gottorf

40 ms·

601.
by gottorf 3y ago
Yes, antitrust enforcement has really been lacking for decades; though it seems as of late, big mergers have been struck down, so perhaps there's a counterswing in the works.
602.
by gottorf 3y ago
> except for very specific situations. For example, when health or safety is threatened (lack of food, shelter, health care, for example) or to prevent extortion or exploitation. Even when health or safety is threatened, price controls d
603.
by gottorf 3y ago
> The report casts serious doubt on the need for further interest rate hikes, and instead calls for stronger policies to rein in “corporate profiteering”. Let's make money artificially cheap again and involve the government more in
604.
by gottorf 3y ago
The "net worth" of the mega-rich, at least in the US, is basically just the number of shares they hold in whatever company they founded multiplied by the price per share at any given moment. It's completely fake and has nothi
605.
by gottorf 3y ago
> One person can now buy/exert even more monstrous political power and influence over the media than before People say that, but if that were true, we would have a President Bloomberg sitting in the White House now, with perhaps a K
606.
by gottorf 3y ago
Your 401(k) is probably set up to invest in what's known as a target-date fund, where you pick a year (often rounded to the nearest one divisible by 5) you want to retire, and the fund manager allocates among various risk asset classes
607.
by gottorf 3y ago
This depends on what he means by "used". It could be that it's an English name he goes by, which is perfectly laudable, albeit from an unusual source. I doubt the USCIS officer wrote that down as his legal name on official do
608.
by gottorf 3y ago
> a novel-length version of rayiner's rants Classic HN ;-)
609.
by gottorf 3y ago
> are you implying that Mao was 'good people'? No; Mao was a dictator, and the country suffered so much under him that there was an informal agreement between the leaders of the country after him that power should be distribute
610.
by gottorf 3y ago
> but don't see the ghost it unleashes > people usually assume there are no costs to regulation, and only benefit This is an under-emphasized point. So often, well-meaning laws and regulations achieve some kind of visible social
611.
by gottorf 3y ago
> The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers. > expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced Would they have? There exists a mechanism to amend the Constitution, and it seems rea
612.
by gottorf 3y ago
> but also have a reliable means to remove them from power if they act in bad faith. That answers your concern -- that's a reduction in the power of government. The worst possible person being in charge is OK if that person cannot u
613.
by gottorf 3y ago
> Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another. Absolutely! An
614.
by gottorf 3y ago
I don't know where that linked dataset is from, but almost every claim I've seen for the LCoE of wind/solar being lower than any fossil fuel source excludes the cost of energy storage. Latest estimates[0] put solar and wind r
615.
by gottorf 3y ago
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear: I'm advocating for the increased ability of humans to harness more energy per capita, not that increased actual consumption of energy per capita is always a good thing (though I'd say the
616.
by gottorf 3y ago
Most humans on Earth walk all day, every day, even when they really don't want to, because there isn't an alternative. Almost all of that subset yearn to go to developed countries that don't require them to walk in the rain o
617.
by gottorf 3y ago
> There still one good choice, just use less power. All of civilization has basically been about allowing higher per capita energy usage. To say "just use less power" means going to a lower level of human development. If our go
618.
by gottorf 3y ago
> there's a ton of misinformation being actively spread. Considering the debacle that was the Energy Secretary's 650-mile EV road trip[0], perhaps the misinformation isn't quite that. It doesn't matter if you can go 1
619.
by gottorf 3y ago
> The biggest issues for getting from 10% to ~50% are communication, price, and availability. I would simplify this down to just price. Price is a signaling mechanism in the market, which takes care of both communication and availability
620.
by gottorf 3y ago
> “the economy” can usually just be translated to mean “rich people’s yacht money” Mississippi, one of the poorest US states and one widely panned for having "backwards" economic policies (meaning low levels of redistributive t
621.
by gottorf 3y ago
And France has the highest government expenditure as a percent of GDP among the developed world, at >58% as of last count[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...
622.
by gottorf 3y ago
> making up ~20% of the total power generation of the country > I think they will be fine What? 20% is a lot. It'd be a big deal if somebody asked me to phase out 20% of my income, for example. It seems like the opposite of sensi
623.
by gottorf 3y ago
That was infernal indeed, but the rest of it still needs a ton of work. Accidentally double-click on a link? Goodbye, session!
624.
by gottorf 3y ago
Sounds like you're in a good position to make a lot of people's dreams come true: could you make the TreasuryDirect webapp not so terrible to use? :-)
625.
by gottorf 3y ago
I know you jest, but really, thank you -- assuming the bit where you told the dealer is actually real. ;-)
626.
by gottorf 3y ago
It sounds like the USN and Royal Navy have been busy shooting down the drones that the Houthi militants have been using to target commercial shipping[0]. A major part of why the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. [0]: https:&#
627.
by gottorf 3y ago
Education levels != education standards. Consider that GPAs have been going up over time[0], so much so that nearly 80% of all grades at Harvard in recent years were As and A-s. [0]: https://mises.org/power-market/grade
628.
by gottorf 3y ago
> But these kids will get better, same as we did. Education standards in America has been falling no matter which way you look at it. That will have to reverse first.
629.
by gottorf 3y ago
> but immigrants purposely encouraged to come to america with a false promise of "opportunity" In other words, a profit motive on the part of those immigrants. They desired to make their lives better. That the opportunities wer
630.
by gottorf 3y ago
Capital gains are taxed like ordinary income, except long-term capital gains, which have lower rates because we as a society decided that it's overall beneficial to encourage investment into productive capacity. You could argue that ma

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