Is $800 a year a lot? Invested for 30 years with a 8% return it will be $100k or maybe $300/month in safe withdrawals. Im not trying to beg a question here... Really is that a lot of money? $300 isn't enough to live on but it's maybe a quarter of the poverty line? I guess that would be significant when added to social security.
Is that per capital lottery spend just total sales divided by population? The more interesting statistic would be average spend by people who buy at least a ticket a month. I'm sure the $761/month is brought down by people who buy 0-5 tickets a year.
My personal pet peeves with HN is that there is a vocal minority that is completely dismissive of the entire field of economics. Obviously, the field has pluses and minuses, but it's nuts there are people that completely think the whole field is useless or harmful. Economics didn't become a major academic field studied in every college in the country (world even?) by being a bunk science.
> My personal pet peeves with HN is that there is a vocal minority that is completely dismissive of the entire field of economics.
I am mostly dismissive of a lot of economically-motivated political arguments, because a lot of the time the people advancing such arguments are abusing models that are simply not applicable.
> Obviously, the field has pluses and minuses, but it's nuts there are people that completely think the whole field is useless or harmful.
I'm very critical of the "because economics" when money is involved on one side or the other.
When the opaquely-funded Cato institute's neo-libertarian nonsense is being funnelled through here from one of the two accounts that only serve to post their content, then I'll criticise them and be in a minority.
I also think that people cherry picking arguments based on following microeconomics into a realm it isn't really applicable is responsible for some of the most cruel and savage human behaviour we see today. When supply and demand is applied to public services with no regard for taxation and planning and you have bullshit-economics acting as a mask for racists, I think it's right to call it out in the same way that I would call out someone claiming that migrants breathe too much air.
> Economics didn't become a major academic field studied in every college in the country (world even?) by being a bunk science.
Some critics argue that it got there by supporting those with the money to keep it there. If your field is funded by people who have an interest in the direction and implications of that field of study, we start to see problems. People tend to see this more with the pharmaceutical industry than with economics. Ubiquity is not a very good measure for a sign of its quality.
Nonetheless I am actually quite a fan of Keynes. I found it quite tragic to hear about his heart attacks and lack of recovery that seemed to come at such an unfortunate time.
Actually, Keyenes correctly predicted some of the main reasons WWII happened. If more world leaders had listened to him, then we probably could have prevented world war 2.
He predicted that after WWI that the reparations required of Germany would be too burdensome on their economy which would in turn lead to another war.
No you´re right. The banking system was bouncing up and down like a yo-yo in the 19th century, on average there was a crisis every 10-12 years (also astonishingly regular). The mean time to crisis is several years longer these days.
Oh, I realize that most people don't study historical banking system but what your saying is only partly and only if you look at specific places.
The crisis in the US system in the 19th century were usually based on bad harvest that lead to a banking crisis. The US was suffering from absolutely horrible banking regulations back then and that was acknowledged by everybody (and was blocked from being reformed for 25 years).
However the severity and duration were not necessary longer then they are today. The Great Depression and Great Recession were easily as bad or worse then any of the recessions in the pre-WW1 era.
Furthermore Canada, who was just north of the US and with a similar economy suffered no banking crisis at all during that period. So saying that it was like a yo-yo in the 19th is simply not true unless you are locking at the US. Even in the US banking systems in some states performed significantly better then others (more diversity in regulation back then).
Actually, some of us do, and some of us study it rather more widely than the US - which is actually regarded as having one of the world's more dubious banking systems during the 19th century.
Some of us would also make the claim that the reason the European banking system was also bouncing up and down like a yo-yo in the 19th, was that the American system kept crashing it (cascade failure.)
Canada's branch banking system was quite different to that used in America, and probably played a part in the relative stability. It probably also helped that during that period Canada was a big exporter, and was to some extent protected by the Sterling zone. However the British banking system was also suffering from periodic crashes during this period.. so it's unwise to get too carried away with that analysis.
Great. So we are in agreement. 19th century banking was not 'like a yoyo' it depended on lots of factors and was the opposite of a yoyo in some places.
The US history of banking is really a fucking mess. Its a travesty.
