bsbechtel

Government, and even individual administrations contradict themselves all the time, not unlike the rest of us, but sadly to the detriment of the Rule of Law and the Citizens subject to those laws.

The Obama Administration began with a bailout of the American auto industry, and here seven years later, it is pouring billions of dollars into self-driving vehicles that could disrupt that same industry. I'm sure there are examples to be found in every administration (and Congress) before Obama, all the way to the First Congress.

IMHO, I'm really glad that a judge decided to rule in a way that says the Government cannot contradict itself. I wish it happened more often.

>>If anything, we've seen recent evidence that SV salaries are "deflated" compared to other industries and areas of the country, due to collusion, frequent targeted hiring of very young, often naive grad, inflated time at work, etc.

Conversely, they're also being propped up by the massive amount of VC money at play there, which is driving an arms race for programming talent not seen elsewhere around the country. I'm not saying you're wrong about your point about collusion, but there are multiple factors at play there.

>>is that as IoT devices become more and more ubiquitous, I'll probably still end up with some kind of quasi-surveillance garbage in my house

You mean like Google and Facebook with the web?

Agreed. It's unfortunate that's not working out so well for Snowden right now.

Distribution of power is a very, very difficult concept for people to grasp. I feel like if there was a better way to educate people about the consequences of misplaced power in our society, we wouldn't be facing many of the problems we have today.

Well if someone from the perceived establishment presents an analysis saying the establishment's thinking is flawed, wouldn't their own analysis be questionable, given they are a part of the group they are claiming has flawed thinking?

I'd argue he's part of the 'establishment' he's purporting to analyze from the outside, however.

Not trying to downplay your point, but I think the fundamental technologies have more or less stayed the same during this time frame. I think what has changed has been the tools that help you better organize and work with those technologies.

I would add to that that, if you are the sole owner of a business, once that business generates enough cash to live on, the excess earnings gives you much more financial flexibility and options than a venture backed startup would. Typically, the founders have to wait 3-5 years before getting any money out of the business in a venture backed startup, but if you are the sole owner, you can choose to keep 100% of your earnings for your own personal pleasure, reinvest 100% of your earnings at your current rate of return (generally 1.5-2x for young companies), or choose somewhere in between. I think a lot of young entrepreneurs don't realize how valuable that flexibility really is, especially once you get married and have kids.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. For complex cases, a medical diagnosis would order a battery of tests in that first 15 minute consultation. Then, a different group of healthcare specialists would spend several hours running requested tests, and send the results back to the original Doctor. This would be the equivalent to the programmer setting up and running a number of tests to learn more about the program, which would take several hours of the programmer's time. The only difference between programming and medicine is that testing and diagnosis is done by the same person with programming.

From my parent comment:

The design of a case law system however, which the U.S. operates under, is intended to minimize fuzziness by looking at case precedent for guidance on issues moving forward.

Aren't we in agreement?

I think my comment was misinterpreted. Our legal system is a part of our government, which is a representative democracy. Part of the idea behind a representative democracy is that it is designed to protect the minority from majority mob rule. By definition, edge cases are cases that fall outside of the normal majority. Our legal system is fuzzy because it is operated by humans, not silicon.

The design of a case law system however, which the U.S. operates under, is intended to minimize fuzziness by looking at case precedent for guidance on issues moving forward. So in a sense, case law is intended to be the legal equivalent of mathematical proofs in the courtroom. Obviously this analogy isn't 100% correct, but the main reason it can't be is because of the thousands of edge cases that come up in real life...edge cases that are minority cases intended to be protected by representative democracy, but the case law legal system has difficulty actually doing so because of the design of the case law system. See the conflict? Completely lost yet?

The fact that courts don't have ways to handle edge cases is a huge problem with our case law style legal system.

Yes, this looks similar to what I was thinking....basically employers are paying what would otherwise be a government expense to provide federal benefits to these individuals, so those employers are saving the government money. I don't have time to research now, but I would be curious to learn if the program is successful - is it revenue neutral? How much of a credit do employers get? etc...

Could you link to what you're referring to so I can understand better? I think we are talking about different things. The tax credit would go to the employer, not the individual. Based on your statement, i think you are talking about the UK version of the EITC?

Not the same thing. The tax credit I'm talking about goes to the employer. Right now, we just tax the employer (or the wealthy owners of the business) and redistribute. Let's cut out the middleman that's the government, and not tax employers who pay their employees up to the poverty level.

So in addition to $12,000 a year from the government, someone could borrow from lenders and never pay it back?

I feel like there would be a number of arbitrage opportunities that would become available as well, though it's late and I can't think of any off of the top of my head. How it affects the currency exchange markets would be interesting as well. IMHO, a better option would be to provide Tax credits to employers for each employee's pay up to the poverty line. If employers don't pay poverty level wages, the government is stepping in with federal benefits. A tax credit is a more efficient transfer mechanism than the current system as well, but still encourages some sort of productivity.

There are many, many metrics in the startup/tech industry that are discussed for running a successful company. Marginal productivity increase/employee is not, and never has been, one of them. Then again, maybe that's why layoffs are taking place.

No idea....I just figured there might be some info on HN about it and decided to search there. Thought it at least might be a start on finding info on the subject :)

Is this it? It was the first hit on HN Search.

http://venomousporridge.com/post/30043951343/is-a-federated-...

