ceeplusplus

> And we thought things were bad in the US.

That inflation is mostly driven by energy costs, which are a direct result of European policy failures on nuclear and fossil fuels. The US is mostly a net neutral producer/consumer of fossil fuels and energy, which is why it's insulated from the impacts of Russia cutting off gas.

> When are people going to stop blaming stimulus and unemployment that stopped happening years ago at this point

Because even though it stopped happening a year and a half ago, a lot of stuff was closed down still so people weren't spending yet. They were saving. Americans built up $2.7T in "excess" savings [1]. That money is being spent, and has been spent, over the last 6 months to a year. Notice that inflation really only started up after re-opening.

The article gives two examples, one of a public policy employee who got an extra $500/mo from the pause in student loan payments and built up substantial savings, and a family that was laid off but received equivalent funds from unemployment, and ended up with more money than they previously had due to stimulus+child tax credit. The family ended up spending money on dance/karate lessons for their kids.

So not only did a lot of people not seek alternative employment (e.g. in a different field) when laid off due to inflated unemployment benefits, but they also ended up being able to spend more than they could previously afford due to stimulus. What does that additional spending require? More labor, which there was a shortage of due to unemployment payments.

If it was only energy costs and supply chain that was causing inflation, we'd see substantially decreased consumption and few wage hikes. Wage hikes are driven by labor's supply relative to demand, not by cost of living (although CoL can affect supply). We are seeing relatively high demand relative to supply and increased bargaining power for a lot of labor, which implies decreased supply. Guess where that decrease came from?

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-finances-got-stronger...

> The inflation we're seeing currently isn't being driven by the general population having too much money

Actually, it partially is. One third of the current inflation is demand driven according to the Fed (i.e. stimulus checks, unemployment payments, above-market wages due to unemployment checks, etc.) [1]. There are also supply shortages but it's hard to disentangle what part of the supply shortages are due to shipping costs vs. having labor shortages due to said unemployment checks.

We're seeing a lot of the price pressures calm down now as coincidentally, the labor force grows back to pre-pandemic size. [2]

> A meaningful response from government could have headed this off

Like what, putting a price cap on oil? That doesn't work and you and I both know it.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/demand-issues-account-one...

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-steak-is-getting-cheaper-a...

Could also be AB5 restricting how independent operators are allowed to contract out their services. It's been a big fuss in the trucking industry.

The only better benefit is a guaranteed pension after you work 20+ years in government. But since pensions nowadays are chronically underfunded and you make literally 3x (!) more at the equivalent level at Stripe/Paypal/etc. a 401k is a more than good enough substitute for the pension.

Health insurance is definitely better at the tech company. Cost of living varies - Washington DC/Northern VA is not cheap, and Washington state (where Stripe is based) has no state income tax.

I think very few people would take the government job, particularly the type of people okay with taking big risks that you need to build out a greenfield fraud detection and payment system.

No, the current situation if you get scammed via a credit card or PayPal is that you file a chargeback, and PP/card company reverses the transaction, because withdrawing money takes time. And if the transaction is not reversible, then PP/CC company take the hit on their own bottom line.

Is the federal government going to take on that risk? What makes you think they can afford to hire programmers who are skilled enough to build out a sophisticated fraud detection system? The highest GS pay scale is lower than what a new grad makes at Stripe/PayPal.

> Is grinding thru med school somewhat sacred? should they earn more than EEs? civil engineers? architects?

Everyone you mentioned should (and does in the US) earn more than 90k GBP. Nurses in the US (at least in California where they make 50-60$/h) earn the same as top pay grade specialty doctors in the UK according to that NHS payscale.

> yes, fixing noses or fake tits

No, there are many specialties which don't involve plastic surgery but make millions. Cardiologist, dermatologist, dentist, etc. Or if you're a surgeon and work at a big hospital, you can also make 500k+. All of these involve mitigating pain and suffering and saving lives.

Sorry you think plastic surgery is the only way to earn a good living in medicine.

> like almost everyone else. Newsflash - US is really expensive.

Compared to what, London? Amsterdam? Paris? The US isn't more expensive than anywhere else, and for a doctor working in the suburbs, it's way cheaper than any major city in Europe. Don't forget, health insurance for white collar workers in the US is cheap compared to their salary, and taxes are lower. Energy costs as well. And a 401k is a lot cheaper than paying progressive social security taxes that redistribute earnings.

At least the US doctor can afford a house, whereas the UK one will never buy one within an hour's drive of London in their lifetime.

> doctors dont automatically become millionaires collecting vintage cars or buying private planes

Yes, instead they make less than new grads working in literally any white collar field in the US, less than nurses in the US, and less than most blue collar trades in the US [1]. 91k GBP for the highest pay grade specialist doctor is just sad given how much training you need to become a specialist. That doctor could be making millions here in the US with their own practice.

