And (at least some parts of) the article is clearly written by AI.
163 karma · joined December 12, 2019
Thinking the government will be satisfied with taking only a little bit from the wealthy, is like thinking your drug addicted friend will be happy with only a small bump of heroin on weekends.
Or is it because government spending has gotten so wasteful? It's interesting to think about how much government used to accomplish with less, or even no, income tax in the past.
That is to say, it not only makes it hard to pin responsibility, but actually makes it no longer a crime at all.
People mistakenly think that if their investment made 50% and then lost 50% that they broken even, but they're actually down 25% (1.5*0.5=0.75). However, if you invest $100 and make 50%, then invest a second $100 and lose 50%, you do indeed break even.
When OP stated that the bet has a positive EV, it's for a flat $1 bet. Indeed, if you always bet $1 (or any fixed amount), it does have a positive return of $+0.05, and you should take the bet.
It's only when you change it from a $1 bet amount to an "entire bankroll" amount that you're looking at a geometric mean of 0.949 return per bet. That number is simply the geometric mean of the two possible returns, 1.5 and 0.6.
So the actual EV is sqrt(1.5*0.6)-1.00 = $-0.051 per bet (normalized to $1.00).
I don't understand the point this article is trying to make about anything else. The entire effect here is explained either by misstating the problem or by using the wrong type of mean for the EV calculation.
The idea that some lucky people will make money while the rest lose is explained by simple luck. Run the simulation longer and they will all lose out to the law of large numbers.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that fiat must have "actual utility" though. Being forced to use a currency in order to avoid prison time is more like extortion, rather than utility.
Crypto isn't fiat, though, in any case.
1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat 2. https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=fiat
Easier how? A watt-hour is just 3600 joules - the number of seconds in an hour.
1 joule = 1 volt * 1 amp * 1 second
1 watt-hour = 1 volt * 1 amp * 3600 seconds
They're both right. SO is moderating on the wrong things.
What's worse is that ReCaptcha isn't an honest CAPTCHA. Instead, ReCaptcha relies in large part on building a tracking profile. If you take privacy enhancing measures, such as clearing cookies and using a VPN, then you can't pass ReCaptcha. It will present you with a endless loop of "please try again" no matter your answer.
Yes!
The purpose of a stock buyback is to reward shareholders by increasing stock price. The increase is caused because of the reduction in float. Each share represents more of the company after the buyback than before. [1] If that wasn't true, then the share price wouldn't increase, and there would be no reason to do a buyback.
The bought back shares could be kept by the company as treasury stock, but the company can't vote treasure stock or pay dividends. [2] The outstanding shares represent 100% ownership of the company.
So to say that stock buybacks make companies less "beholden to shareholders" compared to dividends is just wrong. Dividends and stock buybacks are exactly equivalent except for tax treatment (and possibly market pressure).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_repurchase [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_stock
Plaid works by asking the user to give their banking username and password to Plaid, and then their two factor authentication token too. Plaid logs into their account behind the scenes to verify ownership.
Plaid claims to not store this info, and I assume that they don't, but it still seems like one of the biggest security anti-patterns ever. If nothing else, it's training users to ignore the "don't share your password" warnings. Do we really want users trained to be more susceptible to phishing?