Your points are not completely unreasonable, but there is more to consider. I agree with you about wasting tax dollars on military affairs in foreign countries, but at least those expenditures are (theoretically) temporary.

Consider that many other countries, mainly in Europe, have managed to put in place a single-payer healthcare system over the last 20-30 years. In the time span of governments and the legal system, this is the blink of an eye. Again, consider statistically that eventually someone incompetent is going to be put in place running one of these systems. This happens in government, and it happens in the private sector (how many firms are in the S&P 500 from 20 years ago?). The difference in the private sector is, when failure happens, individuals are free to choose a competing option, and are not forced to continue to pay for the failing one. I'm sure you've heard the lines about how competition in free markets (truly free, not highly regulated insurance) drive down prices too.

Consider also that no benefit system has lasted longer than a generation and been successfully managed by a federal-level government. The closest we have is Social Security, which is well on it's way to bankruptcy here in the U.S.

Furthermore, the great majority of what are considered good single-payer healthcare systems have been implemented in countries with Parliamentary Style Governments. What this means is when the party in power is no longer doing it's job, the citizens or opposing party can vote them out, more or less ASAP. The difference with this and our Constitutional Style Government is that if we elect the wrong person, or they put the wrong person in charge of our healthcare, we have very little power to change the situation for 4 years. In this sense, those Parliamentary Style Governments operate closer to what an actual free-market operates, giving their Citizens much more power over who runs and manages their single-payer healthcare system than we could.

The reason we haven't tried our own version of it is, because once it is implemented, it is very, very hard to change or roll back. Furthermore, as is with all the data coming out about Obamacare, it is very hard to actually judge whether such a program is actually successful.

Yes, because before the ACA, there were at least options available, albeit expensive. Her situation is complicated, but now there is pretty much nothing available that she qualifies for. Or worse, if there is, I am unable to locate and communicate with those people who can help me, and the people in charge of helping me are not properly trained (another example of the situation above). I've talked to our State's Office for Insurance, and they're trying to help, but are also frustrated (and very sympathetic) with the situation.

>>Bernie's real expectation is that things will get better if people get off their butts and take action. I doubt he believes that government programs will be magically efficient and effective without the right people to make them that way.

The problem is, with a government program, we're all forced to pay into it, no matter how good or bad the program actually is. When you are forced to pay for services from an organization, you have every right to complain about how poor those services are if you suffer because of them. If you expect that a government program will be great because Bernie hires the right people, what about the next President, and the President after that? The capabilities of individuals is government statistically by a bell curve and normal distribution. Even if you can select the very best person to manage that program for 4 years, the law of regression to the mean dictates that some future hire will be less capable. So how to we prevent mediocre people from eventually filling these positions, and thus wasting the money we are forced to pay in taxes to fund them?

Yeah, but if there is only one insurer - the U.S. Government, if they deny your claim, you can't choose a new insurer next year.

My original comment wasn't about banning private healthcare, it was about a government forcing people to pay for a product or service that isn't acceptable, or actually damages people's lives because it is managed so poorly. The Citizens of Flint still have access to bottle water, thank goodness, but they still have to pay their city water bills unfortunately. The same would go for Bernie Sander's health plan whether or not the service provided was actually worth the price paid.

>>You as an individual are free to afford whatever you want.

That is not actually true. I'm spent the afternoon searching for health insurance for my wife, who is pregnant, and trying to immigrate to the U.S. Thanks to the 2,000 pages of ACA regulation, there is no clause or loophole that allows us to purchase insurance for her. Your argument using 'data' is not sympathetic nor persuasive to me.

It's not just about how much in taxes you would pay; it's about the risk of you actually getting quality care for what you are forced to pay in taxes. The risk of that care not being adequate is significant...consider that Bernie Sanders is Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee which oversaw people dying in waiting room floors of VA hospitals. Sanders originally tried to blame the Koch brothers for this episode instead of fixing it. The voters had very little recourse like they do in the free market where they can just go to a different healthcare provider, because they are forced to pay taxes for the VA hospitals either way. The same goes for the Flint water issue in Michigan as well. The citizens of Flint are being forced to pay for water that they can't drink or use, and they were lied to about the risks it posed to their health for almost a year before the truth came out. This is the real risk you face with any government program, regardless of how little a tax calculator website will tell you it is going to cost you.

Hmmm, I wasn't aware of any bitterness or fight over this either, just a recent increase in articles touting the benefits of it. Seems to me this is one of those "media manufactures fake outrage" articles.

Oh I certainly agree, but a lot of people on here are saying they don't understand it, but want to/have tried. I'm just pointing out a way that might demonstrate to them the value it can offer. If it's not intuitive to them, that is Twitter's fault, but that doesn't mean value doesn't exist.

For those commenting here that they can't get into Twitter, but love Facebook, try stepping away from Facebook for a month, but leave Twitter available as an alternative. I think you will find after a month that it is much more enjoyable and useful. I think the real world analogy would be that Facebook is like going to a party where you know everyone already...it's safe and comfortable. Twitter is more like moving to a new city where you don't know a single soul. It's scary and overwhelming, but once you adapt, a whole new world opens up to you. By taking Facebook out of your daily life for a bit, you might get to experience this whole new world...if you wish to do so.