eldavido

15 ms·

91.
by eldavido 6y ago
Great comment. They probably are closer than I originally said. I totally agree on your point about professionalization. There might be a legitimate public benefit angle to it. But if you look hard enough, the distinction between a regulate
92.
by eldavido 6y ago
You're probably right. More active antitrust may need to occur via regulation. I'm just very skeptical of the sort of thinking that treats some abstract, not-very-realistic thing called "regulation" as a magic tool to so
93.
by eldavido 6y ago
No! What we need is competition and choice to ensure companies are responsive to what people want. I can't, for the life of me, understand why people think "regulation" will magic away all our problems. Here's what hap
94.
by eldavido 6y ago
I think the whole initiative process is horrible. But. Your answer is right there in the declaration of independence: "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov
95.
by eldavido 6y ago
To some extent, you just need to look at the hard data: promotions and raises. See who's getting them. Whatever they're doing is what's actually rewarded. It sounds cynical but I learned too late that a company's success
96.
by eldavido 6y ago
Because the thread was about unions. Though you're right. I think people who are really big "repeal citizens united" types need to realize that it cuts both ways.
97.
by eldavido 6y ago
Unions bring democracy to the workplace. Democracy ensures some modicum of fairness, but is slow, inefficient, and can lead to very bad outcomes when dealing with highly technical questions. There's probably a place for big, large-scal
98.
by eldavido 6y ago
I was arguing with a doctor friend recently about the AMA. He's on team New York Times, "knows" the Koch brothers are Satan incarnate, "knows" Trump owes Russian oligarchs money, etc. It just didn't register th
99.
by eldavido 6y ago
I never said anything about loans. What I'm suggesting is food stamps. Everybody can pay cash. If you can't, you get government assistance in the form of a cash-like subsidy that can be spent anywhere food is sold. It's a fas
100.
by eldavido 6y ago
I'm less convinced. The NHS, Britain's version of this, is constantly underfunded, and has long wait times for a variety of procedures. The Economist writes about this frequently. https://www.economist.com/britain&
101.
by eldavido 6y ago
The main thing I take on faith is that people are different and one-size fits all solutions don't produce good outcomes. We have different car brands, grocery stores, non-health insurance companies, package delivery companies, retaile
102.
by eldavido 6y ago
It's simple: waste. Everywhere. There is no incentive for doctors to be efficient so they aren't. They order too many supplies, do too many procedures quickly (when doing them slowly would be fine, and cheaper, etc). Price discipl
103.
by eldavido 6y ago
I realized over the past few years that there is no "natural" price for anything. It's 100% set by competition. Economic research confirms this. Mergers result in higher prices due to less competition. What we need is way, wa
104.
by eldavido 6y ago
I see this argument a lot. The trouble is that emergency care isn't what drives the majority of healthcare spend. What does is actually chronic conditions: dialysis, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, chronic weight conditions. That'
105.
by eldavido 6y ago
Also a fiscal conservative, I completely agree single-payer would be much better than what we have now. What I think would be best though, is to eliminate medicare/medicaid, hand people cash, and get out of the way. The high-order prob
106.
by eldavido 6y ago
There are degrees of democracy (as I think your comment rightly points out). Maximum democracy in this case might be, the RFCs are written by anyone, work on features is started when people vote to start it, and there is widely distributed
107.
by eldavido 6y ago
This is a really thoughtful comment. "Process weight" is a good concept I wished more people understand. Building released-to-web software without hardware, big teams, long-term API support, etc. should really have almost no proce
108.
by eldavido 6y ago
One of my best friends was high up in the M1 project (don't want to get too specific, but he works at Apple). I am not surprised about the M1 performance numbers at all. Granted, I have a degree in this area (silicon design) and many f
109.
by eldavido 6y ago
I've given this a lot of thought and pretty much concluded government needs to get out of the retirement game. Not saying this as a libertarian or any kind of principled statement, simply looking at what happens time and again. We need
110.
by eldavido 6y ago
The pensions payouts are simply outrageous. Do the math, you'll see a 60-70% final value pension on 100k salary (60-70k/year) with a 3% cost of living increase (standard in Illinois) is worth 1.8-2.0 million dollars (25 years @ 3.
111.
by eldavido 6y ago
I'm going to nitpick here a bit because I think it demonstrates a larger point. Net neutrality is far from a "technocratic" issue. In many countries, media companies like facebook or Netflix do partnerships with mobile phone
112.
by eldavido 6y ago
"Don't study liberal arts. It's a huge waste of time."
113.
by eldavido 6y ago
Much bigger conversation I'm happy to have off-thread (email me). I agree with everything you've said. I own an apartment building and the rent on a 1BR close to downtown is $875/month. Mind you, this is 2 blocks from a commu
114.
by eldavido 6y ago
Completely agree. Buttigieg (Mayor Pete) talked about this a great deal in his book. As a gay man, he recounted working with Mike Pence (Trump's VP) while Pence was governor of Indiana and he was mayor of South Bend. Talk about two guy
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by eldavido 6y ago
(Author here). I've been surprised that that's generally not the case. Cities spend money on all sorts of things -- their own tax revenues, as well as grants from higher levels of govenment (state and local). If you look at the in
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by eldavido 6y ago
(Original author here) Fight vs. flight. How do you decide? I'm just a bit older than you (36 currently) and haven't figured it out yet. Like, if I think the politics somewhere are a dumpster fire, or to use your analogy, growing
117.
Down to the Suburbs(blog.shortbar.com)
44 points by eldavido 6y ago|78 comments
118.
by eldavido 6y ago
I think it's actually a decent time to buy (saying this as I sit in a commercial building I recently purchased in a south suburb). The tax situation can't get much worse, it's almost mathematically impossible to pay all these
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by eldavido 6y ago
I'm currently building a company in the mold described in this article (slow and steady). So a couple of firsthand observations. First, I think every business has a natural speed. There are some businesses that can be made to grow real
120.
by eldavido 6y ago
At what cost? $50/hr?

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