets me going. I'm just an amateur woodsman, but when I'm in the woods I eat a variety of berries, greens, mushrooms, etc - one would think their native contacts and guides would have been a source for information if they didn't have this knowledge for themselves, IE: why was their diet quite so high in meat?

Separately - my understanding is that there were many native groups worldwide that ate a meat-heavy diet, so when we hear about native Alaskans (for example) eating an almost exclusive meat diet, why weren't they having those same issues? Maybe fish / whale / seal vs. bison and deer is the problem?

Assuming you wrote the above Ask HN question, your English is probably better than you realize. Seems like you may have more than one goal, as moving to another country is a different matter than just wanting to learn a language. If you really want to improve your English, the key as you already know is immersion and practice. Read everything - the news, novels, reference materials - whatever interests you try to read it in your target learning language. There are lots of online learning groups out there, paid and free, to practice speaking. Finally, when you talk about fluency - I've come to the conclusion that fluency is a flexible concept. I meet native English speakers every day that I would call barely capable in their own language. If you are being understood and can basically function in society in a language, then you are de facto fluent whether you feel like it or otherwise. Maybe you'll want to pick some areas of study and do vocabulary deep dive to help you feel more comfortable?