ragnot

No better alternative for the Chinese. US Treasuries are the worlds most liquid and deep markets for money at the nation-state scale. Euro's are still in America's sphere of influence. Holding Yuan just destroys their export economy.

Japanese depend on America for security so they do it as a sort of quid pro quo.

I do agree though: pensioners (i.e. US public) will suffer first. International treasury defaults would threaten US hegemony.

Some people call it the petrodollar others call it American hegemony.

As the saying goes: "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich". Still big news...I'll just wait and see if the charges stick.

I want to say 1) I (admittedly) look at the world through a paranoid lens, 2) could be completely wrong. This is just my opinion.

That being said, I think you are referring to FTX right? It is the natural way to look at it. You see FTX and a reasonable person could conclude that this is simply the US Govt making sure that it doesn't happen again. In fact, it could be the only reason.

But when I see things like the TikTok CEO being dragged in front of Congress and multiple crypto exchanges (which allow for a potential way to side-step dollar hegemony) being attacked (legally) I like to stop and think about if this is the US Govt retaliating.

Maybe the USG wants to shore up support after rising interest rates highlighted that many banks are not as strong as many thought (due to HTM treasury accounting tricks). Maybe the visits of Putin and Xi to each other countries is signaling an increasingly unified "new eastern blok" which is something that the US wants to weaken. I don't have the answers again. I'm just thinking.

If you are wondering what it means for me personally, I am going to get out of crypto holdings entirely. I see this as a shift that the USG views crypto as a threat that can be exploited by enemies. Perhaps Bitcoin is safe, but that would be the only one.

TikTok is a more conventional ban on a foreign security apparatus, it really has nothing to do with dollar hegemony. Attacks on crypto institutions is the US Govt defending dollar hegemony. I have no proof (obviously), but if you just look at the pieces together it's hard not to justify that this is a trend.

I guess the art of geo-politics is achieving an agenda with plausible deniability. It's not a crackpot theory to suggest that the US Govt is enacting a policy change due to changing politics with China.

Additionally, the US Govt has managed to weaponize the US dollar through the global financial system; allowing it to enforce it's will without bloodshed (even on nuclear capable states like Russia). It's a capability that is invaluable. So when you hear things like Russians selling oil in Yuan, you need to respond.

It's hard not to see patterns emerging honestly. TikTok ban, Coinbase and now this. Seems like the US Gov is ramping up not only attacks on Chinese proxies but anything that might threaten US dollar reserve status.

Should be interesting times.

My personal theory: if people even had the remotest inkling that the insurance would fail, then it is next to useless. The point of it is to prevent the majority of people from inciting a bank run since they know for sure that their money is safe. It's a bit of weird game theory.

There is no equivalent to a bank run risk on SS/Medicare so why put it in. Putting it in also means that these programs could cause massive inflation if the US Gov had to print money to finance them.

So expect massive inflation in the future?

This is an insight I'm going to remember for a while.

You gotta give credit to the Americans, they know how to twist an arm.

The answer to the inflation question traditionally has been to short the US dollar via investing in real estate with loans.

I think you are giving more credit to corporations than you think. The exceptions are for top brass, not top ICs.

Bingo.

It's pretty much a layoff in disguise at this point.

It is the root cause. I think people just don't want to admit that the Fed has more control over our economy than they thought.

I think this is really the answer. We've entered into a scary scenario for the US economy: it lives and dies on cheap credit supplied by the Fed. When the Fed drops rates, people chase yield and you get stuff like NFTs and valuations that are detached from fundamentals. When interest rates go up, the market just waits for them to go down again...

I've heard that this is actually a buyer liquidity problem and not a general liquidity problem...i.e. too many sellers and not enough buyers. Makes since the world is trying to offload their foreign reserves to combat the surging dollar and defend their own currencies. Immediate effects will be how the US Gov handles the fact that their interest rate payments are gonna shoot up when they have to roll over the debt.

I mean I get it. On the other hand you really should know the constructs you are using. std::string_view is essentially a reference to a char array and you are assigning a temporary object (r-value) to it. Standard C++ rules say that you can't expect the lifetime of that object hold past the expression.

