bwd

9 ms·

31.
by bwd 17y ago
"In government, for example, a 'should-have-known-it' blame game is played after every tragedy." This statement, and the later explanation of "misleading or insignificant" information that can't be sorted from actual signal is one of the be
32.
by bwd 17y ago
I think the Europeans have problems just as bad as the Americans, but it looks different because of national organization. Most of the problems in America are in California, Florida, and Nevada. If these were separate countries rather tha
33.
by bwd 17y ago
Bubbles are inevitable. The United States experienced a huge one less than ten years ago in the equity markets. The bubble isn't the crisis, leverage is the crisis. The real lesson from the events of the last two years is not that you ha
34.
by bwd 17y ago
I have recently begun experimenting with Adderall (under dr. supervision of course). My symptoms don't seem to be as bad as others' but I do have problems with planning and problems with executing a plan without getting distracted once I'v
35.
by bwd 17y ago
"This division of labor has, rather than increased productivity and decreased cost, in fact increased cost due to monetary waste at each exchange." I find this argument to internally contradict itself in light of the fact that Western natio
36.
by bwd 17y ago
This is pretty much what happened to the investment banks and GSEs too.
37.
by bwd 17y ago
The duration of alimony is probably very dependent on the state. One example that I am aware of is that alimony is typically paid for half the duration of the marriage. If his new wife is beyond that period, then she may only be receiving
38.
by bwd 17y ago
Not correct, the taxes are actually paid by the receiver and not the payer. If the receiver is in a lower tax bracket, then they pay taxes at that rate. This is basically all factored in to the process of setting alimony by the courts, so
39.
by bwd 17y ago
I believe some states even stop alimony at the advent of cohabitation of the supported party with another.
40.
by bwd 17y ago
I suspect that homogeneity and culture explain why they didn't blow all of their oil money in boom times like other oil producing nations. I wish Americans could see the same type of restraint in their politicians.
41.
by bwd 17y ago
I don't really agree with this analysis. I expect that the 2008 oil shock was the Gavrilo Princip of the current financial crisis. The amount of debt was certainly at unsustainable levels, but it seems possible that things could have cont
42.
by bwd 17y ago
Check out the Wikipedia article on the Securities Act of 1933: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_Act_of_1933 The SEC publication on rule 144 is also pretty accessible to people who are not lawyers and do not work in the securities i
43.
by bwd 18y ago
Nice idea, but they're already one step ahead of you: you can leave if you want but you still have to pay taxes.
44.
by bwd 18y ago
I'd really like to know what the hacker news community thinks of this letter. I was recently employed by a large investment bank in a situation similar to that described by the letter writer: working in a profitable business that was overs
45.
by bwd 18y ago
There is a difference between "highly competent" and someone who has a Phd in Physics or a degree in quantitative finance. The majority of these positions on Wall Street are filled with Indians and Chinese because not enough Americans are
46.
by bwd 18y ago
A couple of points to consider here. First, for all of the people who think that AIG should have gone bankrupt: go look at www.aig.com under "individuals and families" to see what lines of business AIG is in, then check out the "insurance h
47.
by bwd 18y ago
I don't think the investment banks will be back for a while because all of the action is moving to smaller firms. There will be a shakeout in the hedge fund industry, but there will continue to be successful firms that do very well. Belie
48.
by bwd 18y ago
I'm not sure how morality plays into the mistake. A lot of people deluded themselves into believing that housing prices would never go down. Some people did that because they worked for investment banks and wanted to earn large profits on
49.
by bwd 18y ago
Reconfiguring the American banking system to look like the Canadian model seems excessive. The current problems were caused by a bug in the financial system regulations: banks and people who purchased real estate were permitted to use too
50.
by bwd 18y ago
"...in the 1930s the economies outside the US were unaffected" Perhaps you should read the Wikipedia article on the great depression paying careful attention to the section on effects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_great_depression#Effe
51.
by bwd 18y ago
In addition to being "traditional" an 80/20 mortgage is a good risk for the bank, which is probably why it is traditional. If it had not been possible to get "no money down" loans and to extract 100% of equity from a property through refin
52.
Japan’s Big-Works Stimulus Is Lesson for U.S. (nytimes.com)
17 points by bwd 18y ago|7 comments
53.
by bwd 18y ago
Deleveraging and conservative restructuring may work for a commercial bank, but not the hybrid commercial and investment banks that we're talking about here. These companies are involved in many diverse business lines and, bungling in the
54.
by bwd 18y ago
There's a much simpler explanation: the collapse of subprime mortgages forced people to confront the fact that there is way too much leverage in the economy. Too many people and companies owe money that they won't be able to pay back. The
55.
by bwd 18y ago
Who decides what is useless? If I compare the enjoyment that I receive from having an iPod and being able to listen to any song I own at pretty much any time I feel like it against the amount of labor that I performed in order to acquire i
56.
Roosevelt and government spending during the great depression.(nytimes.com)
2 points by bwd 18y ago|0 comments
57.
by bwd 18y ago
It seems like "buy a media company" = "jump the shark" for manufacturing companies. Does anybody have any good exceptions to this rule of thumb?
58.
by bwd 18y ago
So let me get this straight: we have this little problem here where a bunch of people borrowed money to buy houses and lifestyles that they couldn't afford and the resulting debt has choked up our financial system. Now it seems like a good
59.
by bwd 18y ago
When the junk bond/leveraged buyout strategy started, it was a reaction to the fact that corporate managers who had lived through the great depression were too risk averse when it came to balance sheet debt, along with the fact that there i
60.
The other shoe...(nytimes.com)
1 points by bwd 18y ago|0 comments

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