This is a fun little podcast about banking history in the US:
Bank failures were very common in the US specifically, especially in the GD. The reason is that the US had 10000s of banks because of a regulation called 'Unit Banking'. This made banks incredibly weak (not diversified) to shocks and failed often. Because of other problem in the US system this often lead to lots of banking failures. 1000s of them went down in the GD for example. Compare to Canada where no bank failed (there were less in the first place of course).
It was deregulation that finally abolished that absurd practice along with other changes, including some more regulation, and the removal of lots of old regulation that lead to an improved banking system.
The Depression of 1929-1933 was followed very quickly by a recession in 1937 but banks didn't fail anymore. Pretty much every economist agree that the reason was the FDIC and the consolidation of the banking system in the following years.
To track bank failures today on deregulation in the 80s is a really hard sell, if you study the history of banking you will see huge changes in regulatory structure, types of regulation and so on all the time, including after Reagan. To sell the old 'evil republic deregulation is cause of all evil' story is always easy but unless you are at a political rally it is a pretty meaningless statement.
We are not back in a yo-yo compared to the 19th century. We are two recessions apart from the longest period of continued growth in US history (1990's). Then there was a recession in 2001, and then another in 2008-2009.5.
You should check out the Wikipedia article for "list of recessions in the United States." It spells out recession duration and time since previous recession.
Markets and bubbles crash because of a mismatch between a price and actual comparable value (which, in their large form, are usually caused by artificial market levers or _regulations_).
Stop with this mysticism inspired "greed is bad and therefore actions inspired by greed are inherently bad so we need even more powerful people who are of course not influenced by greed to set rules for the greedy" nonsense.
Does this work for your entire career or does it only work until you hit some kind of "salary cap" for your local market? I've had a few good raises in a short period of time, but I'm scared I can realistically only get one or two more in before I reach the top of the market.
I’ve hit that in my market - or a soft cap, at least, meaning if I want to earn more, I’m going to have to make 2-3x as much effort than I did before.
Through working my ass off, and pretty great luck, (working on lots of side projects didn’t hurt either), I recently did some looking just to feel the market out and I’m making like $20k more than I “should” be.
Part of this is because my company is based out of Bethesda, MD and I live in Denver, CO - cost of living differences. My company pays really well which allows them to compete with Silicon Valley and everywhere else for the best engineers.
No complaints here. I’m making double what I thought I would be making at this point in my career.
Anyway, yes, anecdotally, it caps out, but I also like to think that if I really hustled, I could keep raising it. But I’m pretty happy where I’m at and would rather spend my free time doing stuff other than coding and hustling right now.
Were your feelers all in Denver? Denver seems to have surprisingly low salaries, especially when accounting for the housing boom of the past 5-6 years.
Salary caps but stock does not. FAANG companies give massive RSU grants to senior people. There is no ceiling at companies that can afford to do that, which gives them a big advantage over startups.
There was a statistic in germany about doctors, diploma and other high income people. Around 40 to 45 the salary capped or even started to decline. (age discrimination is real)
I'd imagine the gains are somewhat asymptotic -- there's definitely a theoretical maximum somewhere out there, and every jump moves you closer to it. The bigger gains (percentage wise) probably come earlier?
My first company switch literally doubled my total comp. My second one was a double digit increase as well. I expect any future jumps to be smaller. (Though, who knows where the market will be then, as I'm likely years away from any move.)
I'm not a lawyer, but I think this highly depends on the state you are in. From my googling, judges in my Midwestern state are very reluctant to strike down any kind of contract made between two adults.
I live in the Midwest and have dealt with a couple non-competes. They are toothless if you simply take a strong stance from the get go. No lawyer required.
Leaving, I've been threatened about legal action and basically said I didn't care, swore a few times and moved on. They won't spend the money to enforce it. Most noncompetes I've seen were written so terribly they wouldn't have a leg to stand on anyways.
It works. Non-comepetes are basically unenforceable regardless of state. They are just used to threaten and bluff. Telling them to fuck off shows you know they have no standing.
Even by the standard of what passes for legal advice on the internet, this is especially terrible advice. I also live in the Midwest and am currently sitting out a noncompete agreement (which, since it must be paid to be enforceable in my state, has been quite enjoyable).
Like you, I’m also not a lawyer, but I did engage the services of a firm when I left. My lawyer informed me in no uncertain terms that my noncompete agreement was enforceable and cited several cases where a) their firm took employers to court to have the agreements tossed and lost and b) unsuccessfully defended people who did what you did and were sued by their previous employer.
