blevo

you make a good point.

I think the 'vibe' is part of the problem. It's somewhat dishonest.

Why do all companies need to be 'family?' Can't we just respect each other as we get the job done and go home to our actual families? The 'company culture' is a ruse to get employees to have loyalty where the company does not reciprocate.

reminds me a bit of the blog post: <https://www.yegor256.com/2015/10/06/how-to-be-good-office-sl...

what the commentor said, may not be true, but you didn't actually make an argument or at least back it up with anything.

as far as I can tell, your comment boils down to 'hiring internal compliance employees/consultants is not a waste.'

but you didn't say anything to back up that the money going to compliance is not a drag. What value does it add to the business? It seems it just prevents catastrophe (legal problems) and has its own costs (termed 'drag') but doesn't add business value as it does not contribute to the USP of product/service to the customer.

Even in your own case, if compliance takes any % of time there is an opportunity cost: you can't work on something that adds to the product/service because that time is spent on compliance.

Does your comment aim to disagree with that?

good point.

I wear my seatbelt everyday when I drive my car because I'm expecting a car accident. Strangely enough, it has yet to happen and I have yet to need my seatbelt. What a waste!

I think I'll just stop wearing it.

RE: Reversing Transactions - I'd call it a necessity for any currency. Cash works this way.

It's a middleman or escrow who performs this service. Credit Cards and banks act as the middlemen to reverse transactions. No reason cryptos can't have those too. I imagine Uphold or Coinbase or whoever can serve this function.

as far as people being thieved I would agree that it is important to shore up computer security. Physical wallets and stashes of cash also are stolen when security is lax. Again, a middleman might play a role to secure, just as banks do for USD/EUR /etc. Giving money to a bank is essentially delegating the protection of your savings. The alternative being a home safe or under a mattress where the security remains the holder's responsibility.

concerning 'controlled by a non-democratic entity'

I'd say it's a step sideways.

The USD or any fiat currency is not controlled democratically or by a democratic entity either. When was the last time we heard of a vote before increasing the money supply of a nation's currency? If there is a vote, it is done by people who have not been democratically elected.

>I think the most important thing is not using Slack or avoiding Slack, it's building a culture that allows people to opt-out of it, without any sort of penalty, perceived or otherwise.

The new book "Indistractable" makes exactly this point. Incidentally it also talks about how the Slack company uses Slack, and this is exactly their point, too.

The book goes on to talk about "Psychological Safety." In this case, defined as the lack of '>any sort of penalty'

How does moderate inflation counter money clustering at the top?

It seems to me that it exacerbates the problem as 'the top' are fixated on assets and inflation tends to inflate those: "The rich get richer."

The working class, on the other hand, faces higher consumer prices with a delay in increasing wages and, having less 'disposable' income, is strongly affected. "and the poor get poorer"

Also, the lower-to-middle class must somehow navigate stocks or some assets in a 401k/IRA just to protect the purchasing power of whatever nestegg they try to grow (whether it's retirement, or putting kids thru college). Can't just keep that money safe in a savings account (paying 0.1%), it will erode.

I suppose it depends on how those programs are funded/achieved. If they are funded via something that acts as monetary stimulus (just print the money to pay for it) then I imagine there would be a heavy burden of resulting inflation.

wages seem to be the last thing that rise with general inflation, and as such don't rise as much as other prices, especially the ones mentioned: housing, schooling.

I think the data bears this out, looking at 'real wages' vs inflation-adjusted cost of housing/schooling.

I could see how other sorts of stimulus would be preferable in this case though. All depends on who gets the benefit of spending new money on old prices.

Going back a comment, it depends on if you got into the loan (school, house) before the inflation. Or locked in a low rate. Always nice to pay back money that's worth much less.

>inflation erodes ... wealth

a good thing?

> inflation has a cause

that was #1 in my comment: monetary stimulus

as for other causes: you are arguing minimum wage benefits the poor but raises prices as does increase in union power. I don't quite follow...

Minimum Wage: It seems you are ignoring ("the forgotten man") workers displaced by minimum wage (and increased barrier to entry of no/low-skill labor). Then arguing that the increased income for those who receive it as a raise either offsets the inevitable price increase in consumer goods or is worth it due to the time it takes for the consumer goods to find equilibrium with the new minimum. You may well say this is preferable to monetary stimulus which the banks and rich receive first and get the benefit of the time it takes for a new equilibrium to be reached.

Union power: benefit to protected union workers, subsidized by all consumers (who must pay the increased price of goods the union effects). this works out to just be special treatment. Granted, some may prefer we treat this class (working-poor, low-middle class) as special as opposed to that class (ie rich, upper-middle class). To each their own.

