not to mention how hard it is for gays to land a job in early years education. So backwards! The worst are these mothers. Once they see a male working in a Child Care Center there is going to be lawsuit, that's for sure. Gay male employee at Child Care Center? I hope there will be some progress too!
OK downvoters [EDIT: previously parent post had been grayed-out, now it appears this one is?], do you really not know that this is a thing? Lots of mommies and daddies don't want little Jenny and Billy looked after by a dude. I don't know what being gay has to do with it, except perhaps 'taki1 is telling us that gay dudes are more likely to want to work in child care than straight dudes are. Maybe that's true?
Each person, whatever their sex is, should have the right to work at a place if they are as qualified as other candidates.
If there's a lady who wants to land a job at Child Care Center, and - let's say a Black transgender gay communist - they should have exactly the same chances. But these horrible sexist mothers will allow only other women, preferable white, to take care of their kids! Males stand almost no chances, not to mention race minorities, not to mention sex minorities.
This is a true middle-ages dramatic situation of these gays. And again - I'm talking on the individual level. Even if only one gay out of the population of 20% gay in the US currently wants to have a job at a Child Care Center he should have exactly same chances as a single white straigt woman.
Wouldn't you agree? I hope you are not a xenophobic racist homophob because that what you are if you give preference to some white woman working at a Child Care to Black Transgender Gay (fe)male.
It seems we agree. I was just responding to the (it-seemed-to-me) reflexive downvoting of your previous comment, possibly because people didn't realize that lots of parents are homophobic. I know lots of parents, and they really are homophobic in this way.
"Econ people" is short for "Economics people". Another word for "Economics people" would be "Economists", but it might also include people who have an interest in economics but don't consider themselves economists.
And as for the plural, An "econ person" would be an economist. The OP specified "Econ people".
I'm a bit confused about the point you are trying to make.
Based on your comment history, you seem comfortable with taking liberties with the English language to get your point across quickly (e.g. omitting implicit pronouns and articles in sentences such as 'Somehow never was true with Iceland.', or 'They should quit Euro (Merkel will never allow because others would follow suit) and debase currency. Do exactly as Iceland did.')
So I'm not sure why you seem to take particular issue with 'econ', which is a very common casual way to refer, e.g., to the economics major at uni. ('econ 101' etc)
If interest rates are at 7% (savings account returns you 7% annualy) who will invest in risky start-ups?
If you can just go to a bank branch deposit cash and get back 7% -- are you going to go and invest in Uber instead? Really? Because it has "great valuation" ?
> If interest rates are at 7% (savings account returns you 7% annually) who will invest in risky start-ups?
Well, they're not. Interest rates are so extremely low right now that they don't even keep up with inflation. In several banks and several countries, the interest rate is actually less than zero. Or, in other words, banks charge you to store your money for you.
Given that, is investing in technology really that bad of an idea? You have to put your money somewhere.
VCs are mostly funded by large stashes of money - some of it among the oldest and most secure money in the world - called limited partners (LPs). Think endowment funds, that type of thing. Those funds will diversify their investments across multiple aspects of the economy. For simplicity sake, we'll say 50% real estate, 40% stock/bonds, and 10% into VC funds. VCs take a small chunk, and invest the rest in tech companies.
In that way, some of the most institutionalized money in the world will, yes, be invested in Uber. Really.
>> If interest rates are at 7% (savings account returns you 7% annually) who will invest in risky start-ups?
> Well, they're not.
Well, in 2000-2006 house prices weren't going down. Wait a sec! In 1800-2006 house prices in the US weren't going down. Sure thing, do nothing but invest in housing in the US in 2006! I love that type of logic.
Interest rates can change very soon. The interest rates will go up. Sooner than many think.
>Interest rates are so extremely low right now that they don't even keep up with inflation.
If you use the same formula to calculate inflation that was used in Reagan times we have had inflation in 5-10% year-to-year basis for the past few years now.
> In several banks and several countries, the interest rate is actually less than zero. Or, in other words, banks charge you to store your money for you.
