> These (smart) people can use their time and skills towards more productive stuff.
But if society really believes that their smartness could have been used better, why aren't they paid for doing "more productive stuff" than crypto? These people did crypto because it paid the most. Therefore, at the time, it must mean that it is most productive to do crypto.
I guess society is not optimized for max productivity. As a group, society makes many resource allocation mistakes and (hopefully) corrects them later on.
Fe. society might have been better off investing in nuclear energy in the past 30 years, yet it did not and it s starting to look as a mistake.
Circumstances play a role too. My opinion is that if it had not been for the pandemic and the economic anomalies that happened way fewer people would have paid attention to crypto.
In Romania it varies, but you get a better deal (small discount or get a parking spot, better orientation etc.) when you pay down 20-40% of the price before construction starts so many buyers go for it.
Waiting until the construction is finished usually means many units are sold (the good ones).
It also depends on the builder’s reputation of course, if it’s a big name they can charge more in advance.
IMO it sucks a bit for the buyer as delays are quite often and hard to attack in court.
It also attracts speculators who sign the pre-contract just to sell for a profit when the units are delivered.
Too young to understand what happened in the 2008 GFC but I doubt the 'feeling prepared' part works like this. First of all, the recessions tend to last longer than most people expect/plan for. Statistically, it will turn out their 'secure' jobs will be less 'secure' than expected. Meanwhile their emergency funds will start shrinking (slowly at first, then all at once) due to loss of purchasing power & eventual job loss.
However, I'm optimistic on the long term because I think only recessions can correct the (massive) mis-allocation of capital that we experienced the past decade due to ultra-low interest rates.
This seems too pessimistic without knowing specifics about the original commenter’s situation.
I have no debt, a fully paid off house, and plenty of cash which has left me feeling confident about any upcoming recession.
Could I get fired from my well-paying job tomorrow, the recession lasts for 5 years, and the food supply runs out so we all starve to death? Sure, but it’s probably not worth calling out.
I was in college during the 2008 recession and fully supporting myself. I was able to get by with less than I have now because I didn’t have a ton of debt.
But you just responded point by point with non-sequiturs.
I made a comparison between 2007 and now, while you just stated ignorance of the past and made pessimistic assertions of my ability to estimate relative security.
Meanwhile you hold a belief like, "the future will be good because capital will be allocated better"
I made pessimistic assertions of the people's ability in general to estimate relative security.
I hold the belief that the LONG term future will be good because capital will be allocated better.
Do not see the conflict between these 2 statements. Also I was 17 in 2007, not sure if it's called ignorance but I didn't understand much of the economic environment at the time.
That sounds a bit rude, but I'll try to answer anyway. No, I don't have the statistics at hand but I think we can agree that a lot of people go through financial hardship during a recession - basically what a recession means.
What part of my comment do you disagree with exactly? That people, in general, overestimate their financial security and capacity to overcome recessions?
> First of all, the recessions tend to last longer than most people expect/plan for. Statistically, it will turn out their 'secure' jobs will be less 'secure' than expected. Meanwhile their emergency funds will start shrinking (slowly at first, then all at once) due to loss of purchasing power & eventual job loss.
Those predictions are not supported by the data, and are distinct from your description of them. I disagree with your implied statistics and sloppy use of words. I am skeptical that you can forecast the length of the recession, job loss, or changes in consumer behavior.
Yes, my 'statistics' were implied. I've always seen HN as a place where people can write their opinions even if they're not backed by official statistics.
This is not the St. Louis FED website. My opinion is that recessions are worse than people expect because if they weren't people would see right through them and keep the money flowing (spending/investing).
> I disagree with your implied statistics and sloppy use of words.
No problem if you disagree, it would be nice if you elaborate your point though.
What exactly do you expect from a recession? What does your data say?
I'd also like to point out that Economics is not really an exact science, even with a ton of data at hand the predictions that economists make are wrong quite often. Specially during the past 2-3 years predictions have been quite bad - fiscal/monetary stimulus doesn't add much to inflation, if it does it will be transitory etc. That's one of the reasons we're in this mess.
