Agreed, though at some point we run up against the inherent triviality of the example :P.
238 karma · joined May 1, 2020
static int add_numbers(Data *p) {
return p->a + p->b;
}1. https://www.seriouseats.com/diy-vanilla-extract
2. https://www.seriouseats.com/taste-test-is-better-vanilla-ext...
> Only if the economic system is a giant ponzi scheme that depends on continuous, infinite growth.
Just because growth is good for a system doesn't make it a Ponzi scheme (or some other type of scam). Population decrease _obviously_ harms economies because it leads to fewer young people willing to take on entry-level jobs and more elderly people who aren't working anymore. That's not to say it can't be managed - economic growth is also driven by technological advancements which aren't directly dependent on population growth. But a decline in population would inarguably have _some_ kind of negative impact which would need to be handled correctly.
> liberal democracies and capitalist markets at-scale are incapable of organizing production in a way that doesn't destroy the earth
That's an incredibly bold claim with absolutely no evidence supporting it. And you seem to imply that there exists some other system distinct from whatever you call "capitalism" which can organize production in a less harmful way - again with no evidence.
In general, recent growth of rich "capitalist" countries has significantly outstripped their energy use (an imperfect metric of environmental harm, I know, but it's what I could find) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.GDP.PUSE.KO.PP?locat....
> It's funny, there was a post recently about "unsolved problems in economics."
IIRC that post was only kind of accurate at best. Popular culture's understanding of economics is hilariously bad.
> Because capitalism is incapable of solving the problem, and the economists know this, so they don't bother talking about it. They pretend it's an issue of state, when the profit mechanism itself is the cause for most externalities.
From where are you pulling the notion that "capitalism" (for some definition of that word) is incompatible with managing externalities? Or that economists somehow just ignore the existence of externalities?
This kind of attitude is distressingly common online and to me it seems no different from the mentality of anti-vaxxers. Just because a field of science is imperfect and distorted to some extent by government/corporate agendas doesn't give you carte blanche to throw out every bit of research ever done and substitute your own reality.
For me this is by far the hardest part. (But also I'm the type to just idly waste time instead of filling it with work.) For most of my life, coding was by far my favorite thing to do; I could do it for hours without noticing the time passing. But now it feels like work and I haven't found anything that remotely fills the hole in its place.
While I see what you mean, the effect seems minor at best. I wouldn't feel comfortable coming to that conclusion without more future data and comparative numbers for Gen Z.
> Another thing to keep in mind is with decreasing birth rates, future generations will have a higher tax burden to support the aging costs of the previous generations.
This does sound reasonable, though I don't necessarily know of any actual research supporting this conclusion.
- Household income trends per age group have remained relatively consistent. The youngest group has seen the biggest dip in the past couple decades but did recover pre-COVID. https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/FT_18...
- Real incomes are down slightly for those without a college degree but up significantly for those with a bachelor's or better https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millenn...
- Housing prices are up significantly https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USSTHPI but price per square foot is actually fairly flat https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes-are-1000-squ...
> We will ensure Alphabet acts ethically and in the best interests of society and the environment. We are responsible for the technology that we bring into the world, and recognize that its implications reach far beyond Alphabet. We will work with those affected by our technology to ensure that it serves the public good.
To be honest, this strikes me as an incredibly pretentious opinion from people who have drank too much of the Google Kool-Aid.
Probably, yeah. Their earnings call is later this week and it's reasonable to assume that layoffs signal bad earnings.
Also, I'm pretty sure most people don't care one bit what that community wants. When I hear "aftermarket and performance tuning", I think of idiots street racing, overly aggressive drivers, and obnoxiously loud cars. (I don't care if it's a straightpiped Civic or a freaking LFA, it's still obnoxious for everyone not driving the car.) Not exactly what most people want on public roads.
Generally no artificial flavors or colors are used (I checked a cheap jar of grape jelly in my fridge before writing this). Also because it's made like jam, it uses pectin as its thickener. The reason grape jam doesn't exist across the pond is because it's made with Concord grapes, which were bred in the US and have large seeds that essentially require straining - hence jelly.
UK jelly (US Jello), on the other hand, is basically water with artificial flavor/color, sugar, and gelatin added and allowed to set. Quite different IMO.
Not in my experience, it isn't. Maybe for the first two years of undergrad but after that I've found that Google rapidly becomes useless.
This is the same thing I'm talking about, just arguably phrased poorly. If the clearing house is in danger you risk cascading financial failure that endangers everyone, not just people buying GME. Yes that includes large market participants but it also includes Joe Blow holding AAPL or TSLA.
There is a conversation worth having about DTCC's potential conflicts of interest, but it seems clear to me that DTCC cannot be allowed to go down. They need to raise collateral requirements, regardless of the PR fallout that small brokerages might face.