In general, “fuck off, sue me” usually isn’t a great legal strategy.
Problem with that advice is you have to believe they won't do anything, and know that these things are garbage when you decide to start looking for another job. If you don't know that these are garbage, or think that they will try and enforce it, then you're probably going to be dissuaded from looking for other work in the first place.
It's silly to say that a student should only go to college if they can afford to do it with no loans. I think a large part of the "student loan" problem is that we don't talk about income enough. It is completely reasonable for a comp sci major from a good school to graduate with $75k in loans ($900 payments). That will not be a burden for them. Likewise, a $20k student loan ($300 payments) should be manageable for someone who makes $40k a year. The issue is when the person who only real prospects pay $40k a year and they have $75k in loans.
I was admitted to a relatively competitive university's (<10% acceptance rate) computer science program, but it would mean I would have to take on just over 100k of debt. After the first year I chose to transfer to a local community college to earn an associates, and then trasnfer to a state school. I was hired after my associates, got my bachelors paid for and completed it online, and graduated with no debt. I'm extremely happy I made the change, rather than paying 100k for a bachelor. Sure, I could've afforded it, but instead I was able to purchase a car in cash and buy a house pretty much straight out of school. I wouldn't recommend anyone go into debt for a bachelor; in my opinion the money could be better spent elsewhere, and it is unlikely to make a significant difference in position/pay having a name brand degree rather than something from a state school
I take a lot of pride in my liberal arts education and how it shaped my world view. I would never in a thousand years trade it in for a car and a house... And it cost less too.
Ok... lots of state school offer liberal arts programs so not sure what point you're trying to make there. I would hope that it cost a lot less than a house, but I still think going into debt for a bachelors is a bad idea. I'm gaining equity every month rather than paying hundreds of dollars for a degree that provides little to no benefits over what you can get from a state school without taking on debt. Also, my house has appreciated 46.5% since I purchased it which is another financial benefit I would not have had I stayed at the expensive university
I'm sorry I wasn't clear. You are making the world out to be a false dichotomy, either you spend $100k or 0 for a college education. One means you are broke and the other means you can buy a fancy car and a house. My point is that it is a spectrum. My schooling cost me $50k. I got a small, liberal arts environment in a cool city with access to a variety of internships. State schools around me did not offer that combination.
A) I enjoyed my schooling and I don't mind paying $500/month in loans for it and B) it didn't cost $100k and C) I find it nuts that you are bragging about the fact you got to buy a car because you didn't have student loans.
Funny, no one has ever asked me whether or not I own a brand new car or own my own house in a job interview. However, every interview has asked me about my college education.
Maybe you are the one who needs to reevaluate their priorities.
Who are you angry at? My loans will be paid off in less than four years from now (7 total) and possibly as little as two more years (if I can figure out how to not eat out so much...). My college education was a fantastic investment.
I am not angry at all. I watched people around me in the same situation as you, job right out of school with a good payment plan have life happen and suddenly that 4 yr plan turned into 20.
That was with much much lower debt than anyone I see today having.
"Should" being a huge keyword there. Labor wage growth in general has barely kept up with inflation, on average. The software industry bubbles have kept it largely immune to this and overall still seems to be seeing relatively strong wage growth in certain cities and sectors, but there's no guarantee that will continue.
Not to mention that with the time value of money, 20% of your first paycheck isn't just immediately a lot (which it is), it's also a potentially much larger chunk of long term savings and investments potential.
But the main argument here remains that a lot of the complaints are the overall slow delay in people with student loan debt engaging with other economic concerns (buying homes, starting families, etc), and all you've done is exactly illuminate why it is considered such a crisis, people are rationally waiting for that "year five" when student loan payments are less than 20% (or whatever high water mark) of their income, rather than starting bigger projects earlier than that.
Those wage growth numbers discussed are an average. It would be very strange to have someone not have any significant raises between year 0 of their career and year 10.
On a bell curve there are as many people below the average as there are above it. Given the overall wage growth in software industry it's very easy to assume that has largely propped the average up over the last couple decades of statistics and that there are lots of people in other industries that have suffered wage loss more than wage growth.
You could argue that wages do not follow a bell-curve distribution, but there isn't a distribution out there without people falling at or below the average. "Significant raises" in one's career seems to be the outlier statistic, not the norm.
