Not an expert on the financial market, but this article may be worthwhile to consider, 'Actually, Most Americans Can Come Up With $400 in an Emergency' [1]
20 years later I still cringe a bit at the term "software engineer", but that's a different debate. Given how much work nowadays is about technology, calling 30% of the working population "IT guys" is perhaps not super specific anymore, so language evolved.
Nowadays, "IT" anywhere outside of Europe refers to basically an operational or support role. (I think Europe being the odd one out is an effect of most European business leaders still thinking computers are a fad that'll go away eventually.)
> You know Singapore unabashedly beats the shit out of thieves, right?
They don't...first offense you basically get off with a warning. Recent headlines was a case of Australian school girls shoplifting [1]. Although they're foreigners, same goes for locals.
> I would have thought Singapore had more policing in all respects versus US cities.
You only see police occasionally doing their patrols, so it can be argued there is less of a police presence than say NY. There is no need, there are cameras everywhere and its a small Island, you can't run anywhere.
With respect to the parent's comment on subway deaths:
> Singapore has entirely solved the root problem in a non-carceral way by investing in infrastructure.
There are barriers that only open when the train has arrived, so there quite literally cannot be deaths from people pushing others onto the tracks. I presume that is what he means by infrastructure.
I wouldn't call infrastructure the root problem when people are murdering others. My point was the murders are evidence that there's psychos down there. Hence people want more cops.
It's not about performance or risk management, it's about due diligence. They should not be giving any amount of money to an organization with such poor internal checks of their finances.
I'm sorry but thats not how it works. This investment was made out of their venture fund which deliberately makes risky bets, but is a small amount of the overall pie. OTPP is fine and is going to produce returns which are favorable, let's stop with the hyperbole.
--if you made an investment based on audited books but the books were still cooked - what more can you do? - audit the auditer maybe - at some point you have to trust the books --
What if you made an investment based on not seeing any books, there not being any reliable guide as to the company's liabilities, seen or unseen, and not being aware of any regulation or oversight preventing fraud and/or blowing up? But you had a good feeling about the company's hype and the CEO seemed like a nice young man with main character energy?
If the company turns out to be a fraud and the investment worthless, are you still entitled to say "nobody could have known" and "only 1 in 10 has to be a winner"?
If I say that I'm not sure how students who live in a climate of fear and need to practice active shooter drills after every school shooting can lead to a creative and innovative culture, do you think that holds?
Better question is do we need creative and innovative culture. It's rather destructive when everyone wants to be a creator and nobody is willing to do hard not-so-fancy jobs. Somebody has to do plumbing and install electricity for all the influnkers and utubers.
Obviously there's a need for a small portion of pioneers. But should society aim for mass creativity or just highlight those who cannot not create.
Perhaps slightly off-topic, but wondering if this has the functionality or what others on HN would recommend.
I have a friend who enjoys online multi-player games, but she often faces quite a bit of unfriendly remarks when she speaks (CS:GO, I believe it's been an ongoing problem in the community). I'm thinking perhaps an audio program that can alter her voice from female to male would let her game in peace - would anyone on HN have any suggestions/recommendations?
Depends on the platform, but 'soundflower' let's you reroute audio through a plugin/filter. It takes quite a bit of knowledge to get into that. Try to find someone who knows his way around plugins.
I think what he means is that, given the choice, people there would opt for a good class bungalow (essentially your 'detached home', but most will never be able to afford it).
That is an obvious statement, but the analogy breaks down a bit as in Singapore, whether you live in a GCB or in HDB (social housing), everything is relatively close by regardless. Hence, there isn't really much of a trade-off at all - living in a GCB just affords more space and privacy (at an exponentially inflated cost).
Good class bungalows are not your typical single family home. They are on huge lots even for a US single family home.
There are townhomes (shophouses), duplexes, single family homes as options as well.
“To qualify as a GCB, the property must have at least 1,400 square metres (approx. 15,070 sq. ft.) of land area, and the bungalow itself is limited to a maximum of two storeys in height”
People in HDBs want to live in condo, condos want to live in shophouses, shophouses want to live in detached freehold homes.
Everybody wants more space. And despite the great transit system, parts of Singapore can be more remote to the point a car being almost a requirement. And that’s what many people strive for.
Except those are just market forces and it is more convenient to use electronic payment. I'm not sure what you mean by China, it's China's government that is forcing all merchants to accept cash [1].
> The People's Bank of China (PBOC) is looking to close the widening digital divide and has warned merchants that they must accept cash or face disciplinary action,...
Are we really still beholden to such simplistic and wrong ideas such as everything being explained by "market forces"? Do they exist? Yes. Are they they only factor? No. Are they they main factor? Depends on what you are talking about. Power brokers in the US will do whatever it takes to move things a certain way if it benefits them.
I dare you to find an anonymous visa card that actually works. You won't.
I don’t disagree that there are other forces aside from market forces.
In the case of people paying via WeChat though, it is legitimately market forces. If you don’t use WeChat, people around you will urge you to use it because it is so much easier than cash. No more going to the bank. No more handling change. You just open your phone, scan, and pay. Small businesses you frequent where you get to know the proprietor will tell you they think it’s a little funny you’re paying in cash and even offer to help you set up your WeChat Pay because it is “so easy.”
I honestly don’t know anyone other than me who pays for things in cash. Everybody else is on WeChat. Nobody forced them to; it was just rapid, collective adoption, analogous to what happened when smart phones hit the market. You can still buy dumb phones that work great, but nobody does.
As it so happens, I lived in China for 9 years, swam in the startup tech circles, and built a startup around WeChat. I can tell you with authority that you are wrong that WeChat won through market forces. China operates by allowing many startups to flourish, and when a particular industry becomes dangerous or important to their national interests, they shut down all but one, and put state backing into that one. They play king makers. Tencent, and WeChat, while well run and built, is basically state owned software.
I saw this whole ordeal play out with Twitter clones. There were maybe ten with traction. Then the gov stepped in and there were none. And then Weibo rose from the flames as the winner.
Speaking as a former weed delivery driver in California who got robbed at gun point twice... I honestly cannot wait for cashless to come. You know what's fun about dealing with cash? Nothing! It sucks! At least give me the option to opt out of having to deal with people who transact in cash and give me a badge that says "This guy doesn't carry money!" That seems fair to me since I don't want to be involved with that nonsense or the problems that come with it.
You cannot buy a macbook pro in all cash in India. It is illegal to use cash above certain limit. There are restrictions on what a business can claim as an expense if they are paying in cash. There are onerous compliance and tax hits which come with accepting cash.
Businesses are reluctant to accept cash when government punishes them with compliance and additional paperwork + tax + tds.
The US is trending this way with inflation. 10k is the numerical limit at which everyone treats you like a criminal in the US, which was roughly equivalent to 60k (in 2022 dollars) when the law went into effect. Now it's not even enough to buy a middle of the road 10 year old used car.
One of my bank accounts has been blocked for the last 6 months over this, despite hours on the phone beforehand and countless assurances that this wouldn't happen. It reminds me of traveling to Canada with a credit card in the mid 00s.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-08-03/actual...