Jurgis

Good luck and have fun holding those 100-year uni bonds!

Funny thing is, there's a high chance he's not even taking it, because you can never fully believe what he says. I said so... but those liberals tried to stop me from making the Presidente great again.

fck that kitchen, bro. 8)

Hold on, so that means Trumpers should thank Democrats for their great achievement of electing Trump. And if Trumpers are unhappy about Trump being elected and blame it on Democrats, hey, there's two great ways to fix it: Trumpers have the Senate. They also have an election in November. But hey just vote Trump! Give idiocracy a second chance! Electrolytes against Covid! Take the argument to its logical conclusion, and German jews are to blame for Hitler's rise to power, because they weren't able to stop him. Trumper logic, QED. You are not wrong: German jews were actually blamed for Hitler's rise to power.

Hold on, so that means Trumpers should thank Democrats for their great achievement of electing Trump. And if Trumpers are unhappy about Trump being elected and blame it on Democrats, hey, there's two great ways to fix it: Trumpers have the Senate. They also have an election in November. But hey just vote Trump! Give idiocracy a second chance! Electrolytes against Covid!

We still believe in We.

I know of software tech company that has been working hybrid distributed WFH for 5+ years now. And when I say "hybrid" it's fully that. Some teams are mostly located in single office. Some teams distributed across US, some distributed across US, Europe, Asia. Some people work in office, some people work part time from office part time from home, some people work from home all the time. Some managers work from office, some managers work from remote office, some managers work from home. People who work from home (and from remote locations) get promoted pretty high in organization - let's say one level below CTO. Yeah, I also thought that working from home is career suicide for management track - not there though. Are there issues? Yes, there are. Though the issues are mostly because of distributed teams, not because of someone working from home. Would the company do better if everyone was in one location? Sure. Would they be able to hire the same quality people in single location? Very unlikely. Covid lockdown has very limited impact: just a bit more of distribution and WFH. How will things go after covid? Likely similar as they were before covid. If I had to guess, things won't change since some amount of physical co-location is beneficial. But likely people who were remote and worked from home will still do it. And people who came to the offices, will likely do that too. Maybe some will shift to work more from home. Probably not significant percentage.

So far the "we just shouldn’t do it” has been resounding success in the markets. ::) Kushner isn’t even at first level thinking yet. He’s at 0.5-level thinking. It's not the level of thinking, it's who your father(-in-law) is.* * First axiom of any banana republic

So far the "we just shouldn’t do it” has been resounding success in the markets. ::)

BRK is this city on a top of a crumbling hill with dilapidated walls, surrounded by half empty moats with couple of zebra fish floating in them. FAAMG are shining metropolis in the cloud(s) with glass and steel skyscrapers, flying cars zooming around, protected by laser beams, firewalls, and army of Agent Smiths. SP500 actually includes the metropolis. Includes some slums too. Your pick.

I thought all the bodies were actually in the open. 8)

Nuke China! (This message is approved by Generalissimo Trumpy 2024 campaign)

Government and organized crime. They both leach off of the productive and provide "protection" (mostly from what they will do to you if you don't pay and obey). Just parasites like viruses are to biological systems or different kinds of viruses are to computer networks. "All Complex Ecosystems Have Parasites" --Cory Doctorow YES! People should just govern themselves! We should all just do whatever we want to do! Don't ever trust professionals! Power to the common people! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ (This message is approved by Communist Party of Soviet Union)

Coronavirus thread is great and has tons of useful information.

I'm gonna disagree with all three: IBKR - they are nickel-and-diming their customers like there's no tomorrow. Pay for quotes, pay trade commissions, pay if you don't have enough trades per month. Some of these may have been removed, but because of competition and not because IBKR are good guys. So zero loyalty to IBKR, screw them. DIS - I think the park prices are ridiculous. High-speed internet - most countries have much cheaper high-speed internet than US. US monopoly pricing sucks.

By "leech" I assume you mean a business that provides far less value to its customers than it charges. Unless there is some regulatory capture or market failure, how does a business like that last? In other words, why would customers keep using it. For example, if Seamless is truly a leech, why are restaurants doing business with it? My contribution: ESPN, AMC Networks, Viacom, MSGN, etc. They were exploiting a legacy distribution system and are now losing customers hand over fist and the barriers to distribution fall. I think industry structure acts as the enabler of Seamless' leech status. At one point, Seamless was a niche provider of a "seamless" way to order meals for I Banking analysts working really late hours in the office. Since time is money, the few restaurants that are on Seamless' platform that got the orders truly got access to a new source of revenue versus those that are not on the platform. As time goes on and Seamless went more main stream, they held onto the 20-30%. Now every John and Jane orders from Seamless. That's why if you go to restaurants, they will ask you to call direct or order direct from their websites. This is probably the best sign that a company is acting like a leech. To get back, there are lots of restaurants and they are afraid to lose sales to another restaurant. So they bid up prices to get the order flow. This is usually 20-30% of the actual order. Being from the food industry, this is likely fine if this was an "one time" CAC to acquire a new recurring customer. But restaurant diners are generally promiscuous and tend to try different restaurants. Hence, they don't stay loyal customers. So the restaurants have to constantly pay up to get that order flow. Most customers probably aren't aware of the take of Seamless and feels that the transaction is Seamless. The TAM could be so much larger if Seamless decided to take 3-5% of a transaction which is much more sustainable for a restaurant. Unlike e-commerce such as Amazon where Amazon is providing the warehousing, i.e. rent and logistics, restaurants still have to pay rent which is 10% or higher, the 20-30% take rate on a gross margin that is 40-60% really cuts into the profits before adding cooks and other overhead. It is simply unsustainable. But the leeches keep leeching because restaurants are low barrier to entry but high barrier to exit business much like small hedge funds. There are lots of passionate hedge funds managers (one man shops), but the barrier to exit is very high. I don't use Seamless (not in my area?), I use Grubhub. I can see that restaurants would think them as a leech. IMO the restaurants are mostly forced into this no-win situation that they do lose orders if they are not on a platform. Yeah, some outstanding restaurants can leave the platform and get the same orders through their phones or websites. But for most restaurants I will just order from their competitor that is on the platform. So I'd stay with platform rather than staying with the restaurant. (And I would pretty much never call a restaurant if they are not on a platform and they don't have website - calling just sucks.) Yeah, it sucks for the restaurant, but that's how it is. What is it about the platform that causes you to continue to use it? Convenience. I have past orders that I can reuse - which I do. I have my account, CCs, etc. I know the UI, I know the UI works. I know that ordering works. And TBH restaurants mostly don't leave, so I know what I can order and from which restaurants. If restaurants left en-masse, I'd be forced to switch. But if just one-two restaurants leave, then I choose platform.