I agree with everything you just said, but its also an average across age groups. It would not surprise me to see many 40year old workers getting 1% yearly raises for the rest of their career. What would surprise me is if there are a significant number of 25 year olds only making 1% raises until they are 35. Most industries will pay a premium for an individual with ten years of experience over someone with no experience (a recent graduate).
My continued disagreement is with "most industries". I think software, especially in "tech hubs" like Silicon Valley has been extremely privileged in raises and I think that colors a false perception of other industries here.
Historically, it seems to be a nice privileged outlier for white collar positions, at most; blue collar work has rarely paid a premium for any individual, much less for experience, and in general has worked very hard to avoid thinking of labor in terms of individuals.
Anecdotally, I've yet to see this "significant raise" for ten years of experience in my own career, and among peers I've straw-polled neither have they. Some have only gotten that cost of living raise through complicated job hopping. Admittedly, I've prioritized overall standard of living over raw income for most of my career to date. I could be doing better, but I'm doing alright.
It does very much look from my cynical point of view that industries that will pay a premium for individuals with experience are few, and increasingly disappearing/extinct in an overall marketplace that hasn't respected labor in decades. The only guaranteed "industry" in current American economics with significant raises of any sort is the C-Suite fraternity. Software has been very fortunate to keep getting good table scraps, with luck, in tech hubs, before cost of living and work/life balance are adjusted for. Lawyers and Doctors with collective effort have done okay protecting their wage gains. I don't think there are many other industries beyond those that can claim the same, even (and maybe especially) adjusting the averages for age.
Lots of professionals earn 1-2% raises their entire career. I'd say it's the norm, and also the reason that job-hopping is seen as the best way to increase your salary.
What's silly is to ever allow an institution to take 10% or more of your earnings. Unless they're doing 10% of the work for you, they're not entitled to any claim to the earnings. All that does is perpetuate the gatekeeper fallacy that somehow you need to "pay your dues (to the institution)"
Betting on Zero is a great documentary. If you want a competing view point, you should read the blog posts by John Hempton, an Australian hedge fund manager.
I think it is important to work for as many different companies as you can during your twenties so you can figure out what is important to you. Then spend your thirties trying to find your way back to your favorite environment so that you can spend your forties in it.
I think you have formed a bit of a strawman argument here. Monopolies are never good for markets, pretty much but definition. Regulated monopolies, such as utility companies, are sometimes good for consumers though.
I don't exactly know what you mean by irrational actors are good for overcoming a market crisis, but I'd probably say that the market isn't functioning in a crisis and that irrational actors might put it back in a normal state, irrational actors are not good for functioning markets.
> Monopolies are never good for markets, pretty much but definition. Regulated monopolies, such as utility companies, are sometimes good for consumers though.
I actually have the exact opposite opinion, natural monopolies are good for the market while government granted monopolies are not.
Natural monopolies (i.e., ones not protected by fiat) gained their position through being the best in that space and there's nothing to stop competitors from overthrowing them if they lose their way while the opposite is far from true -- try to overthrow a gov't granted monopoly and you end up in court for patent (or whatever) infringement.
Natural monopolies in any sizable market don't stay natural. They get their fingers in government or use their relative size in a legal system that favors money to create unreasonable barriers to entry. Once they make it to #1 they no longer have to be the best. Same goes for markets run by a duopoly or any number of entities that cooperate in some way to lower competition.
You want utility companies to be a regulated monopoly because of their economies of scale. Consumers would be worse off with two small electric companies because their per unit of electrical price would be higher. Competition can't price away the fixed costs of building a power plant or stringing electrical wires all over town. However the monopoly has pricing power and needs the government regulation to prevent it from unfairly raising prices for consumers like they would to maximize profit without the regulation.
Natural monopolies are bad because they can use their market position to unfairly prevent new entrants to the market. For example, Amazon may buy all of a key supplier's product and prevent the upstart from even having a chance because they can't buy any of that product. The monopoly can raise prices to whatever level they want, despite what the market would dictate because the consumer doesn't have another alternative.
Is that per capital lottery spend just total sales divided by population? The more interesting statistic would be average spend by people who buy at least a ticket a month. I'm sure the $761/month is brought down by people who buy 0-5 tickets a year.