I'm old enough to remember 2008 and several other recessions as well, and "feeling prepared" works exactly like that. Not all jobs are secure during a recession, but job security is relative--and often knowable. Emergency savings are something few people actually have, and can make a world of difference when times are hard.
On the other hand, there is no guarantee whatsoever that capital will be better allocated after a downturn. After all, 2008 came post-2001, and here we are post-2008, with capital as misallocated as ever!
I'm at a VC-funded, private company (too mature and big to be a "startup" anymore). I hear my coworkers talk about how we're all safe because the company won't go away and is profitable, but that's not always how it works.
Very few jobs are truly secure ever. Your company can avoid being impacted by the macroeconomic situation of a particular recession or financial crisis, but that doesn't mean you won't be fired or laid off or need to quit your job, then find a new one in a less than great job market.
I've been through layoffs at more economically sound companies where the leadership decided something had to be done to mollify shareholder anxiety about the larger economic situation. I've been through layoffs at companies where the writing was on the wall (especially in retrospect).
I worked with somebody who developed a major health problem during our time as coworkers. He had to quit because he couldn't do the work until that was squared away. It took him years to be well enough to work again, and by then he needed to live near family in a lower wage/higher cost of living area that still scrambled his financial plans.
Most of us have worked at a company where a new boss came in, and some people just didn't get along with them or didn't see eye-to-eye on whatever or otherwise couldn't work there anymore. Or where there's a reorg and suddenly the work isn't a match anymore.
Everyone should be prepared at any time. If fear of recession gets folks thinking about that, great. But they should do it regardless.
> On the other hand, there is no guarantee whatsoever that capital will be better allocated after a downturn. After all, 2008 came post-2001, and here we are post-2008, with capital as misallocated as ever!
I think the mis-allocation is due to rates not rising fast enough after the crisis is over. Terrifyingly fast to drop and equally terrifying (in retrospect) how slow they rise.
Unfortunately, recessions tend to shift wealth up even more these days, partially because of government bailouts, but also because of stock puts and shorting
IMO at some point these sorts of disaster scenario thought experiments wind up in a place where if it happens, we're all pretty screwed anyways.
Do I have sufficient funds to survive for a while in a typical recessionary environment? Yes. If the shit really hits the fan, markets crash to next to nothing, real estate craters, etc and this lasts for multiple years well yeah. I'm in trouble. But that'll be true of just about everyone and we're probably looking at general societal collapse at that point.
I didn't paint it as a disaster scenario. Having no emergency funds doesn't mean one will starve.
Just to give some examples of a recession being worse that one expects:
- I might need to sell my 4-bedroom house and move into a smaller house because I can't afford mortgage;
- I might need to skip vacations this year because I got a pay cut;
- I have to sell my car and use public transport because I need money and gas is too expensive anyway;
IMO these are situations people are not generally anticipating or prepared for.
What does "statistically" mean here? Even if unemployment jumps to double digits, which hasn't happened in the US since 1982, that means 93.6% of working people (0.9 / 0.961 to not inadvertently count people who are already unemployed) will continue being able to work. That's a near worst-case scenario that seems pretty damn statistically secure to me.
If you're the 1 in 10 or 12 without a job, it's obviously personally impactful and stressful to you.
It's also worth bearing in mind that when unemployment is high, there are many companies that stop or slow hiring, sticking with current staff. Many fewer are hiring at all. If there is 10% unemployment, you'd expect the number of available jobs to shrink by much more than 10% vs full employment. Losing your job compounds because finding a new one at all or at least a new one that pays the same can be harder.
Recessions are largely unequal in impact. Those who are prepared and/or who don't lose their jobs generally come out OK. Those who get laid off with no backup options are the ones who get screwed.
Predicting the future is always challenging. But preparing for a range of unknown outcomes is often doable.
