thecage411

I haven't really seen the assumption that "if you were any good, you'd already be in the Bay Area."

I have seen sort of the opposite, though -- if you are experienced, you likely have a family and there is no way in hell you are moving to the Bay Area.

I just looked around my floor. 1 woman out of 27 people.

Yes, your point is clear, though I'm not sure if I agree or not :).

I think the confusion is over the term "benefits". In the usage I've seen, benefits includes things not directly associated with the income tax code, like say, food stamps. If you increase your income, you may lose access to food stamps, but the food stamps don't come with your income tax returns and receiving them is part of a separate application process in most (all?) states.

So when you said income tax, I thought you were including those kinds of programs. But it sounds like you mean something closer to "benefits and deductions" directly in the tax code, like the earned income tax credit.

Nope, you are pretty much the only person I've seen that uses the term income tax to mean income tax and benefits.

Yep. FYI economists use the term "labor force participation rate" for this concept.

As another poster pointed out, some people with low income pay a negative income tax. I guess it could be "lowered" but I don't think that's what you meant, or at least you didn't make it clear.

Do you have any evidence for the claim about efficiency regarding taxes vs minimum wage?

One possibility: unemployment is defined as someone who is not working AND actively looking. If wages at McD went up to $15 an hour, some people who were not actively looking may enter the workforce.

Most economists wouldn't say that because it is wrong. At least in the US, people with low incomes pay little to nothing in (income) taxes. They may face high "effective" tax rates due to losing low-income benefits, but that's a separate discussion.

are companies typically forthcoming with information about liquidation preferences? At jobs I've asked and been told the percentage of allocation, valuation, and runway, but have never asked about liquidation preferences.

Also, does it really matter if I know? A later round could have wildly different liquidation preferences that wipe out my gains, right? Though I guess that's true of dilution as well...

In general I agree with your argument, I just think there are a small percentage of actual sociopaths in the world (I've met one).

> I'm not sure what you are calling the premise and what you are calling the conclusion. But in general, I think that acting in your own self-interest actually results in cooperation with others and not victimizing other people. So we need to be arguing for more rational self-interest. We need to stop making the typical "moral" arguments that amount to, "If you want to be good, sacrifice for others; if you want to be happy, sacrifice other people." That is a completely horrible argument that will never result in anyone being good OR happy.

Sorry for not being clear here. I meant the premise is "Trust is a common good" and the conclusion is "sacrifice for the 'common good' and be good, or help yourself and be evil"

"The truth is that constantly stealing and manipulating instead of relaxing and focusing on producing real value to trade with others is not in your self interest."

Do you have any proof this is true? I would guess there are whole classes of people for whom stealing and manipulating is in their own self interest. Sociopaths for example.

Honest question: are you sure you aren't rejecting the parent's premise because you don't like the conclusion, not because you disagree with the premise?

I know a lot more people who write software well than can guard Lebron James well.

From the link: "When looking at the list, it’s hard to miss how the costs seem to break down according to the red-blue political divide."

I love arguments that invite you to interpret statistics based on your biases.

No analysis given to the fact that one of the most conservative states (Wyoming) has one of the highest pension liabilities per capita or that one controlled by Democrats (West Virginia) has one of the lowest.

I have to agree with the posters above. What is the question at hand? I'd assume from the title you would be explaining why bitcoin is deflationary and why that is okay. (What is okay?)

What you actually seem to be addressing is whether the statement "Bitcoin cannot work as a medium of exchange" is true.

It's been awhile since I read Fooled by Randomness but I think Taleb's point was that TMND only looks at those who became rich, it doesn't look at those who didn't get rich following the same strategy.

I haven't read TMND so I can't say if that's true, but your post doesn't refute his point.

Are you sure?

I just pulled up the a graph of US GDP from Google: http://www.housingbubblebust.com/GDP/Depression.html

FDR took office in March of 1933, which looks like when things got better.

And most of the time, renting is a better investment! :)

Care to elaborate about these plans?