GPs in the US (lowest paid specialty) get paid 2-3x what GPs get paid in the UK, according to the NHS payscales.

I think doctors working 80 hour residencies and grinding through med school deserve to get paid more, don't you think?

[1] https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/pay-d...

> Bike theft happens with bad locking practices: a bad lock (cable or small sized chains) and not properly locking your frame through the back triangle to a thick pipe/metal column

Clearly you don't live in the SF Bay Area. Thieves here have portable electric angle grinders and will cut through even the tough steel U-locks in 15 seconds. Not to mention if they can't steal your bike they'll steal your wheels, your seat, and your handles. Anything that's not bolted down is stolen. Not even exaggerating, ask anyone that lives in SF and they will tell you.

You cannot have a system where bikes are widely used when this kind of behavior happens.

> Oh, those US nurses living the high life.

More like oh, those UK nurses in the poorhouse. They deserve to make what their US counterparts are making.

> It's more like "keeping the US defense industry afloat by buying expensive gadgets we don't need"

Yes, because that's what's defending Europe against Russian invasion, right? Expensive gadgets you don't need? Or is Germany's broken down, dysfunctional army [1] going to do that?

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-biggest-enemy-thread...

They also use weird tricks like underpaying health staff (doctors and nurses make 40% of what they do in the US, look at NHS salary tables), relying on US defense subsidies, and taxing everyone making over 100k at insane rates.

We already have "socialized education" in public schools in most blue states if you make under 120k. The financial aid is generous enough that you aren't paying any tuition. The 70k sticker price is only paid by wealthy students, as a means of price discrimination.

> Traffic will expand like a gas to meet the available capacity

Yes, but now the roads carry more people. You can't fix congestion, but you can make it so the roads can sustain the local population, even if they're traveling at 20mph during rush hour.

> bike lanes

Sure, but when's someone going to make an ebike that can carry lots of groceries? Or really anything more than 1 large bag. Even a Trader Joe's run for only myself is 4-5 bags, and those portions are small compared to Costco.

Also, bike theft is a huge problem. And coincidentally the places with the best transit and bike lane buildouts have the worst policies towards property theft.

> subways/light rail/monorail, and investing in transit

Until disruptive people are banned from transit (so everything doesn't smell like piss and weed) and light rail is permitted to go faster than cars by NIMBYs, transit will never be an appealing option vs. cars. BART travels at 20mph next to 65 mph freeways sometimes.

I'm all for transit and bikes if these problems can be fixed. But they are political problems, not engineering ones. So I have little faith they will ever be fixed.

In my experience... public transit in areas with poor transit options is overwhelmingly used by "bad elements" (homeless and petty criminals). People who aren't "bad" (i.e. they are of the same economic class as the homeowners in the city) generally can afford cars in suburban areas. So I can understand why they oppose public transit.

High density housing has no excuse though, if traffic is a problem then streets should be expanded. We need more 5+1 apartments and dense townhomes built.

> exactly where he was at Enron

I'd hardly compare being CEO of a crappy startup with 2 news articles about it to one of the largest multinational corporations in the world. You can probably find some shit fund to work for with an insider trading conviction but you won't work for the big boys again.

> but I also don't know how I ever get to be paid 10-20k/hour

There are former felons who now lead nonprofits (I'm sure with 6 figure salaries) [1]. I quote: "In its third year, Just Leadership has a staff of 20 people and a $7.5 million budget for 2018–2019"

If people still decide to pay the guy after he's committed fraud, that's on them.

I'll also note Fastow went to prison for 6 years so it's not like he just paid a fine and got off. And the only reason it was 6 years instead of double digits was he informed on people.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurensonnenberg/2017/08/26/a-f...

> Ok, if I steal a $300 TV, and get caught do I have the option to simply pay a $900 fine?

In California, you don't need to do anything because it won't get prosecuted. In places with saner approaches to property crime, the store may decide not to press charges if you pay a penalty to them or agree not to step foot in their stores again.

> tails I lose some of my savings account

You're not working in the financial services industry again with an insider trading conviction.

> Most people in Europe don’t want to leave

Sure, but most people aren't skilled white collar tech workers with in demand skills who could be earning 3x post-tax salary in the US.

Health insurance is essentially free or cheap at any good tech company. EU pensions are underfunded (just like US ones) and as a high paid tech worker you're better off with maxing your 401k anyways.

If you look at the nationalities in any top US MS/PhD/MBA program, you'll find it's about 40% European, far above what undergraduate programs look like. That shows quite a few skilled workers in Europe want to leave.

