I wish it said what the effective yield will be for bond purchases if they sell for the expected price. Is that yield consistent with other bonds with similar ratings?

It sounds right in content and in him not knowing that lay is a transitive verb.

The people in China, and to a lesser extent Russia, want to have a word with you about how the government can control the internet. It’s not happening year yet. I’m hopeful that people will just go around the censors to get the content they want. I’m concerned that when Tiktok shut off its service and some people wrongly thought the gov’t “blocked” the packets, many Americans were okay with that.

I use YouTube and don’t get much far-right content. My guess is it’s because I don’t watch much political content. I use a podcatcher and websites for that. If I watched political content, it might show me some lurid videos promoting politics I disagree with because that tends to keep viewers engaged with the site/app longer than if they just showed videos consistent with the ideology I seek out. That gives people the feeling they’re trying to push an ideology.

I made that up without any evidence. It’s just my guess. I’m a moderate libertarian who leans Democratic because Republicans have not even been pretending to care about liberty, and for whatever reason it doesn’t recommend the far-right crap to me.

That’s if we’re lucky and he doesn’t transform the US into a full blown dictatorship with president for life status.

I may be hitting the copium, but I feel like this will not happen. It feels like having influence over social media platforms is really powerful, but the Internet is still there. It’s easy to send or find information if you want to, much easier than before the Internet. It’s much easier for set up or use a new information outlet than it was to start a TV station or newspaper. I thought no retailers could beat Sears, until Walmart came. People protested Walmart saying if they don’t like your CD for political reasons, people just won’t buy it. No one can touch Walmart. Then came Amazon. I think social media platforms will be even more short-lived in their influence, especially considering how easy it is to “change the channel” or start a new “channel”.

I read some of it, but I find it funny because it should be a joke for the bar to be so ridiculously high for a new technology: understanding human history.

We need to find a way to teach people to sort out information, to put their immediate emotions on pause and search for information

This entire comment and @[email protected]’s comments are so powerful.

I think people have two modes of getting information: digging into a newspaper article and trying to figure out what’s going on and seeing a lurid headline in the tabloid rack. Most people do both ends of the spectrum and a lot of in-between. Modern technology lends itself to giving tabloid-like content while we’re waiting in line for a minute. This is why Tiktok is concerned about being removed from the app store, even though it’s easy to install the app yourself, easier than signing up for a newspaper delivery subscription was. But Tiktok isn’t more like a lurid tabloid that most people would not go two steps out of their way to find, but they might read it waiting in a slow line. I’m hopeful that people will learn to manage the new technology and not keep being influenced by tabloid entertainment.

On the other side of this, there is the Deep Space Nine episode In the Cards. Nog, a Ferengi, helps Jake do work in exchange for things that people want. Then take some risks, buying stuff they don’t know if they can sell, and end up makings some trades that gets people what they want, so Jake can get what he wants. In the end there’s a montage showing everyone ends up happier.

So people did work freely. People paid them freely. They took a risk with some of their gains to buy things they hoped might meet someone else’s needs, with the hope of making mutually beneficial change. In the end, people served one another freely, not based on guilt or coercion, and everyone ended up with more of what they wanted. That’s a world most people want to live in.

I have had good results with Fidelity. I’m sort of like @[email protected] in that I opened the account because my employer’s 401(k) was through Fidelity. I eventually moved my main brokerage, HSA, IRAs, and checking to Fidelity.

The horror of the Soviet Union are will soon pass beyond living memory too.

It feels like the Nazis are passing beyond living memory so there are few people alive who remember how bad they were.

The world is full of Steve Wozniaks who just never get a chance to shine because they are not interested in capital accumulation or are really eccentric or can’t take economic risks or just lost a cutthroat business competition because they trust or are kind.

I actually think the world economy runs on trust and kindness. If even one percent of agreements people make went to the courts, the economy could not function.

There are mozarts and einsteins toiling in fields right now.

I agree. Giving everyone opportunity is the right thing to do and it leads to increased prosperity. There’s no easy way to do it. It’s something difficult and worth trying to do.

We have an unnecessary zero-sum-game for an economy.

The economy has generated unbelievable amounts of wealth, not zero-sum at all, a huge increased sum.

Defending the right to unpopular and offensive speech is not the same as compromising with the speech. You can truly abhor what someone’s saying and not try to some them.

I actually think it would be closer to Atlas Shrugged, where the people generating new means of production begin to disappear and society becomes much poorer.

The US didn’t take action to block the app, Tiktok did. Maybe the government would have taken action eventually. It smells like a political plan, where someone at Tiktok agreed to block the app for 24 hours as a political favor.

Whether you think the person he killed deserved it or not is irrelevant, giving a free pass because of that sets an extremely dangerous precedent

It’s just patently absurd. It’s an angry mob. They probably didn’t even know the victim. They could turn on you, me, or each other.

I was unclear from the article how the lending happened? Did customers physically travel to Native American lab, transfer money electronically, or is it partnered with retailers who arrange the financing for consumers?

Regarding the FDIC limits, I think the bank can help you open two or three different types of accounts, e.g. money market, savings, interest-bearing checking, that are materially similar but considered as individually insured to $250k by the FDIC. If your bank cannot help you, you could open an account at a large the bank that’s unlikely to fail. If there is difficulty opening the account, arrange a meeting with someone. They are generally interested in meeting with people with $1M net worth and are interested in putting $250k in a deposit account.

The risk of a banking crisis or the USD tanking during the next 24 is very remote. USD is the reserve currency for the world. I think this is like planning for a meteor devastating the planet. It has happened; it will happen again, but the risk of it happening in the next 24 months is too low to consider. You are more likely to have an accident that puts you into a coma or something, so it’s more important to have a financial and medical power of attorney set up. These are all remote risks that I would not worry about.

If you want to invest the money but want to avoid businesses with practices you disagree with, just invest in individual stocks, or invest in local real estate or a local business you understand and approve of. If you’re going to use most of the money for your primary residence within 24 months, forget about investing, and just put it in a good bank. Focus on getting the property you want for a fair price and on engineering, and don’t worry much about very unlikely perils.

I remember seeing a commemorative plate in a Star Trek magazine in the 80s, when I was kid. I asked my parents to buy me one. They asked what I wanted with a Star Trek plate. That was a good point. I still don’t know what I would have done with a commemorative plate.