Hermel

30 ms·

271.
by Hermel 10y ago
It would already help a lot if the European commission was democratically elected and if the European parliament was given the power to make laws. (It sounds like a joke, but the European parliament cannot propose new laws - even though tha
272.
by Hermel 10y ago
Don't panic. Wait until the dust has settled (maybe a year) and then start taking decisions. I'm certain everything will look much less dramatic by then.
273.
by Hermel 10y ago
The flower. And between the chicken and the egg, it was the egg.
274.
by Hermel 10y ago
I disagree. Tesla should only be liable if it made false promises (i.e. advertising "read a book while driving"), but that does not seem to be the case.
275.
by Hermel 10y ago
I don't get why you are being downvoted. There is not enough data to prove anything yet.
276.
by Hermel 10y ago
There is a bigger tolerance for error if it is your own fault. For example, compare how the risks of active and passive smoking are perceived.
277.
by Hermel 10y ago
Average transaction fees are at an all-time high currently, namely about 0.25 USD per transaction: https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees-usd?timespan... This is a level where fees start to hurt by destroying
278.
by Hermel 10y ago
> Centralization. Running a full node is already quite a commitment. The problem is not the resources needed to run a full node. The problem is a lack of incentives. If you want to have lots of full nodes running in the long run, you nee
279.
by Hermel 10y ago
As someone who has been closely following Bitcoin since 2011, I do not think that article captures the current situation very well. Yes, there is a concentration of mining power in China, owed to their low costs of electricity. But it does
280.
by Hermel 10y ago
> VW is worth $73 billion According to Google finance, its 56 billion, and probably less after this news. The US branch is probably worth 10% of that, or 5.6 billion. That way, the 15 billion are basically a three-fold death penalty.
281.
by Hermel 10y ago
If all affected countries punished VW as hard as the US, the cumulative fine would be hundreds of billions. That would indeed be a death penalty. In fact, 15 billion is disproportionate in my opinion.
282.
by Hermel 10y ago
The direct and indirect cost money laundering regulation has reached a point where it far outweighs the benefits. Thousands of clients have to jump through cumbersome hoops just to increase the chances of catching one single money launderer
283.
by Hermel 10y ago
If you were correct, it would never make sense to do a spin-off or to outsource anything. Agility gets lost when a company goes large, and its internal structure changes. Your views are typical for someone who looks at companies as a black
284.
by Hermel 10y ago
Even if biased, crowds can be the best option if all others are more biased.
285.
by Hermel 10y ago
> This is just another nail in the coffin for US technology companies. What are the other nails in your opinion? To me it seems that the Silicon Valley is doing quite well.
286.
by Hermel 10y ago
Don't forget the bypassing of anti-trust laws. Coordinating prices with your competitors directly: illegal. Asking the same consultancy as all your competitors about what prices you should charge: perfectly legal.
287.
by Hermel 10y ago
Yes, but it is no excuse to call it "in the style of Picasso" when it clearly isn't.
288.
by Hermel 10y ago
That approach is not compatible with making users explicitly agree with the new privacy policy that basically allows Microsoft to access your data. So it might have been the corporate lawyers that demanded this to be an upgrade that require
289.
by Hermel 10y ago
In large, layered software projects, the best solution can be "catch and wrap". In that case, the wrapping exception provides information about what went wrong, and the wrapped exception says why. For example, a CouldNotLoadImageE
290.
by Hermel 10y ago
That's quite an ignorant view. The solution is simple: keep a reserve, put everything into the budget and don't spend the money if it gets rejected. For example, my local community has liquid assets of about 50 millions and no deb
291.
by Hermel 10y ago
As a Swiss, I feel like there is much less corruption than in other countries, even though we have less strict laws against corruption. The reason for that is simple: Switzerland has a very decentralized and democratic system, ensuring that
292.
by Hermel 10y ago
> Question, how does Switzerland avoid becoming more polarized country with so many referendum questions each year? As a Swiss, I would say a high number of referenda works against polarization. This Sunday, we had to vote on five nation
293.
by Hermel 10y ago
The only rule that would bother me is the max line width of 80 characters. Why still stick to this rule with today's screens? I usually set this to 200.
294.
by Hermel 10y ago
The Litmus test for that is to check whether the decision of an individual shareholder affects the others. I argue that this is the case. Assume that the shareholders have a preference for cash. If there is only one shareholder, he would cl
295.
by Hermel 10y ago
The dilution does not affect everyone equally. Consider the extreme case of a company with only two outstanding shares and 100$ in assets, so each share trades at 50$. Now, the company emits an extreme dividend of 50$ per share. The first s
296.
Applied Game Theory or How to pay a dividend without paying a dividend(meissereconomics.com)
71 points by Hermel 10y ago|85 comments
297.
by Hermel 10y ago
In that case, it looks like the US sales tax laws are the problem.
298.
by Hermel 10y ago
> inflation and time value of money can considerably erode your multi million dollar sales tax bill No, when importing the piece of art to its destination, VAT tax apply on its current value at the current VAT rate. So the opposite happe
299.
by Hermel 10y ago
Can anyone explain how this works from a tax perspective? As far as I know, goods in free ports are basically "in transit between two countries" for tax purposes. I.e. they left their origin, but have not entered their destination
300.
by Hermel 10y ago
Actually, the law often protects you from your own stupidity. Btw, if you think that the words and the signatures on the paper are the contract, you are wrong. The contract is what you agreed to, and if there is no agreement, there is no co

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