bokonist

49 ms·

301.
by bokonist 17y ago
Debt is only ever a problem for a country if a) it is trying to maintain a fixed exchange rate or b) the debt is denominated in gold or a foreign currency. Neither of these is true for China, so it's level of debt is not a problem. In fac
302.
by bokonist 17y ago
In my observation, it is not the number of engineering graduates that determines technological growth, but rather, the opportunities in technology that determine the number of graduates. If relative wages in engineering rise, more students
303.
by bokonist 17y ago
She is comparing the manufacturing output of the U.S. and China in dollars, not actual quantity of stuff. But China is engaging in a policy of actively devaluing the yuan relative to the dollar precisely in order to prop up manufacturing a
304.
by bokonist 17y ago
That's why this "hyper low" rate environment is dangerous. Because it won't last and when rates start to go up, the market will stall or even decline. Excellent point. Of course, the government knows this, and will thus be terrified to r
305.
by bokonist 17y ago
Purposes of college: a) having fun, making lifelong friends, getting laid b) learning from peers and the environment (lectures, events, clubs, etc) c) building a social network If end up not liking your college classes,I recommend switching
306.
by bokonist 17y ago
As I said before, peer review means nothing to me, because peer review replicates error just as much as it replicates truth. In general, a piece of writing can contain facts (ex. the stock market crashed in 2009), interpretations of fact
307.
by bokonist 17y ago
Have you read many peer reviewed economics papers? Or even college economics textbooks? They make same arguments about well being, dead weight losses, etc. And they are full of weak assertions and sloppy logic. Peer review can be a proc
308.
by bokonist 17y ago
No, because in my example America has no source of foreign exchange it cannot buy autos from Japan, it has nothing to offer Japan in return (it's a simplified example, but it shows an underlying dynamic that can and does exist). EDIT: to cl
309.
by bokonist 17y ago
The methodology used by the Industrial Production Index is extremely problematic. Any index that uses Fisher price indexes introduces huge amounts of subjectivity. For instance, the decision to use an "overlap method" rather than a "direc
310.
by bokonist 17y ago
Krugman is wrong. In many circumstances, countries are competing with each other. For instance, imagine Kuwait produces oil, and Japan produces automobiles. Kuwait trades oil to country America for automobiles. Now imagine Japan enters
311.
by bokonist 17y ago
Perhaps a better word would have been "intrinsic". A trait can be a result of compounding, non-shared environment. For instance, at any early age you might have recieved a reward for taking a risk. Perhaps that led you to take more risks
312.
by bokonist 17y ago
The reproduction numbers aren't purely hypothetical, it's based in DNA studies - http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/20/is-there-anyt... And a lifetime of observations tell me that men in general are greater risk takers and more c
313.
by bokonist 17y ago
Doing a startup is not just about programming ability. Determination, desire, competiveness, a willingness to take risks, etc, are all far more important. Of the long course of human existence, something like 40% of men have reproduced, w
314.
by bokonist 17y ago
Try adopting scrum ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development) ).
315.
Does Education Make You Smarter?(miller-mccune.com)
1 points by bokonist 17y ago|0 comments
316.
by bokonist 17y ago
From that I conclude that you've probably never done A/B testing and discovered how difficult those deltas are to accurately measure, or discovered how changes upstream waterfall down through your site We've done it before. We've launche
317.
by bokonist 17y ago
We already have teams of 3-4 developers, working on separate projects with minimal interactions. If we didn't do that we would be thrashing. We're aware of the Peopleware/Mythical Man Month issue. But still, I think we could do better. W
318.
by bokonist 17y ago
1) Management and the product team often have some idea of how valuable a certain task is. The dev team is responsible for how long it will take. Often we will invest too much time in something that's not that valuable, since management
319.
by bokonist 17y ago
Suppose 3 UI changes go out. How do you decide how much each increased users? Measure the change in usage for each screen or section of the app that each team worked on. Perhaps one was trying to drop support calls and the other increase
320.
by bokonist 17y ago
Developers have to fix their own bugs regardless, or they are quickly not be developers for our company any more. In this system they have a lot more incentive not to create bugs, because the time it takes to fix them will take away from e
321.
by bokonist 17y ago
Actually, developers under an in-house bounty system have quite an incentive to make maintainable code. For it is very likely that the bounty for next month will be a feature added to the code they are already working on. If the developer
322.
Paying Developers Like Sales People(dev.hubspot.com)
23 points by bokonist 17y ago|27 comments
323.
by bokonist 17y ago
No, that is not true for a smart long term investor. Keynes quote applies to someone making a short term, highly levered play.
324.
by bokonist 17y ago
My personal planned allocation: 15% hand picked dividend stocks ( stuff like SXL, BPL ) 40% dividend stock mutual fund ( DVY) 30% long term bond fund 10% gold 5% treasury money market fund or CD's DVY pays out a 3.9% dividend yield. Divid
325.
by bokonist 17y ago
Over the long term, stocks have higher returns than bonds. What makes you think that is true? We simply do not have enough data to judge. Books like Stocks for the Long Run use incredibly poor methodology, because they left companies
326.
by bokonist 17y ago
I really disagree with this advice. You should always pay attention to the yields when you buy any financial asset. Buying based on rules is silly. If stocks are paying 1.5% yields, and corporate bonds paying 7.5%, as they were in 2000,
327.
by bokonist 17y ago
Secondly, it is very difficult to determine when Gold is relatively "rich" or "cheap", because, unlike all other non-commodity investments that we all invest in, we cannot apply simple discounting math to either Gold is a natural currency
328.
by bokonist 17y ago
You don't save enough in taxes usually to make the risks of munis worth the price of admission. IMO. During the credit crisis in 2008 Munis went DOWN in value, but Treasury Bonds were up almost 30%. That tax savings people thought they had
329.
by bokonist 17y ago
The US Govt. can always print money to pay off creditors. Yes, this would be highly inflationary. Actually, it would be anti-deflationary. The fact that U.S. Govt can print money to pay off creditors is already priced into the price of t
330.
by bokonist 17y ago
Funny, the startup I work for made three of his deadly strategic mistakes, and ended up doing very well. In fact, we believe that selling before the product was ready and not making it self-serve were essential to our success. Sometimes,

More ›