By "leech" I assume you mean a business that provides far less value to its customers than it charges. Unless there is some regulatory capture or market failure, how does a business like that last? In other words, why would customers keep using it. For example, if Seamless is truly a leech, why are restaurants doing business with it? My contribution: ESPN, AMC Networks, Viacom, MSGN, etc. They were exploiting a legacy distribution system and are now losing customers hand over fist and the barriers to distribution fall. I think industry structure acts as the enabler of Seamless' leech status. At one point, Seamless was a niche provider of a "seamless" way to order meals for I Banking analysts working really late hours in the office. Since time is money, the few restaurants that are on Seamless' platform that got the orders truly got access to a new source of revenue versus those that are not on the platform. As time goes on and Seamless went more main stream, they held onto the 20-30%. Now every John and Jane orders from Seamless. That's why if you go to restaurants, they will ask you to call direct or order direct from their websites. This is probably the best sign that a company is acting like a leech. To get back, there are lots of restaurants and they are afraid to lose sales to another restaurant. So they bid up prices to get the order flow. This is usually 20-30% of the actual order. Being from the food industry, this is likely fine if this was an "one time" CAC to acquire a new recurring customer. But restaurant diners are generally promiscuous and tend to try different restaurants. Hence, they don't stay loyal customers. So the restaurants have to constantly pay up to get that order flow. Most customers probably aren't aware of the take of Seamless and feels that the transaction is Seamless. The TAM could be so much larger if Seamless decided to take 3-5% of a transaction which is much more sustainable for a restaurant. Unlike e-commerce such as Amazon where Amazon is providing the warehousing, i.e. rent and logistics, restaurants still have to pay rent which is 10% or higher, the 20-30% take rate on a gross margin that is 40-60% really cuts into the profits before adding cooks and other overhead. It is simply unsustainable. But the leeches keep leeching because restaurants are low barrier to entry but high barrier to exit business much like small hedge funds. There are lots of passionate hedge funds managers (one man shops), but the barrier to exit is very high. I don't use Seamless (not in my area?), I use Grubhub. I can see that restaurants would think them as a leech. IMO the restaurants are mostly forced into this no-win situation that they do lose orders if they are not on a platform. Yeah, some outstanding restaurants can leave the platform and get the same orders through their phones or websites. But for most restaurants I will just order from their competitor that is on the platform. So I'd stay with platform rather than staying with the restaurant. (And I would pretty much never call a restaurant if they are not on a platform and they don't have website - calling just sucks.) Yeah, it sucks for the restaurant, but that's how it is.

??? Uber is a great value for customers. You might argue it's a bad value for drivers, but this would be pretty contentious argument. And if not Uber, then you have taxi monopolists which are the real leeches.

Trust the journalists to produce sensationalist non-sequitur headline. Instead of writing a headline "Online advertising effects are difficult (impossible?) to measure" or "Online advertising may be ineffective" or let's go with sensationalist, but with a grain of truth: "Online advertising is worthless", they choose "The new dot com bubble is here: it’s called online advertising". The fact that online advertising effects are difficult (impossible?) to measure and that (some) online advertising might be ineffective does not mean that there is a "new dot com bubble". It's like learning that Superbowl ad effects are difficult (impossible?) to measure and that (some) Superbowl ads might be ineffective and writing a headline "New Superbowl bubble!". It's ironic that the journalists are doing the same thing that they accuse their subjects of doing: drawing baseless conclusions from insufficient data.

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I haven't been able to envisage the end state here. So imagine you are super-successful like Oz, NZ, Singapore and your cases go to zero. The rest of the world (ROW) screws up and muddles its way to group immunity, perhaps at horrific cost. So ROW have 70-80% people with immunity, and the virus is still circulating. Now you have three ways out. 1. Vaccine is developed and you get immunity without the horrific costs. 2. The virus is totally eradicated. 3. You live in your bubble, separate from the rest of the world until either 1 or 2 happen. This doesn't seem like a viable option if its a long time. So whats the end state these guys are thinking of or hoping for? You might be misunderstanding the situation with "ROW have 70-80% people with immunity, and the virus is still circulating". This does not mean that virus is actively shedding from 70-80% of ROW. So, yeah Oz, NZ can live in their bubble by testing everyone who comes into the country. It's not that high load on testing. Admit people who test negative, kick out the ones who test positive, and track or quarantine everyone who enters for incubation period. Is that impossible for them to do long term (3+ years)? Edit: I guess tourism would be mostly screwed though.

Are you thinking a barbell strategy? I guess not. 8)

Anecdotally, I have WF Propel card, which I used when I was traveling. Right now I have to use it, since I got a refund on my cancelled China travel purchases on it. Otherwise, it's not an attractive card right now, since travel+dining is dead.

Aliens brought Covid to Earth. The truth is out there!

Was expected.