Mostly a history lesson. The reality is fighters are missile trucks these days and the F-15 is a great missile truck with a dozen amraam. Drones and missiles are the future of conventional war with much of the battle happening in the electromagnetic spectrum.
I think the drone war is getting off the charts. 300,000 per month!?! [1] This will definitely have impacts in the coming decade both in war and terror/counter-terror applications.
I want missile trucks. That launch from submarines. Can carry AMRAAM, SLAM, JSOW, etc. Can land in the water and be recovered by the submarine and launched for more missile truck missions. I’d war-game this against super duper expensive jets, carriers, etc. Maybe even the subs can be autonomous and run off AI.
I believe that the minimum wage should be commensurate with the cost of living in a particular area. Similar to the military's Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) and Subsistence (BAS) which adapt according to one's location, the minimum wage could be adjusted to reflect the price of local housing and groceries within a 30-minute radius. By doing so, the implications of less desirable local policy decisions would be absorbed by the communities that adopt them.
At present, there is little motivation for change among those profiting from policies that favor commercial or stagnant development over residential expansion. Such policies often compel people to undertake long commutes or inhabit crowded apartments in order to work locally. If businesses had to raise their prices and consumers had to pay more as a result of these policies, communities might be incentivized to establish policies that enable local living.
If the minimum wage was adjusted to reflect local living costs, it could serve as a catalyst for policy change. It would offer a choice: adapt local policies to facilitate affordable living or bear the inconvenience of commuting to other areas for goods and services where wages are in line with living expenses.
Regulatory arbitrage in Web3 seems to be coming to and end. My assumption is
1) If your contract is upgradeable it isn’t decentralized. Might as well be hosting on EC2.
2) If a multi-sig runs your governance contract or treasury it isn’t decentralized. Might as well form an LLC or C corp.
3) From a more NatSec perspective, if a SEAL team or the FBI can reach a few people in your DAO and your project would shut down, you aren’t decentralized.
Which all seems good and as it should be, to stop people LARPing as decentralized to avoid regulations.
> 1) If your contract is upgradeable it isn’t decentralized. Might as well be hosting on EC2.
One benefit of hosting on the blockchain is that you can build an arbitrary derivative on top of any blockchain object. It's harder to do that with something random running on EC2.
Most definitely. SVB had $3B+ of Circle’s deposits for USDC. Just covered dollar for dollar by the US Taxpayers. Can sell all those underwater bonds at face value while the taxpayers issue new bonds at 5%. Crypto just unbanked the banked with the help of the US Gov.
> No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer... Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.
So "consumers" are always said to "pay" as companies "pass through" increased costs due to goods, regulations, etc., but that doesn't apply here to all the taxpayers who use banking and are subject to increased FDIC insurance costs? And taking underwater, low-interest debt on the books at face value costs taxpayers overtime through inflation even if we get "paid back with interest". Why don't private buyers want this debt? Because they'd rather have dollars to buy better paying debt which the taxpayers currently provide. The BTFP will rapidly grow over $25B and be used to recapitalize the banks at taxpayers expense.[1]. Someones got to pay for the unrealized losses if depositors won't take a haircut. [2]
So personally, I fundamentally disagree with the statement "no losses borne by the taxpayer," believe this is used to obfuscate the issue, and am sad to see our treasury play this game. But it is standard fare these days, especially when people think they are protecting us from a banking run and the next great depression. But my concern is these measures lead to more economic inequality, populism, and eventual political turmoil.
> So "consumers" are always said to "pay" as companies "pass through" increased costs due to goods, regulations, etc.
It isn’t always said, because it isn’t always true. If the business you’re looking at has profits, then it has pricing power, and the conditions for 100% pass-through don’t exist.
It is inescapable that tax payers will bear the cost of the insurance, if not directly through taxes than indirectly through increased banking fees and reduced rates.
The part that annoys me the most is the idea that all the depositors are mom and pop small businesses or early stage startups.
I’ve heard it said that Circle and USDC have an amazing business model: create a coin, call it a dollar, and deposit real dollars in the bank for interest while customers hold the coin. You don’t even have to offer a percent for the deposit like a normal bank. You can then make a couple percent on billions.
With this bailout the US Government just backstopped the business model with no haircut for a total lack of risk management. But sure, punish all banks (and thus customers / taxpayers) since the costs will be spread to others. Protecting us from systemic risks always seems to create more systemic risk. I’m sure were done though, they are putting protections in place this time.
Confidence in property rights? Not sure what you are talking about. They just provided guaranteed non-negative returns on loans. Put your dollars in a safety deposit box if you want property rights. Depositors need to be able to accept a haircut for banking to function, that's why you get interest and don't pay the bank.
You're not thinking what the most logical course of action would be for all companies that use regional banks. It would be to get your money out ASAP on Monday and into JPM or BOA. That's why the treasury has stepped in.
Many of the big banks give effectively 0% interest right now for everyone, so it isn't really that much different, but yeah I agree with your sentiment.
What I find most disingenuous in this whole saga is the conflating of small business payroll depositors with all depositors. Circle & USDC rely on the interest rate earned on the stablecoin deposits for their business and SVB was providing that with poor risk management. With a $3B deposit (or more since they likely moved money out and partially caused the collapse), Circle should have been doing additional risk management beyond SVB, not just collecting interest. Now taxpayers are supposed to cover that failure?
Disagree. Figma should be competing with Adobe on the open market and winning. Seeing them displace CC in the enterprise in ways Sketch never did. $2-3B would be an insane propellent to them. This deal is great for Adobe, Figma, Greylock, and others, but not consumers or the majority of Figma users in my opinion. Glad to see the antitrust resurgence in this country. The rollup play is going away. Adobe's leaders are going to have to get more creative to compete :)
