Prrometheus

51 ms·

61.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Besides quality, Wal-mart also has one of the most efficient stocking and distribution processes in the world. There is hardly a facet of their business that the folks in Bentonville have not tried to optimize.
62.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Americans don't make $45,000/year because we held on to our low-skill manufacturing jobs.
63.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
The revolution of Public Choice economics was to examine the incentives faced by actors in the public sector, instead of viewing public policy as exogenous to the economy as previous models have done. In the past, if economists discovered a
64.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
>"Libertarianism is NOT Anarcho-Capitalism." Anarcho-capitalists would consider themselves libertarian, and many famous ones are also leading lights of the libertarian movement. Murray Rothbard is clearly a libertarian, and Lysander Spo
65.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Thank you, Zed, for debunking internet-forum libertarianism. To the non-naive libertarians among us, however, you have provided no new information. If you have the time, you should pick up some Friedman or Hayek. Friedman's "Free to Choose"
66.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
>"i don't think he meant it as "do nothing." But then again, a lot of eastern ascetics and mystics mean exactly that.
67.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
There is clearly a cultural disconnect between liberal urban artists, writers, and directors that manufacture the media of our culture and the suburban middle class. There are clearly happy and healthy people that grow up in the suburbs, hu
68.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Could someone explain how this differs from Matlab, which is the most popular language for statistics and machine learning at my university?
69.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
If I needed a shaving mirror, I'd buy a shaving mirror. They're cheaper.
70.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I thought the opposite. The real life example of implementing his project was a lot more interesting than yet another exhortation to "be true to yourself".
71.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I have friends who have done very well on both sections. They didn't practice much. They tend to be polymaths and read a lot.
72.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
To me, it seems to be a matter of convenience. The intersection of people who use iTunes and use torrent trackers is probably quite small. Is the cost of $0.99 worth the hassle of drastically increasing your computer literacy level to avoid
73.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I think the idea is simplistic. I have had the same $10 Wal-Mart cooking knife for a few years now. I'm sure it won't last more than a few more years. However, I bought it in poverty, and it will last me through poverty until I am making go
74.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Yeah, maybe. Might be useful in internal management and strategy divisions of large firms, too. It would probably be good to have an ex-investment banker somewhere in the high level management of your firm.
75.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I think a major problem is that governments are large, monopolistic, and tend to copy each other. How do you know what really works if you don't have different models to look at? We see some competition between governments in areas like the
76.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Tell you who the major players are and how they differ. Estimate a value function for the equity of firms in that industry. Find out how large the market is, how it has changed over time, and how it differs across countries. Research the re
77.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Regulatory costs do raise the barrier to entry and push the market towards fewer, larger firms.
78.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I think the discussion is getting lost here. We recognize that the current system is a partially-free, but heavily-regulated structure. Now the question is, what were the weaknesses in the system? What were the points of failure? Leftists a
79.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
>Think about it, if you're an investment banker, what else can you do? You can read a balance sheet, research an industry, make a presentation to sell something expensive, and work 80 hours a week at something no matter how tedious. The
80.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I'm getting tired of populist vilification of finance. We went through a bubble and too many resources were devoted to finance lately, just as too many resources were devoted to technology in the bubble of the late 90s. However, finance is
81.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Well, going back to the original argument that we need to spend a greater percentage of GDP to achieve higher educational achievement, I think we could both agree that the problem is less straightforward than that, that the United States sp
82.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
The evidence that I've seen suggests the correlation between school spending and educational achievement is weak. There may be specific districts that we can target as being underfunded, and money might help those districts. But untargeted
83.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
>"Edit: just to clarify I didn't want to come across as calling you a right-wing Nazi baby killer and hope that I didn't in the original post." Just to clarify, I wasn't saying that you did. I was just commenting on my frustration with
84.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I agree that DC public schools misspends its money. But I am not very interested in how can we fix the problem in just this particular time and place. I am more concerned about what incentives of the system cause this problem, and what new
85.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I am not insulting Phil Greenspun. But do you know how many personal political manifestos are on the internet? What are the chances that this one will be more valuable than average? I read through the first page or so, it didn't seem like i
86.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
DC is regularly one of the top 3 school districts in the country in terms of per pupil spending. I don't think you would want to send your children there. There are fundamental incentive problems with public monopolies. When you have a grou
87.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
This is a fluff article. Tempting fluff that causes everybody to come to the comment section and offer up their preconceived ideas. But fluff is fluff, even if it's tasty. I don't see what I would gain from reading Greenspun's opinion on ec
88.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I don't have any empirical studies to back up my point, either, but the way spending is allocated by the US government is anything but rational. I have severe doubts that adding $1 more of revenue into the system will produce greater than $
89.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
The suburbs outside Arlington county near DC have great public schools as well. They regularly send their students to Ivy League schools and many go on to become CEOs and Senators. I don't see what either example has to offer a diverse, spr
90.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
>"I'm not sure if there are empirical analyses to support this, but I believe that investing in education has the greatest returns (up to the limit when your whole population is educated maximally--but that's a far ways off from where w

More ›