> The article you cited quotes the WeBull CEO saying that Apex dictated restrictions on specific stocks. That is at odds with the story that it was just a matter of brokers not being able to meet collateral requirements.
I think being careful with terminology is important here. WeBull is what's known as an "introducing broker". They deal with clients through their app and such, but they don't really do any of the back-office work. They offload that to a clearing _firm_ called Apex, who ultimately is the one that must post collateral to the clearing _house_ DTCC[1]. According to WeBull's CEO, Apex realized they would be unable to put up the collateral and so called up all the brokerages they work with to tell them that GME would be halted.
Robinhood and most larger brokerages such as TDA, Fidelity, and Vanguard are all self-clearing. It's essentially like if WeBull and Apex were the same company. So while technically speaking it was the clearing firm portion that couldn't post collateral, the introducing broker and clearing firm are the same company so people tend to just simplify and say that the brokerage itself couldn't meet collateral requirements.
> One consistent theme seems to be that clearing houses are behind this, and that their restrictions were not dictated by a formula, but were more arbitrary.
The clearing house (in the US, there's really only one) is definitely behind this, but I don't know that the restrictions were arbitrary. It's pretty standard practice for the DTCC to raise collateral requirements on volatile stocks, and they generally inform clearing firms until the morning that restrictions go into place, giving clearing firms only a few hours to provide additional capital[2]. Whether that's a good standard practice is certainly arguable.
1. See here for the difference between a clearing house and a clearing firm: https://www.money-zine.com/definitions/investing-dictionary/...
2. See page 49 of https://dtcc.com/-/media/Files/Downloads/legal/policy-and-co...
While this does seem true, it appears the DTCC and the law don't care. It's my understanding that if a brokerage defaults on a payment to DTCC even once, it's game over. Brokerage goes out of business overnight. And the law prevents from brokerages from using client cash to make those payments.
> I would understand if this were simply a matter of Robinhood tightening margin requirements, but no, they were prohibiting all purchases, even from accounts with plenty of cash, and now we are hearing (not the first story they spun) that this was because of some nonsensical aspect of the DTCC collateral requirements (the buying customer's funds do not count and cannot be used as collateral).
This "story" has been said repeatedly, by very reputable sources and even by a direct competitor to Robinhood, long before Robinhood said anything about it. Robinhood is hardly the only brokerage to limit buying - TDA, Merrill, IBKR, and all Apex-cleared brokerages have also done so, though to a lesser extent. I have no love for Robinhood specifically and I frankly think that them going out of business would be a net benefit to retail investors. But I find it very hard to believe that this is a lie that Robinhood has fabricated.
Like I said, nothing Robinhood does to restrict margin requirements or require customers to put up cash helps them out of this situation. In the very short term, Robinhood must pay out of their pocket and it seems like they were simply incapable of doing so.
> Collateral shortfall would apply to all purchases of all stocks, wouldn't it? Why not cap all purchases? And what exactly were the collateral requirements on GME?
DTCC can set collateral requirements per symbol, as far as I understand. So they can jack up the requirements for GME while leaving other stocks untouched. Plus I'd guess most brokerages would rather halt a single symbol than completely shut down business for a whole day. As for what the exact requirements were, we may never know. It doesn't appear to be public information.
> Hilarious! This intra-day volatility was caused by the brokerage's actions.
Indirectly, maybe? Directly, probably not. Despite what wallstreetbets would have people believe, it seems like retail is not moving GME significantly. The same article shows Citadel's numbers for retail order flow and it's pretty much balanced buying and selling.
I definitely agree that this could use reform, but I don't know enough to say exactly what should be changed. The ideal solution would be to make clearing instant instead of T+2, but who knows if that will actually happen.
- I have heard that the DTCC does not require collateral (or perhaps not as much collateral) for the party selling the stock. This would mean that allowing selling would pose little to no risk to brokers.
- If that's not true, I wonder if Robinhood decided that preventing people from closing positions was an unacceptable risk. If GME tanked and people couldn't sell, the outrage would be insane. So perhaps they did the math, realized that their available cash wasn't enough to support both buying and selling, and decided that only allowing sells was the least bad option available.
I think what Robinhood is trying to avoid saying is that they simply didn't have enough money to cover that collateral. Hence why they have tapped into credit lines and have done an emergency funding round. If they had allowed GME to trade the past two days, it seems likely that they would have run out of money and instantly gone out of business.
Certainly I have issues with Apple, but it's a simple cost/benefit calculation. Right now the benefits of macOS vastly outweigh the downsides for me.
Unless Apple's problems increase to the point of being unbearable (very likely to happen at some point) or the quality of desktop Linux increases significantly (unlikely to ever happen), I just can't justify switching. And I expect many, many other people are in the same boat.
My computer is a tool. Idealistic notions about free software are nice, but they don't mean anything if that software is worse than a nonfree alternative. Free software needs to be _better_ to win, and I just don't see that ever happening in the consumer OS space.