Empact

79 ms·

361.
by Empact 17y ago
But you've ignored decades of economists explaining how to do social programs in an efficient way. For example, Milton Friedman's Negative Income Tax would take the place minimum wages and food stamps with none of the administrative overhe
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by Empact 17y ago
David Simon needs to read "The Innovator's Dillemma." This sort of approach is exactly what dooms most established companies to bankruptcy in the fact of disruptive innovation. Information, particularly mass information is now cheap, and t
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by Empact 17y ago
> [What if] the baker is wealthy and losing $250 will not affect his spending habits (over at least the course of decades)[?] > The thing is, spending $250 today creates more work than spending $250 next year In each of these cases,
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by Empact 17y ago
> Whereas a higher minimum wage means some people can be dropped from the rolls entirely while others have to collect more. You're falling prey to the fallacy that Hazlitt describes, focusing on some specific group, and for the short ru
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by Empact 17y ago
I have a saying, plucked from Team America, of all places: "You need a montage." Basically, there's a reason films about a person standing up to triumph over a powerful adversary often compress the most important intervening moments, in whi
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by Empact 17y ago
MSAs were expanded into HSAs in 2003. As of now there are some 8 million enrollees. IMO the most interesting effect of the spread of HSAs is the emergence of clinics which forego the overhead of the insurance system altogether[1], dealing
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by Empact 17y ago
While true, the fact is that our habitats are social systems which encourage or discourage interaction, in different ways. For example, in my years living in several cooperative houses in Austin ( http://iccaustin.coop/ ) I noticed an inter
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by Empact 17y ago
"Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we [the FED] did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again." — Ben Bernanke, in a speech at Milton Friedman's 90's birthday, 2002 “It's almost worth the Great Depression, to
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by Empact 17y ago
Not everyone is able to get a room where they want when they want, of the quality they want on couchsurfing. For many possible hosts, money can make it worth their while to open their doors to a broader variety of visitors, and perhaps sup
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by Empact 17y ago
Better than the past, certainly, but by no means a sure deal. And while prices to buy are falling, so are prices to rent. I suggest the OP use this great NYTimes tool to evaluate the buy vs. rent options: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10
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by Empact 17y ago
> California's emphasis on citizen democracy Yeah, but there are much better ways to do it. I'd recommend a substantial decrease in the Citizen / Legislator ratio. That gives regular citizens greater access to their legislature, while
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by Empact 17y ago
Interestingly, it may be that one could pay twice as much per teacher and still end up with a lower cost per pupil overall, as administrator overhead plays a large part in the regular cost formulation. $125 / 30 students ~ $4k, a fraction
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by Empact 17y ago
An enterprising individual, requiring the consent of the shoe shiner in order to collaborate, might offer an investment. The government, able to force its demands, seizes a tax.
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by Empact 17y ago
For example, aside from the dozen or more web companies I know who'd love to be hiring programmers and expanding their business, there's also me, a lowly moonlighter. Were I able to hire and build my business to the point of profitability
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by Empact 17y ago
If this bothers you (it does me), you should look at Redfin.com. They do realty for 1% each, rather than 3%, and can afford to because they do much of their work online.
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by Empact 17y ago
Would the laborer have been transported, on such a long voyage, without the reasonable assurance of payback? If they'd been left behind, stranded far away from the "land of opportunity," would they have been better off? I'd guess no on bo
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by Empact 17y ago
These hypothetical studies would not contradict an explanation which emphasized upbringing, rather than income or genetics as a determinant of success. Parents bring their time and perspective, as well as their money, to the table. For suc
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by Empact 17y ago
Your quote claims the effects of the parents' income persist, but in doing so it claims correlation is causation and neglects to consider other familial effects, such as genetics and upbringing. An alternative explanation is that wealth doe
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by Empact 18y ago
I'd love to see a thorough account of who did and did not predict this event. The most I've seen was Peter Schiff being mocked on cable news for arguing there would be a bust. Nouriel Roubini correctly predicted this as well. Who else?
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by Empact 18y ago
So you wouldn't invest unprotected. Insurance was invented to solve this specific problem: socializing the costs of unlikely but disastrous occurrences. The vast majority of companies will be fine the vast majority of the time, so there's
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by Empact 18y ago
It's exactly the fear of this scenario which forces the system to police itself. Removing this incentive reduces the incentives individuals have to police their earnings. If they were subject to serious losses, there'd be more market ince
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by Empact 18y ago
Very interesting. It happens that Pivotal Tracker https://www.pivotaltracker.com/ , (full disclosure: from my employer Pivotal Labs), is built to combat this bias via the concept of "emergent iterations." You specify "points" for each fi
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by Empact 18y ago
I happen to be working on a site in this realm as well. We should talk: ben.woosley@gmail.com