stretchwithme

The electoral system in the US has so many other gigantic flaws. It is only wracked by such controversies because it so bad at representing the interests of the voters.

I'd like to improve the financial education of people making decisions in government. Because they've run up a $22 trillion debt.

And our government cannot come up with $400 to cover an unexpected expense either. Not without going further into debt.

Which is why all such decision makers should at least learn how to run a lemonade stand profitably.

Until then, they should not be deciding what financial education people should be getting either.

There are a lot of elements in that story that don't quite make sense to me.

Taking care of the best planet around is always going to be easier and better than packing everybody off to some other planet, even one that's just as good.

They way I see it, it's even going to be possible to even collect all the mercury out of the ocean and clean up other seemingly impossible messes.

This complicates my planned journey to the center of the Earth.

Eventually, robots will go through all of the landfills and recover a lot of the materials in it.

And they might get all the energy they need to do it from the garbage itself. Hey, if insects can do it, robots will eventually be able to do it.

Have thought about this too. I guess a lot of people have, considering how many people dream about falling.

Impact on productivity is not the right way to judge a crime. Definitely not the sole measure or the paramount one. It would be open season on old people if that were the case. I suspect you wouldn't want to see that happen.

I don't believe the current system punishes offenders effectively or rehabilitates them. It's not great at segregating dangerous people either, as people are released when they've "paid their debt to society" rather than when they stop presenting a threat.

I'd prefer it if prisons were more like the prison farms in Scandinavia, especially for young non-violent criminals. They need to learn to produce things or render services that other prisoners will want. They should be able to build their own houses. They should have to learn how to work and freely trade with others BEFORE they are released.

Some criminals are a persistent threat to the population and must be tightly controlled. People who've murdered multiple people, for example. And some should never be released.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/wh...

Anyway, a complicated topic for sure.

It would certainly help people decide what tobecome an expert in. And there must be some correlation with what an expert and an amateur can do.

Of course, I can think of examples where that isn't true.

It would be interesting to see experts in different technologies compete, in front of a live audience, to implement or change a variety of projects. It would be useful to see what a master can do with each tool or platform.

“It always seemed like when there was cool technology or things happening, it was kinda of in the United States. So, my goal as a kid was to get to America basically.”

Elon Musk

Been thinking about such possibilities. With the advent of serverless, what executes a controller action does not need to be a server executing every other controller action in an application.

We don't need to keep two machines alive, one each in two different availability zones to provide the bare minimum uptime. Not if any controller action can quickly be given part of a machine on which to execute. There is no uptime or downtime, other than that of the service administering this fleet of machines.

I see what you're saying.

My purpose there was to keep government or off budget government entity or corporation from buying any mortgages.

I have no problem with selling an asset, as long as government is not subsidizing bad practices by assigning an unrealistic value to something that is fraught with risk.

Selling a mortgage to private investors is not a problem.

SO would I. But I bet there are people who wouldn't if they stood to gain something valuable that is unavailable if their seatbelt is fastened.

In other words, people do indeed take greater risk with their money if the interest rate is higher. And expect to earn less if the investment is very safe.

And what I'm suggesting is a very specific form of a bank. Strict regulation is implied.

I just prefer to give people of choice of what kind of institution they want to trust. And bail out none of them, a regulation of what government is allowed to do.

Who is suggesting companies should be prevented from selling assets to raise cash?

Because it will save a lot of money for them in the long and we'll have fewer disasters that risk the world economy.

Human intelligence is distributed and responsibility should be as well. Concentrate the power and people take advantage and then weasel out of responsibility, leaving others to suffer the consequences.

The well connected get their risks socialized, because they are "too big to fail". The same story is repeated over and over again.

People who take the risks should get both the losses and the benefits. It's called "skin in the game".

Depositors would earn a lower rate than a riskier bank would pay. If people faced a loss of their principal, this could be a more popular option.

Of course, this is not a product for today's environment, as all depositors face zero risk of losing their principal.

People pay more for safer cars. Why wouldn't they give up some interest for a safer account?

Well, you could change how banks fail too.

When a bank fails, the owners would lose their investment. But the assets of the bank, its loans, could be put into a public corporation and shares distributed to the depositors in proportion to their deposit.

Then depositors could sell and get 80 cents on the dollar or whatever. Or the depositors can wait awhile and sell when the markets recover. They might even make more than the interest they were promised.

Such mortgages are fundamentally sound, so for most people the sensible thing is to wait. They can also sell some and keep most to get through their own short term cash flow needs.

Of course it does. Depositors currently don't think about the risks to their money at all, because they know they will always be made whole.

Would you bother with your seat belt if the doctor would completely heal you, regardless of the cost, without any direct cost to you?

Of course, the reality is we do have to pay for every bailout. As taxpayers.

Or, rather, some day our children will.

Unless, of course, where you put your money is on you. Then there'd be real interest in banking with low risk.

Just stop subsidizing the risks they take. Don't insure them.

Because of depositor insurance and pension fund insurance, risks are not treated as real risks. People know their lack of consideration of risk will be bailed out.

Make two kinds of banks. One very simple and safe with no incentives for risk taking. Another that is unregulated and you are risking your money. Those who don't want to deal with risk can put their money in the former and earn a safe return.

And that could be achieved by limiting a bank to writing mortgages, only loaning the first 60% of the 5-year moving average of a house's price. Require 20% down and let higher risk lender's lend the rest. Such a bank should also get paid back first.

This safe bank would not resell its mortgages and managers would never earn bonuses for a higher rate of return. Don't even offer checking accounts, just savings accounts. Don't have branches.

Keep the books completely open to the depositors 24/7.

Could you make a perfectly safe bank if it ONLY wrote mortgages and only loaned the first 60% of the 5-year moving average of a house's price? If it require 20% down and let higher risk lender's lend the rest. Arrange it so your bank always gets paid back first.

Don't allow reselling mortgages and managers never earn bonuses for a higher rate of return. Don't even offer checking accounts, just savings accounts. Don't have branches.

Would we even need deposit insurance for such a bank?

Even if it is, emergent properties can't be deduced from their precursors. The whole is greater (or lesser) than the sum of the parts.

I kind of doubt that emergent properties can be modeled.

Considering the constant stream of new services and feature, the lack of OSS is insignificant compared to value they add to the world.

Like the fact that you can create an SSL/TLS certificate for free for load balancers without the usual agony. So easy.

Doesn't AWS's Aurora database sort of work that way too?

Thank you for all of your hard work.

I think it would be better to have bounties for cures rather than patents for drugs you have to take forever. Pay a fixed price that is easy for innovators to understand and maybe the energy will focus on what we really want.

One.

Charging for use of the road is the only way to balance supply and demand for road. More at peak times and a discount off-peak. Fixed price subscriptions for your commute.

But I see no reason to treat Uber cars differently, except that having a driver does not qualify to one to use the carpool lane (which I would eliminate anyway)!

I'd also allow subscribers and those who buy ahead to sell their prepaid trip when the price surges. Wait an hour and make $5 when there's an accident.

A lot of people don't understand the value of having a stream of income versus a wad of money in their hands now.

That's why J. G. Wentworth is in business, to profit from people who understand it.

But in business and most every discussion I can recall about business models, having a reliable stream of income is valued. People buy real estate and rent it out to establish such a stream of income.

And, if you are able to avoid earning all your cash now and instead earn o=it over time, you reduce and defer your taxes too.