veritas

>The big 5 were previously under no regulation as to their leverage ratios.

http://www.nysun.com/business/ex-sec-official-blames-agency-... That article suggests that the SEC enforced a 12:1 ratio for banks... or am I getting incorrect information?

>Bank holding companies are subject to risk-based capital requirements which prohibit them from operating with high leverage or purchasing large amounts of risky assets.

I figured the capital requirements would indeed get stricter (I believe the article also mentions this), but I'm still skeptical as to how long the banks can rein in their greed. Capital requirements should technically force them to be more careful, but IIRC the big 5 had already managed to get their requirements increased before (from 12:1 to 40:1).

As for mergers alleviating risk, would it not also expose the system to a different risk: market consolidation? The reason given for the current bailouts is that if these handful of investment banks (or even just AIG for that matter) failed it would set off a catastrophe. If there were more consolidation wouldn't it just aggravate this risk of one failure causing a significant impact?

Like I said before, I'm not an economist, but it seems better to keep the WaMu's and Goldman Sachs' separate, in more or less mutually exclusive risk pools so that if GS fails, the deposits in WaMu don't go with it.

Anyway, good points! I'm sure if handled correctly the situation will work since it does seem to work elsewhere.

I wasn't trying to be an ass :) I just see "Breaking" all over the place these days on Reddit and I don't want HN going down the same road.

Disclaimer: not an economist.

My understanding is that the Glass Steagall act in the 1930s was passed to separate holding banks (like WaMu etc) and investment banks (GS) because when they were combined certain risks popped up.

One of the first that immediately comes to mind is that now investment banks will be in charge of deposits. Securities trading is pretty risky (especially when you're leveraged) and if something should happen (tech bubble or the current mess) then the deposits are threatened. Since deposits are also insured by the government (FDIC), the government then is automatically on the hook for the money.

This means that there is a need for new restrictions placed on the hybrid banks. If the regulation is too low, then we run the risk of putting deposits in danger. If the regulation is too much, we run the risk of crippling the investment banking industry.

Then again other countries seem to work fine without such separation, so hopefully this will work out. From the article it seems new regulations will be imposed on the banks.

If anyone else has additional insight, feel free to correct me :)

1. Please don't use 'Breaking' in the headline.

2. This, from what I know, seems like a terrible move.

Curious, as always. My email is in my profile :)

What are you talking about? DHH and 37signals provide a lot to the conversation, including differing points of view.

If having a different opinion means "contributing nothing positive" then we've fallen a long, long way.

Edit: fixed grammar.

I'm not complaining but is it 37signals week?

Features aren't the only thing they're getting.

The guys at Xobni are extremely talented and Microsoft always wants talented engineers.

I think you're making a big deal out of what, at worst, was a poorly worded phrase.

Relax a little :)

I'm not sure of the checkout system, but I assume right now that the payments are left for the sellers and buyers to deal with and Etsy would instead like to establish their own system that makes it dead easy to buy and sell with Etsy as the middle man in the transaction.

Search is hard. They have search already, but they want it make it better and more relevant to the user's taste and buying history I imagine.

Customer Service => manpower => salaries => money => funding.

Competitive wages: I'm sure Etsy pays it's employees well, but I doubt it's at market value (although it's probably damn close). But they want to take care of their existing employees and hire new ones and pay them all well, which I think is admirable.

The funding isn't absurd. Etsy can and probably will be huge. I've seen nothing from their execution and growth so far that indicates that they're a mirage or about to tank.

For a company with a revenue model, growth, and a large market to raise a 30 million series B isn't exactly earth shattering.

"Sooner or later Valleywag will write something particularly informative or amusing and Hacker News readers will miss out."

Because in the off chance that Valleywag writes this informative and insightful article, we won't have access to it through any other source. It's not like we have access to a medium that enables efficient propagation of information.

I'm not your guy, friend!

Good stuff. I would've liked to see data for: Nginx + Mongrels, Ngninx/Apache + Evented Mongrels, Swiftiply + Evented Mongrels.

http://brainspl.at/articles/2007/05/12/event-driven-mongrel-...

The base jQuery is very light, perhaps half the size of Prototype if I recall correctly.

The added bloat comes from the effects and UI libraries. The UI library is probably superfluous so that should cut the size significantly.

Dude... you're trying too hard on a trivial area.

You only have to be close by 60 seconds give or take, so just hard code in the timestamp: http://www.unixtimestamp.com/

It's a pain in the ass to change every minute, but it works and you'll get on with the rest of it.

Erm... this maybe a silly question, but how far are we supposed to take this?

Apparently not...

Wow... not one mention of the Indian Institutes of Technology which may just be the toughest engineering schools on the planet. Just have a look at their entrance exams...

Bias anyone?

Yep, the background color. It's a little dull, but that's just my personal preference. So I don't know what other feedback you've gotten, but take what I say with a grain of salt.

EDIT:

Also on pages like this one: http://disqus.com/people/danielha the text of the comment and the box on the right (points, replies) overlap sometimes. Minor quirk, but work getting fixed.

And you might want to make the green arrow (on hover) a bit more noticeable... kinda like the red arrow for voting down.

Sorry for all the cosmetic feedback, but I haven't gotten around to creating an account to give technical feedback/bugs.

Hmm interesting. I'm just used to it I suppose. Sometimes instead of refreshing to see if something has changed, I just click the logo by habit.

But, I concede the point.

Interesting... IntenseDebate also launched today.

TechStars and YC are neck and neck in this space.

To the Disqus guys:

1. On your home page, the logo should be clickable.

2. The logo should always take me back to the home page... sometimes it dumps me in the Disqus forum.

3. The paging links say "Next Next", instead of just "Next"

4. It's probably just me, but the background puts me off a little.

A vote for MooTools, although jQuery is very nice as well.

Well true, but the same can be said about Apple, Google etc. They all have significant revenue streams outside the US. The reason most people try to explain away Microsoft's ridiculous profits is because they don't like the company.

For Microsoft, the key in my opinion, is their next version of the OS. Vista blows and is selling simply through computer sales. They need to rebuild their OS from the ground up to be secure, fast and user friendly.

It's erm... nice looking. That's about it.

Awesome :)

Haha, no worries dude. Your criticism was spot on and appreciated.

I don't usually submit my own writings to YC (first time I believe).

I'll own up to it :)

It was a 5 minute rant to be honest, not a well thought out exposition on OpenID's various shortcomings.

So, apologies if it was inarticulate/verbose. I really should clean it up and edit before I submit to YC.

I modded you up BTW :D

Fair point. YC exists not to be on your board or help run the business, but to help you get to the people that will do those things. Which, I consider, to be a valuable service.

Have you had any contact with Sequoia? If so, what are they like?

How insane would it be if you got a YC rejection letter, but a Sequoia interview... :D