jwb119

"the only perfect hedge is in a japanese garden"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." -Warren Buffett

I dare you to find many greedy opinions out there today.. Everything I read is decidedly fearful. Full text of the article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html (I realize its slightly less applicable to Canadians)

I am! http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480128

completely agree.. even building a basic html webpage hits a decent amount of his marks (transportable, improves connectivity, etc.)

is it so obvious that it was overlooked?

My _very_general understanding of this is that you have to register the S-corp in Delaware and then "foreign register" the Delaware S-corp as a California entity..

it would be interesting to know how the body language changed over time.. i.e. is the arrogant body language a cause or effect..

yeah i hear what you are saying.. my takeaway from a quick read was that it was a timing thing, as in if someone didn't move when they did we would have had a problem..

i think its saying "we came closer than we ever have to the Fed not being able to fulfill one of its basic duties"

call me a cynic, but has anyone actually verified that what this guy says is correct..

i worked on a trading floor at a major US bank and i have a degree in economics. its sometimes mind boggling to see the lack of knowledge of some of these senators.

to put it in a tech perspective, remember back to the "series of tubes.."

the thing is, any news submission site with voting already is a keynesian beauty contest

It is amazing how relevant most of these rules are more than 50 years after they were published. Kelly would have been one heck of a founder.

I found this one on documentation particularly applicable.. 5. There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.

classy response from kent beck

I don't think Japanese monetary policy in the 1990's really qualifies as Keynesian..

They had a zero % interest rate and pioneered the concept of quantitative easing, but the theory underlying the policy wasn't exactly based on being able to manage growth through government spending

Like all policies, you have to look at the downside risk.

IMO, the downside of a Keynesian solution is MASSIVELY larger than an chicago school type solution. You have the government taking on huge quantities of debt, no guaranteed cure for unemployment, and a risk for massive inflation..

this isn't really a new argument.. see this NYT article from October, which was one of the first major outlets to pick up on the story.. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/29credit.html

having said that, i completely agree that the CC storm is something to be concerned about

As someone that has worked on the bond trading floor at a major i-bank, I can definitely say that Bloomberg is the universal standard for data/analysis. The enterprise grade terminal is pretty steep though.. around $1,500 per month if I remember correctly.

From my experience, Excel (populated with your choice of data) should be able to handle any analysis/models you want to create.

as far as i can tell, carbon trading is not directly subsidized by the government as lovelock seems to imply.

the closest thing i can find is subsidies for emissions reductions equipment (which could allow the company purchasing the equipment to then receive some compensation by selling capacity). am i missing something?

Good points, but I wonder how many early stage startups actually sign the long term class A office space leases that so irk the author.

i'm probably in the minority here, but i think constructing a test that rewards a broad but intensive base of knowledge and the ability to create a cohesive argument in a short amount of time should be applauded.

at the very least, hackers should appreciate the fact that it is quite contrarian.

its only briefly mentioned in the graphic to the article, but Sealand has a fascinating history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

Just for the sake of clarity, my post didn't go so far as to endorse the efficient market hypothesis as 100% valid. I do however think it is fundamental to have an understanding of the basic precepts before diving in the market.

"Merely famous people have pictures of themselves on the wall. Really great people have pictures of dead people on the wall, and on their desks. It's one of the first things I look for when I go into somebody's office."

I think the point about connecting to the past is a good one. I'm not completely sure why, but great people and projects certainly seem to have a sense that they are connected to a long line of predecessors.

(Go Deacons!!)

I would absolutely recommend reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel. Its a great introduction to the theory of efficient markets.

i'm not sure why the article doesn't mention it, but one of the reasons this makes sense for MS is the rising "contango" in oil futures (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contango and http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1214)

essentially the market is betting that oil prices will rise in the coming months, which puts storage space at an obvious premium.

I think its misguided to say that greed got us into the current economic mess and that selflessness is the solution. It's a nice happy theory but it flies in the face of almost everything that we know about human nature.

The real interesting question is how we can tweak our economic system to better manage greed.

As a non-technical founder trying to pick up coding i will definitely be working through this.

I've also found http://code.google.com/edu/curriculumsearch/ to be a good resource for self learning materials.

Sounds good. I'll be there.

i've been reading hacker news daily for the past few months, but haven't been an active poster (wanted to get the feel of the site before jumping in). i really enjoy the site and would be interested in swinging by tonight to meet some other HN fans if you don't mind.

just so you know, i'm a founder with a product in the early dev stages and live about 10 min from union square.