Real interest rates are in negative territory: i.e. you can borrow at lower rate than the rate of inflation. That's the only logical reason behind investors buying into treasuries or swiss debt with negative return: because investors understand that we currently have real interest rates that are negative vs. cnbc and government propaganda of low inflation. The only reason they invest in these is because they know we live in high inflation times. In times of high inflation (like nowadays) it is extremely hard to find investment that beats inflation, so investors tend to invest in "anything", they just don't want cash. Cash is toxic. Investors are afraid of cash. They want anything but cash. Even taxi start-up with valuation higher than all taxi companies in the world - Uber - is better than Cash. Everything is better than cash in high inflation times. People invest in Uber because cash is worthless. Not because Uber is a good value stock. Are you trying to tell me people invest in $32B "worth" "business" like Uber because there is no inflation? Good joke.
> Given that, is investing in technology really that bad of an idea? You have to put your money somewhere.
"You have to put your money somewhere." you said it brother. Why I have to? If inflation is low as you claim? Why? Because even Uber is less risky than inflated USD. That's why. You have to put your money somewhere -- catch phrase heard often in high inflation times. Really. Not deflation times or even close to deflation. In deflation times you "dont have to put your money somewhere". Because your money gives you nice return without actually doing anything with it. If I can get the same amount of food, gas, housing, healthcare and vacation for the same amount as I did in 2010, why the hell I need to invest in risky taxi drivers start-up with $32B valuation? You don't make any sense brother! Apply some common sense here!
>VCs are mostly funded by large stashes of money - some of it among the oldest and most secure money in the world - called limited partners (LPs).
I'm tired of hearing about "the most secure money in the world". Heard enough of it when working for Capital Group back in 2007/08. They finally shut up when their "assets" (very secure, very) went from $2T to $500B.
> Think endowment funds, that type of thing. Those funds will diversify their investments across multiple aspects of the economy. For simplicity sake, we'll say 50% real estate, 40% stock/bonds, and 10% into VC funds. VCs take a small chunk, and invest the rest in tech companies.
Why? If inflation is so low? What for? Just keep it in the bank. With low inflation there is 0% logic in doing what you propose - investing in real estate, stock, bonds. Not to mention things that are start-ups with $32B valuation in taxi "niche". You'll see - we'll lough from this soon enough. You invest in Uber, because you recognize there is no return on cash (high inflation).
> In that way, some of the most inssttitutionalized money in the world will, yes, be invested in Uber. Really.
Till the day even idiots at Fed who believe in their own cooked inflation numbers open their eyes and see they need to stop the madness. Raises the interest rates. Then the bubble pops. Like it did every time before. Really.
If the interest rate is at 7 percent, then inflation will probably be between 5 and 10 percent.
There would be other opportunities in an economy that will yield more than 7 percent, if the bank is offering 7 percent. Additionally, the inflation rate would be higher, so not investing your money, is losing it to inflation.
Inflation is at 5-10% if we measure it the same way we have always measured it till Reagan times. Then the Government started cooking books, but if we agree to use the same formula to calculate inflation as the one we used before 1990s, we are at 10% right now my friend. We have been for a few years. So in real terms we have had negative interest rates. By definition this makes investors to put money in anything but cash. When you think about it, this is why investors are so keen to keep money in things like Swiss Government debt that has negative return. Why would you ever do that if real interest rates werent in fact negative?
Somehow never was true with Iceland. They never repaid and they are just fine. Actually better than fine. I still remember all this fear-mongering coming from mainstream (i.e. the Economist) that the world will come to an end for Iceland if they don't repay. Nothing happened. They are in much better position than Greece. But they said no to EU demands. They said no to IMF demands. They showed big finger to bankers. And that's the lesson for Greece. They should quit Euro (Merkel will never allow because others would follow suit) and debase currency. Do exactly as Iceland did.
Iceland's situation was nothing like Greece's. Iceland's government defied international pressure to nationalize the debts of its three big, private banks. The banks defaulted, but there was no sovereign default.
Couldn't agree more. Government Bonds (like US Treasuries) can go to zero. Really. Like any other investment. German and French Governments demanding from Greece paying off debt like the bonds are still in 2007 is insane. If bankers took risks bought an asset class without doing their homework and then the asset class goes to zero, our response is to pretend it is not zero and pay off bankers? I'm sorry but I thought capitalism is all about risk and reward. They took their risks, they made mistake, the Market should put them back into their place, so others can learn on it. But none of this counts when you can call up die Frau (Merkel) and extort money.
I offer one empirical counter-example - with direct reference to easily verifiable evidence (public expenditure on healthcare as a percentage of GDP, and the differences between the levels of coverage of Medicare, Medicaid, and the NHS) - and then one request for proof, and not much else.