I've never heard of this. Was this just a quirk of the LGP-30?

It's a hedge. Like anything other hedge it's not bulletproof. I'm blessed to live in a country that has sound monetary policy (you do too probably). But there are millions (if not billions) of people who don't. Crypto offers a way to avoid capital controls when governments fail. It's not the crypto itself, its just the most convenient way. See: https://restofworld.org/2021/the-cryptocurrency-dons-of-beir...

Funny how retirement and dismissal from work are so similar.

I think the idea would be that in a scenario where crypto becomes a currency, there wouldn't need to be an off-ramp (at least immediately, think war/revolution). You would trade the crypto like "real" money.

Cynical take: jobs program for the senators district.

Non-cynical take: Most modern aircraft are equipped with networking/avionics that allow information to be shared across multiple battle domains (army on land, air force, maybe space who knows). A stealth-ish (not completely invisible but still tough to track) aircraft that can perform this role as well as carry nukes might be useful in coming conflicts.

I know this is going to initially bother a lot of software engineers the wrong way but here me out: make a gantt chart and assign resources to each of the tasks. You can add "future hires" to see how much of a work load reduction you get.

Now depending on your work environment you can do one of two things:

- Work environment is still "healthy": Show your gantt chart to your boss as a justification for the resource count addition but highly stress that the dates are not accurate or even valid estimates. That is what a dedicated planning session is for.

- Work environment is not "healthy"/a bureaucracy: Come up with whatever justification you can that validates the number you came up with in a gantt chart (aka parallel construction) but don't show the gantt chart. They will take those numbers as gospel no matter what you say.

"10x learning opportunity with only 50% reduction in salary"

I already may be too cynical for this author but unless this new opportunity gives me a substantial equity stake I'm going for the money 100% of the time. Learning is great and all, but unless you are learning at a FAANG (in which case I'm sure you aren't getting a reduction in salary) at the end of the day cash is king.

I've done my own fair share of startups and yeah I've learned a ton. Mostly I've learned that you very rarely get a payout with a startup and that you should just go for more money.

We are still full remote and I don't think anyone has any intention to go back to "in-person" honestly.

As a side note: I think the reason you are going to find so much friction with this is for the first time in recent history "workers" (specifically software engineers) have incredible leverage over management. I honestly don't think we've seen this since the days of labor unions.

Think about it: software engineers have such an in-demand, ubiquitous skillset that they can command huge salaries, get incredible perks AND now they can say "I don't want to be constrained to a location". Don't like your job? Don't worry about it, get a pay raise and you don't even have to change your office (because it's your bedroom/study/den/whatever). Boss is being a dick? Move and get a raise. Don't like co-workers who talk to much? You don't even have a water cooler to gossip around!

Software engineers have so much power now it's ridiculous and it honestly pisses off a lot of people who spent their entire lives brown-nosing and grinding only to have a young hotshot come in and earn more than they ever did at their age. I mean if I could get $5 for the number of times I've had older people tell me that I'm being too greedy for demanding SWE comps because "I never earned that much at your age" I could buy a really nice house in the Bay Area.

Which ones? Personally curious.

I at least respect that you are being upfront about it. I do think that you'll have a hard time sourcing the high-caliber software engineer you might want to get though.

Sure you'll get junior/mid-grade ones (which honestly might be enough for you) but I don't think you are going to like what happens to your candidates in the coming years. Remote work is just such a perk that it is literally one of the make or break points for many software engineers. People will inevitably migrate to companies with the better perks and it is hard to beat coding with your own kitchen and bathroom 10 steps away.

You also kind of gave yourself away with the "if these people insist on not being in the office we may just outsource the job for a tenth of the comp" in the sense that your industry views developers as a cost center and not the reason the company is generating value. If you've ever outsourced you know the challenges of time zone, language barrier and quality are a hard one to beat. You might as well hired a half-way decent developer in the beginning, but hey at least you saved a buck so you got your quarterly bonus right?

Pros of working from home:

- My own bathroom

- My own kitchen

- No commute

- Incredible flexibility

Pros from working at an office:

- Someone can print a meme and post it in the bathroom for me to look at