fbonetti

10 ms·

31.
by fbonetti 7y ago
It’s illegal to build denser housing. It shouldn’t be hard to see why this policy would cause housing prices to skyrocket.
32.
by fbonetti 7y ago
It’s swapping an existing asset (a treasury) for an asset that was created completely out of thin air (reserves). It increases the monetary base. If you don’t believe me, look at the Fed’s own data. https://fred.stlouisfed.org&#x
33.
by fbonetti 7y ago
The Federal Reserve, which is the central bank of the United States, is creating new money in order to purchase US government debt, which is essentially equivalent to the government printing new money in order to finance its own spending. L
34.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> The report’s authors warn that treating the world’s resources as limitless is leading towards global disaster. This is the same fallacy that lead people to fear “peak oil” every decade for the past 50 years. Nobody treats resources as
35.
by fbonetti 7y ago
It’s funny that the author on one hand acknowledges that the government sucks at everything it does, whether it’s education, infrastructure, or health insurance. He also acknowledges that the federal government has a tendency to constantly
36.
by fbonetti 7y ago
These numbers are very misleading. If you at the graph of effective tax rates of the 1% going back to the 1950s, the 1% only paid slightly more in income taxes than they do now (~40% vs ~35%). https://taxfoundation.org/taxes
37.
by fbonetti 7y ago
By the year 2030, the amount of fine print and opt-ins at the top of each website - in order to comply with every state and country's bespoke data regulations - will be larger than the warnings on cigarette packs.
38.
by fbonetti 7y ago
I find it pretty disturbing (and hilarious) how much the hive mind sentiment has shifted on HN. I remember back in 2013 when Snowden blew the whistle on government surveillance the overwhelming majority of HN users expressed the opinion tha
39.
by fbonetti 7y ago
That already exists. You’re describing mortgage-backed securities broken into tranches.
40.
by fbonetti 7y ago
There’s a difference between being the dominant player in an industry and having a monopoly. Consumers overwhelmingly prefer Google because it’s the best search engine, period. The second that changes, users will switch to something else. R
41.
by fbonetti 7y ago
Why don’t you just check out the numerous other historical examples of rent control and see how they turned out.
42.
by fbonetti 7y ago
Are you willing to pay to use a search engine? How much?
43.
by fbonetti 7y ago
From Blue Apron's SEC filing: > We have experienced net losses in each year since our inception. In the years ended December 31, 2014, 2015 and 2016, we incurred net losses of $(30.8) million, $(47.0) million and $(54.9) million, re
44.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> I'm probably missing something, but I think the company is going down and they're pulling an exit scam. AirBnB is doing fine. They've posted healthy profits for the past few years, which is more than can be said of nearl
45.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> Fannie and Freddie do not buy subprime loans, subprime stays in the private market. I'm not sure where you got that idea. Fannie and Freddie exist for the explicit purpose of making mortgages more accessible to people who would ot
46.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> The moment it's possible to sell the mortgages on, that incentive is removed. It's not. Investors in the secondary market don't want to buy shitty subprime loans. The only reason lenders originate these awful loans is be
47.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> Growing food has turned into an engineering problem where people think you solve it by investing the least possible resources into it. This is not a bad thing. Food is so abundant that globally, more people are obese than underweight.
48.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> "More housing" does not automatically translate to "affordable housing" Imagine two hypothetical cites, each with one million residents. The first one has half a million apartments, while the second one has ten mill
49.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> That's why I’ve proposed banning the “dark patterns” that feed tech addiction. Further proof that both Republicans and Democrats are the party of big government these days.
50.
by fbonetti 7y ago
They're trying to wield the power of the government to ensure that none of their competitors will be able to survive. It's the same reason why some big companies, like Amazon, are lobbying to increase the federal minimum wage, see
51.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> We have incurred operating losses in the past, expect to incur operating losses in the future, and may not achieve or maintain profitability in the future > We have incurred operating losses each year since our inception in 2012, in
52.
by fbonetti 7y ago
The fact that you feel like you’re “under the thumb” of companies that provide a majority of their software products for free is really a testament to how wealthy the market has made us.
53.
by fbonetti 7y ago
Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer for free into its operating system, whereas Netscape Navigator was not free at the time. This was deemed "unfair" because Navigator was Netscape's flagship product, so if users were given a
54.
by fbonetti 7y ago
It's funny that you mention supermarkets, because the A&P grocery store chain was from 1915 to 1975 the largest grocery retailer in the US. At its peak in the 1940s, A&P captured 10% of total US grocery spend. It too came under
55.
by fbonetti 7y ago
Yahoo "owned" the net not that long ago, now they're completely irrelevant. Microsoft "owned" the browser market with Internet Explorer not that long ago, now people cringe when they have to use IE. MySpace was at o
56.
by fbonetti 7y ago
You’re confusing “contract rent” (an amount paid on a recurring basis for the temporary use of goods, services, or property) with “economic rent” (an amount that is paid on top of the “natural” price due to a distortion in the market). Rent
57.
by fbonetti 7y ago
There are tons of regular businesses available for sale (laundromats, car washes, hotels, bars, etc.). You could buy one and hire people to run it for you.
58.
by fbonetti 7y ago
PredictIt was pretty fun for me until I bet ~$250 on Hillary in 2016. I haven't touched binary options since then.
59.
by fbonetti 7y ago
I have a total of four rental units. In the past year, I've been called out to fix something three times. Each issue took about 15 minutes to resolve. I could have hired a handyman for these jobs but it was cheaper and quicker to do it
60.
by fbonetti 7y ago
> More available housing would also create more demand, no? By that logic, I could build a massive apartment tower in the middle of nowhere and people would flock to live there. China tried that - it didn't work. https://

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