fbonetti

I don't understand this viewpoint at all. I own multiple properties and the only "work" I do is stuff that I like (minor repairs and renovations). I hire someone else to do all the stuff I don't like or don't have the skillset to do myself. I don't chase tenants down for missing checks because I only buy B class properties and I require all tenants to pass a background check, credit check, and to pay their rent via recurring direct deposit.

If having to fix a clogged toilet at midnight once a year is the sacrifice I have to make to retire early, so be it.

Hackernews needs a bot to correct people every time they incorrectly use the term "rent-seeking". Here's a hint: it has nothing to do with real estate. I see this term misused on a daily basis here.

As noted by the economist Luigi Zingales in his book "A Capitalism for the People", companies that are receiving subsidies (or other favorable treatment from the government) are highly incentivized to keep receiving those subsidies. For example, if the tax preparation industry stands to lose $100 million if e-file becomes free, they will lobby up to that amount to retain the status quo.

The problem is that those who wish to reform the status quo are not as well funded or financially incentivized to create a counter-lobby. Ordinary citizens, who would benefit the most from making e-file free, would have to form a counter-lobby group and put up at least $6 million in order to have the same level of access as the tax preparation companies.

Zingales' proposed solution is to do away with subsidies and special treatment for individual companies, as they inevitably lead to cronyism.

> ...you can't be fired without cause. Normally you'll have to be told that you're underperforming, be put on a "performance improvement plan", and have to be given time to improve yourself, or demonstrate that you are performing well.

This is de facto the case in the United States as well. Employers will put employees on a PIP before letting them go to prevent them from claiming that they were wrongfully terminated (due to discrimination, retaliation, etc.).

“Tokyo is one of the few cities in which supply has kept up with demand, keeping a crisis from developing. But that is due largely to deregulated housing policies that other countries would have a hard time reproducing.”

This “crisis” is completely artificial and the solution is obvious: take off the zoning straight jacket and make it legal to build higher density housing.

Property owners should have zero authority over anything outside of their property lines. Giving Joe Blow the ability to shout down and bikeshed new developments is idiotic.

Just get a headlamp that can be angled down.

"Rent-seeking" has a specific meaning in economics and has absolutely nothing to do with real estate.

There’s a middle ground between living next to a landfill and living a city that has been so completely ossified by zoning that no new housing can be built.

They don't. I don't know where your getting this idea from. The tiny origination fee that lenders charge is nothing to compared the amount of interest earned over the life of the loan. A lender would much rather have steady income over 30 years than constantly having to seek out new deals.

How would you handle a situation where the underlying data needs to be transformed? For example, converting a text column to an int column?

Same as any other city: zoning. People want to live in cities and local governments won't allow developers to build more housing to accommodate them. The rare scraps of land that are zoned properly for high density are developed into luxury housing.

> An important take away from this article is simply the perils of home buying ... it's really easy to make a very expensive mistake.

This article was interesting but I don't think the author was at any risk of making a financial mistake. At the end of the day, Sunrun had a lien on the property. The title company and the lender would not allow the sale to go through unless the Jug estate was able to deliver a clear title. If the title company somehow missed the fact that Sunrun had a lien on the property, the author's title insurance would cover the damages.

> Check everything out with true third parties and be ready to back out.

The insurance company, title company, lender, and home inspector are already highly incentivized to ensure that the property isn't a dud.

1. There already is an incredibly accurate predictor of recessions: the 10 year vs 2 year yield ratio.

2. The NBER defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” It has nothing to do with the stock market.

Why bother investing it at the point? What’s the advantage over holding cash?

From the employee's side, there's too much risk and uncertainty around PTO when leaving a job. It's easier to just take a vacation before putting in your notice than to haggle with your employer after the fact, when you have no leverage. This is especially true with companies that offer "unlimited vacation" in which PTO does not accrue.

There's a big difference between criticizing of the government and believing that the government is poisoning us with chemtrails. Hardcore conspiracy theorists are severally mentally ill and these conspiracy channels on Youtube only serve as an echo chamber for crazy people to validate each other.

Unless the value of the points you're getting are worth at least 2.5% cash back (which I doubt is the case), this is a pretty bad deal.

The thing that makes it a bubble is that the supply is artificially constrained by local zoning laws. Eventually people will be fed up with the situation and they'll vote for a government that'll allow more development, at which point housing prices will plummet.

The Chicagoland metro makes up 75% of Illinois' population. Illinois would just be a corn colony without Chicago. But I will agree with you that Illinois is, politically speaking, a mismanaged dumpster fire and has been for decades in large part due to the Chicago-style patronage system.

Or open the page in incognito.

Wow, you weren't kidding. The Fed dropped the funds rate down to nearly zero by December 2008.[1] It took the European Central Bank until June 2014 to bring their interest rate down to the same level.[2] They even had a couple rate hikes in the interim.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

[2] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/policy_and_exchange_rates/ke...

>Aphorisms aside, yield curve inversion is rare.

^^^This guy/gal gets it. The 10-2 treasury yield spread is currently at 0.16 and has been steadily falling since the beginning of 2014. Since the 1950s, every time the 10-2 spread dipped below zero, a recession followed within two years.[1]

The Fed just announced another rate hike less than an hour ago and have indicated that there will be two more rate hikes in 2019.[2] As the federal funds rate continues to rise, the yield curve will continue to flatten.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y

[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/preview-feds-last-monetary-po...

The term "climate change" is tailor-made for idiots who think that global warming means that it won't snow anymore.

Who should I trust, 97% of climate scientists or some edgy contrarian on the internet?

Yeah, but what can you actually do with it? The killer use case for smart contracts so far has been Ponzi schemes and gambling games. I have yet to see a smart contract actually do anything useful/legal.

> Basic electronics knowledge and soldering skill could help anyone at home. Just like being able to do light plumbing and electrical work comes in handy and will save you lots of money.

I'm skeptical of this. When a sink is clogged, the toilet won't flush, or a light switch doesn't work, there are only a handful of potential causes, all of which are well known and can be remedied after watching a Youtube video. When electronics fail, there could be a million reasons why. Most people are better off buying a new device and getting a warranty on it.

This will happen eventually, but it takes a massive amount of resources to build a university from scratch, and existing universities risk diluting their brand if they take on too many students.

That demand was artificially created by the government disallowing the discharge of student loan debt through bankruptcy.

It drives me crazy that people don’t see the very simple reason why tuition has risen so much: student loan debt is not dischargable through bankruptcy. Even if the student is run over with a bus the debt can be passed on to family members.

The lenders that give out these loans therefore have essentially no risk and are highly incentivized to give out loans to any and every person that wants one, regardless of their creditworthiness or future earning potential. Universities have responded to this glut of money and demand by raising prices.

The solution is to allow student loans to be discharged through bankruptcy. Banks will respond by properly evaluating the risk of each loan instead of giving them out like candy. This will result in less students going to college, but that’s a fair price to pay to correct this massive distortion in the market.

Electricity, water, cable, and phone are all "natural" monopolies because of the significant amount of infrastructure they require. Having private companies lay their own competing water mains would be an absolute clusterfuck.

Facebook is, at the end of the day, a website that happens to be popular right now. It's not even close to being a public utility. Anybody can enter the space and create a competing service. Given how fickle consumers are, I'll be surprised if it's still around in 10 years.