If you are an unskilled worker, Europe is better as long as they can continue to sustain their social programs by taxing high earners and having defense be subsidized by the US. If too many high earners leave or the US becomes unwilling to pay for bases all across Europe, the whole system collapses pretty quickly.

> This is also a very negative thing for Putin and Russia

This is to prepare for Russia cutting off gas entirely to the EU, which would cause harm to Russia's O&G revenue as a result of Russia's strategic choice, not due to EU actions.

Russia is making record profits off high gas prices, there were no negative results to their energy industry from their invasion. All of the negative results were from sanctions on the rest of their economy and from freezing their USD/EUR currency reserves.

Dunno about that, everyone is trying to sell profitability and positive FCF nowadays.

I think that comes down to having strong leadership (which you would want to minimize churn in, because the timescales of executing projects as an IC are an order magnitude different from executing on strategic goals). E.g. Amazon, Costco, Patagonia, etc.

If executives could finish meaningful goals in a few weeks like ICs can, I'm sure they'd be switching every 2 years too.

It's less about bad/good and more about whether the work is fulfilling I think. Gaming is a lootbox gambling hellhole now, yet people love working on games, so they keep flocking to it, despite the objectively negative impact of microtransactions, systems designed to maximize addictiveness [1], etc.

[1] https://www.destructoid.com/ea-filed-a-patent-in-2016-to-tin...

Churn makes for more efficient companies and stronger employees. When you have 20 year veterans who stayed in a single place for 20 years, you have no exposure as a company to new practices developed in other companies. You have no exposure to what performance level your employees could be achieving. And as an employee, your own skills are not well developed by being stuck at a single place for 20 years.

Churn makes salaries adapt more quickly to market conditions too. That's an advantage when the Fed is dumping capital into the market with QE.

The disadvantage is yeah, there's chaos sometimes and loyalty doesn't exist. But you need some exploration AND exploitation too, else you get stuck at a local minima.

And that's fine, because we need more mixing of ideas between government and the private sector, rather than government operating with no idea of how to operate a business [1] and businesses operating with no regard for downstream impacts.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-business-experience-needed-j...

You'll just have to purchase the Autodesk™℠ for Government TS Plus Premium package! At the low, low cost of $1 million per Core Processor Licensing Unit [1].

[1] https://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/contracts/processor-core...

The article claims

> Staff said they were expected to frequently work more than 12 hours a day, starting early to accommodate calls with China and ending late

According to what I see on Blind, this is still the case, so clearly the reporting has not done anything. On the other hand, FB and Google are ramping up their intensity. It's almost like if you have a lucrative monopoly, people are incentivized to work really hard to disrupt it, and you have to work really hard to defend it.

Yes, the failure to kill TikTok was a leadership failure by Zuck. But you need good leadership AND good execution to win. The latter means hard work. Ask yourself why Europe has far fewer major tech companies and startups than the US, even though the EU economy is almost the same size.

That's how you lose to hungrier competitors. TikTok engineers don't work 4 hours a day. Back in the day when Google Plus was coming out, FB engineers didn't work 4 hours a day either [1]. That's how they killed it in the cradle.

If you want a chill work life balance, 20 hour weeks, etc. then you can have that. But maybe you won't have the $400k salary that big tech pays anymore.

[1] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/how-mark-zuckerberg-...

No way 30-50% is enough. You need 2x at least, if not more. There is a deep rooted ecosystem of CUDA apps. You would need to have at least 2-3 generations of 2x lead to get people to switch.

There were talks. It would've never passed the Senate.

If you want to talk benchmarks, you need to exclude all the ones where there is a clear software optimization problem.

From your link: "Even under demanding multi-threaded workloads, the M2 MacBook Air was not nearly as warm as the other laptops tested"

Keep in mind the 6850U you're comparing against has a fan too. Notebookcheck says it has a 40W turbo on the gen 2 model, and the gen 3 Intel version has a 28W sustained boost. An M2 uses around 20W.

Also, a lot of those benchmarks are showing all x86 CPUs with a 3x+ lead, which indicates software optimization problems. Geekbench 5 is optimized for both arm64 and x86 and shows the M2 ahead of the 6800U. There are also just broken results like the LC0 test where the M1 is substantially faster than the M2. Overall, your results don't seem very valid.

> steeper EV subsidies

It will be at least a decade before used EVs with >200mi range trickle down to the $10-15k used market. Saying we should tax gas when poor people can't even afford it as is is a gross misunderstanding of the financial situation of poor people today. You can't even buy a >200mi EV for less than 40k today.

> establish nonprofit solar/wind farms

Who's going to pay for them? And who's paying for the storage?

> also boost the economy

Boosting the price of fuel would have hugely inflationary effects while everyone is still stuck on ICEs. We saw this in the 70s, we're seeing it now.