Am I missing something?

The FED did something different the last recession. The "last 15 years," as you say, have been different because the FED started paying interest on excess reserves. This is the reason for the new money to just sit. It provides incentive NOT to lend, a risk free return for the commercial banks. It has counteracted the loose monetary policy.

this has been the reason we haven't seen the usual price inflation from QE

This same factor (FED giving interest on excess reserves) can also account for profits sitting in reserve.

But I suppose now it seems like I'm arguing both ways... (Inflation! & NOT Inflation!) I'll have to take a step back.

+1 on Elon Musk, or at least the sentiment you described

>implying that moderate consumer inflation somehow helps the rich at the expense of everyone else, when in fact, it's just the opposite.

it is?

so: Moderate consumer inflation helps 'everyone else' at the expense of 'the rich?'

How?

I always figured:

1. inflating the money supply[0] has a usual consequence of price inflation[1].

2. rising prices disproportionately affects the poor who must spend a greater percentage of their income on needed goods.

--- to sum: Monetary Stimulus = highly regressive tax ---

[0] "monetary stimulus"

[1] assets and consumer goods

edited: formatting

I think service for any of these companies is highly variable and dependent upon locale. Perhaps it's a culture thing. The USPS worker never rings my doorbell for left packages and just yesterday a package was delivered damaged in my mailbox. I live in a nice part of town (I think) but the service culture here may be different than where you live (and different than other locales where I've resided).

>paying the competitor

it's a good point, yet many still use Amazon/AWS regardless. Netflix, for instance (AWS). Then, on the micro-scale: FBA[0] sellers (Amazon Marketplace).

I assume it has to do with the ultra low barrier to entry which Amazon/AWS provides. The convenience factor is off the charts. Nevertheless, I assume Netflix has ideations of following in Dropbox's footsteps.[1]

[0] "Fulfilled by Amazon"

[1] abandoning AWS for self-owned dedicated infrastructure

>"strange side-effect"

reminds me of McDonald's single-handedly bringing down the price of beef

hm, being 'more efficient' would be true if the ideal way was known.

Waterfall would also be 'more efficient' if we knew the right product to make and way to make it. If agile has taught us anything it's that we don't know and we can't know. We learn through trial and error and continually innovate. If there is only one company there is no incentive to innovate and discover better efficiencies.

So while the 'logic' is right, the supposition[0] is incorrect.

This is why 'the market' is the best way in practice. We observe an ebb and flow of centralization (Amazon is a good example) and decentralization in various industries. This is caused by innovation and disruption. When one company innovates/disrupts so well and continues to execute it can become a de facto "monopoly," gaining near 100% market share.

When the industry and market are allowed to continue unabated[1] this 'monopoly' can eventually be broken if the company fails to innovate and leaves the industry vulnerable to upstart disruptors. The very possibility means even with 100% market share the company is not a true monopoly, and in practice the consumer benefits from the company's 'existential fear' which motivates it to continue to serve its customers in better and better ways.

[0] knowing the best way [1] assuming the major player(s) doesn't lobby/enact regulations to protect its market/industry position

edited footnote formatting

One may not think in a common language used to communicate (e.g. English) but the way one thinks could be considered a language regardless, only specific to one's own mind.

Take for instance Google's translation AI. It developed its own intermediary language[1] which facilitated translation between languages and enabled it to even translate languages it had not specifically been trained on.[2]

[1]e.g. It had a "word" for dog that wasn't part of any existing language.

[2]e.g. it could translate Spanish -> French even though it was only trained on Spanish -> English and English -> French

to build/combine on two comments in the thread before mine: word position matters in English as you demonstrated. "A dog bit my friend" has different meaning than "My friend bit my dog".

In other languages, differentiating between subject/object is done differently. example: "A doggo bit my friendee" or "My friendo bit a dogee" and you can see the difference. Word order is still somewhat relevant here because I didn't add endings to the verb too, which is commonplace in such languages. When you do that you are able to be far more free with word position:

My Friendee doggo bitto. Bitto My friendee doggo.

In this way it's easier to tell the subject/object difference.[1] To some degree this can be done in English and is exactly what Yoda does: "My friend a dog bit" but that sentence can be either of the ones you gave. Adding a comma may help "My friend, a dog bit" = "A dog bit my friend"

[1] This is exactly what Latin does and as rjf72 mentioned it gives more freedom. Many Latin authors put the verb at the end which gives you a sort of suspense as to just what is happening. In my second example I put the verb up front and the subject at the end which allows me to keep you in suspense as to who did the biting.