Maybe we have different definitions of posh, but 5k gets you very far in East Europe capitals. That’s a lot of money that can get you 6+ bedroom villas in downtown Bucharest.
At 40USD you got 'scammed', even with the meter, as the regular price should not go over 20$. Up until ~2016 the airport taxi business was the wild west, with a lot of shady/unauthorized drivers operating there. Things got much better now, unauthorized cabs can't access the Arrivals area, there are machines to order an authorized cab and authorities clamped down on the use of buggy taxi meters.
Matt says ‘According to Healthy Babies Bright Futures, baby formula made by the big guys in the U.S. is full of dangerous brain-altering heavy metals. HBBF tested thirteen different baby formulas, and every single one had “detectable levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and/or mercury,” which are all considered to be neurotoxic, interfering with brain development and “causing permanent IQ reductions in children.”’.
Rather unscientific heavy breathing about heavy metals, since some level must exist in all foods. Matt even links to a mommyhood101.com article in the above, which I guess is the secondary source for his opinion?
The question is: what are reasonable limits to exposure for babies? For example, what are the EU limits for baby formula?
Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) paid laboratories to measure amounts, but superficially their analysis looks rather poor I think. Any good links to scientific critiques of their analysis?
> The question is: what are reasonable limits to exposure for babies? For example, what are the EU limits for baby formula?
Maybe the question I'd ask is "if you sample milk from 100 different human volunteers, what fraction of the samples also contain detectable levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and/or mercury?"
I do think that doing analysis of household chemicals and publishing the results is a great idea. A consumer-testing company did some great ad-hoc analysis of sunscreens and found higher-than-acceptable levels of benzene, leading to widespread recalls, which I thought was awesome: https://www.valisure.com/valisure-newsroom/valisure-detects-.... Still confused about how they plan to make money from this (maybe they could lobby the government to mandate that labs like theirs must do testing on certain consumer products?). Also still confused about this led to regulatory action against them: https://www.consumerreports.org/product-safety/valisure-foun....
Some people in this space publish consumer advisory articles saying "we measured <X> in <Y> and found some <X>" and don't list a safe PPM, or their reasoning, and it's very tough to know what to do with this information. There's often extraordinarily little evidence about how much <X> is bad for you and sometimes we only get the evidence years after people have had hunches that it's not so good. (trans fats? https://www.vox.com/2015/6/17/8793937/why-fda-banned-trans-f... )
So it's tough to know what to do when the pesticide-in-food people publish an analysis which "does not incorporate risk assessment into the calculations. All pesticides are weighted equally, and we do not factor in the levels deemed acceptable by the EPA." (https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php).
I guess this is one reason to have a doctor and a pediatrician you trust -- because part of their job is to sift through the latest available information and have reasonable heuristics about safety and risks.
The AAP and CDC agree that there are no safe levels of lead for children.
> Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement. [1]
Human milk contains varying amounts relative to the producer's diet and exposure. It seems that the mean is in line with the formula's on Healthy Babies Bright Future's report on page 23. The upper range is concerning, especially considering that those impacted are already most likely to be in an environment with high heavy metal exposure.
> The World Health Organization
(WHO) has indicated that the mean and range of
these toxic metals detected in breast milk around
the world are: Pb (Lead) 5.0 ppb (0.0-41.1 ppb), Hg (Mercury) 2.7
ppb (0.64-257.1 ppb), and Cd (Cadmium) 0.1 ppb (0.1-3.8 ppb) [2]
My pediatrician minimized my concerns about heavy metal exposure through food until after the Congressional oversight hearing and encouraged me to avoid use of rice cereal. The information was out there, but she was following AAP recommendations on diet.
I was really grateful for the publication by Healthy Babies Bright Futures. In the beginning, I was buying organic and newer brands, but realized Gerber generally had lower heavy metal concentrations in their samples when compared to competitors.
Did you consider finding another pediatrician whose view of the data better align with yours?