One of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money. No qualifications. Brakenshire's contention is that there is clearly a broad spectrum of efficiencies (and offers an empirical example), which is a call for a more nuanced view of things. I think you may need to revisit your definition of ideological.
> One of jacquesm's central assertions is extremely broad: governments are inept at spending money.
Yep.
> No qualifications.
Indeed. I've seen enough of government projects on all levels (Municipal, Provincial, Country and European) to know this to be factually true and if you would so much as read the freely available news sources you'd probably agree with that unqualified statement.
Government projects that are on-time, within the budget, useful and good value for the money spent are very rare.
> Brakenshire's contention is that there is clearly a broad spectrum of efficiencies (and offers an empirical example), which is a call for a more nuanced view of things.
There is indeed a broad spectrum of efficiencies, though I'd rather re-word that as 'there is a broad spectrum of in-efficiencies', since efficient would indicate something close to the theoretically achievable.
Really, I don't know what your experience is but I've been fairly interested in the machinations of the various governments that I've found myself a subject of over my life-time to date and efficient is just about the last term that I would use to describe any of them, and most of the literature seems to agree with that.
I have a hard time taking your unqualified assertion seriously if your source is "freely available news sources". If that's the best you've got, you are almost certainly the victim of confirmation bias, at the very least.
There's a reason that published, peer-reviewed studies are important. They're the antidote to people like you who hang around the water-cooler chat of newspapers and figure they've got a handle on extraordinarily large systems such as governance and economies. Turns out these things are nuanced and very complicated, and the fact that you don't recognize that is what makes you an ideologue.
Looking back, my response was rude. I'm sorry about that.
Yes, you don't have to look hard to find examples of government projects that are plagued by agency problems, incompetence, and grift. However, those exact same things play out in the private sector. They're problems endemic in /any/ large undertaking.
You feel it's worse in the public sector. I feel it's just as bad in the private sector (just that it's reported much, much less). You've worked in both sectors, I've also worked in both. Only way to tell which of us is right is some sort of serious, objective research. My stance is that newspapers and other popular media are just noise, especially since government waste is such a easy go-to narrative (a good example being the "$20,000 hammer").
The difference is we all need to pay for public sector mistakes. We are all forced to pay for them. Poor, rich, doesn't matter. And the amount of money in public sector is much higher almost by definition.
In private sector, let's face it. Someone owns that business. The owner looses money if they are ineffective. Not all of us. Not all taxpayers. That's part of the reason why private business are better at not loosing too much money. Because this is Owner's money. He/she will make sure not too loose too much. Not to waste it. If he/she doesnt, more cost effective competition will take their place.
too much regulation. No patents, no approvals, and you don't need 50k+ employees and years to find out a drug doesn't work. Under current system we wouldn't be able to approve aspirin for goodness sake. It just wouldn't go through FDA:
So says a Koch mouthpiece, at least. Your source likely isn't really interested in keeping medical care costs down - they oppose letting Medicare negotiate drug prices, push fracking, etc. It's an industry group like the AEI.
Sorry, but there is imho to little regulation going on here. The market seems rigged against patients - esp. patients with terminal (or at least grave) illnesses that are pretty wide spread. These people are hey are prone to be exploited and there are enough of them. Mostly pharma does not dev drugs for wide spread illnesses that mostly occur in poor countries for example. Or grave illnesses, that only affect very, very few people.
But dev a "new" cancer drug and you got your license to print money (lot of people get cancer, a lot is payed by insurance, and people and their loved ones want healing).
I'm missing your point. Most diseases is characterized that way - lots of people get them, healthcare paid by insurance, people want healing. Cancer is not special.
I think the argument for patents, as incentive for development, is quite strong. There is no alternative system in place yet.
Also you probably underestimate the value and purpose of pharmaceutical regulation. Most rules revolve around production quality, scientific soundness, safety monitoring and so on. Come to think of it, the degree of safety in pretty much any drug on the legal market is quite astounding, despite exceptions and accidents.
> In medieval Europe, pearl powder was widely perceived to have therapeutic qualities. It was used to treat the insanity of Charles VI of France (1368-1422), and the fever of which Lorenzo de Medici died in 1492.
It is not clear that the FDA has anything to do with the pharma crisis. In fact, since the pharmco crisis began in the late 1990s and the FDA was founded in 1963, the two are completely unrelated. Since closely held pharmaceutical companies are doing better than public ones I'd point the finger at Wall Street, but that would be oversimplifying a complicated problem.