There is a whole bunch of stuff that has changed over time -- for example the fairly recent view that evidence now weakly supports swim lessons at a young age to prevent drowning -- and I really don't know how to keep up with this, other than by talking to a bunch of friends who are MDs and tracking their own choices vs. the data I see.
I read about it on HN some months ago. I don’t recall if it was in comments or an article. But I read the info and sources and was convinced enough at the time. I’m sorry I didn’t save the original info. I’ll try some googling “geolocation from SMS” and see what I can find.
That’s not what I’m talking about. And since number portability and mobile devices became possible, area codes are mostly irrelevant. For example, I’ve lived 2000 miles from the area code of my phone number for probably 10 years now.
Greek here, mobile phones are non-geographic but used to be service provider specific, but even this practice isn't applicable due to number portability.
Landlines used to be geographic but this isn't relevant any more again new to number portability.
I read about it on HN some months ago. I don’t recall if it was in comments or an article. But I read the info and sources and was convinced enough at the time. I’m sorry I didn’t save the original info. I’ll try some googling “geolocation from SMS” and see what I can find.
Only somewhat I think; miners actually do have such control, and could be coerced into sanctions; it's just that no one has successfully done that (or kept quiet about it).
You can imagine outlawing processing some crypto transactions in some area. Miners have no choice but to comply, leading to at least a fork and massive confusion, at most to actual enforcement of the rule.
Blockchains may be censorship-resistant, but humans are not rubber hose resistant.
> You can imagine outlawing processing some crypto transactions in some area. Miners have no choice but to comply, leading to at least a fork and massive confusion, at most to actual enforcement of the rule.
It is not a geo-location issue. The enforcement measures in question either manage to control 50% of the hashrate or they don't. If they don't, the protocol will ignore their censorship. Yes, they could continue mining a minority fork chain, but you would need to convince Bitcoin-users and services to use the fork instead of the uncensored version. You could imagine this being done by force: ISPs block the download of the software, exchanges no longer trade it etc.
The point is merely: <50%, the power is not with the miners at all; it is the users that need to be controlled.
> That’s actually a good point and Bitcoin/crypto solves this.
For now. Governments are catching on, and since the transactions are public, they can (and are putting the building blocks in place now) easily apply the same regulations to international bitcoin transactions as they do traditional money transfers.
Basically, folks today are taking advantage of a blind spot in government oversight. They're aware of it and are removing that blind spot.
I heard an analogy at one point - governments are elephants. It's usually pretty easy to avoid being stomped on when you're small. But if you do get stomped on, you'll be utterly destroyed. Many governments have no problems with making examples of people.
NFTs are already centralized and primarily used as scams. If your non-scam NFT is blocked by OpenSea, it might as well not exist for the purposes of selling and re-selling.
Where NFTs are not used for scams, they're being implemented in a proprietary blockchain and used as a method of extracting more money from customers with no new benefits (it's not like customers can re-sell their NFTs; see: proprietary blockchain).
The only thing I potentially see as valuable from web3 is cryptographic customer identification - but this is something we've had for years (client certs), but which never took off. I don't see how "web3" will change that.
None of them are scams. I know many people who work on other NFT projects which aren't scam as well.
They are all on public blockchains, perfectly functional with relatively healthy communities.
I think you are cherry picking the scam projects by using the word "primarily". We hate scam projects just as much as you do, they damage the reputation and trust of whole ecosystem.
People can collect and trade items of virtually any kind that virtually represent anything digitally. They can also be programmed to perform tasks to do anything on the chain.
Basically it's creating a whole new platform that isn't controlled by anyone and everyone can contribute to it as a user or a contributor (NFT creator, contract designer etc) to suit different use cases.
Just because some actors use it to scam obviously doesn't mean that the whole ecosystem is bad.
There’s real benefit when we consider the amount of man-hours spent the past years on trying to reinvent finance, with little success so far.
These (smart) people can use their time and skills towards more productive stuff.