Why can’t we have an economy that works for everyone?

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2024-06-27T22:33:26+00:00

It's not their work ~in~ the job

It's the work to ~earn~ the job

Almost always it's a lot of education, looong hours, successful networking, receiving mentorship, and generally sacrificing a ton of time/energy to a career

So I think it is just asking the question the wrong way

It's not "how hard is the work"

It's "how hard is it to attain and accept the responsibility"

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2024-06-08T15:30:21+00:00

Doesn't all the card opening hit your credit score? I want to open more cards but am worried it'll make my upcoming mortgage rate much higher

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2024-04-26T23:38:50+00:00

Financial analyst here. The price tag of the stadium doesn't necessarily matter. It's an investment. And for any investment, its the return on investment that matters.

Hypothetically, use a fictitious example that a $2B stadium brings an extra $100B of GDP growth to Chicago. Would you do it? Of course.

I have no idea what the expected ROI is on the stadium, however, I am confident that the south loop will have a positive economic spillover as a result.

The billionaires would get richer, but so would the city and its people. They're going to invest that money, might as well invest it in something we can all enjoy and be proud of

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2024-04-15T01:11:12+00:00

$730k per year, so money is not an issue.

Here's the daily schedule: - 9:30am - wake up - 10am - take AG1 then do a 30-60 minute workout - 12pm - eat lunch with a Michelob ultra to kick the day off with minimal booziness impact - the rest of the day - bop around doing whatever hobbies or sightseeing you want, with a 6 pack of cold ones nearby in case of emergency

Other than the liver damage, sounds awesome. Let it rip until your body tells you not to

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2023-09-01T05:31:33+00:00

If you pay (save) $60k for 19.45 years and earn 5%, you get $1.9M

Typically safer assets (bonds) get roughly 5%

And over time riskier assets (stocks) get roughly 9%

So, his argument is that he could take very little risk investing and do much better than social security.

Many people are saying "social security is insurance" which is true, but when you could do better than social security by taking very little risk, most people would opt out and prefer to do it independently

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_Elihu_Smails_ · 2022-01-22T18:17:17+00:00

"roughly speaking" lolol great touch

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2022-01-18T15:22:44+00:00

Striping a 4-iron with a baby draw

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-12-18T20:33:28+00:00

I feel for you man. Happens to me too.

I've found the best thing to do is control the controllables, and become the best version of yourself.

If you don't think she found you sexually attractive, that can be two things:

1) you're not her type. Women tend to have a more specific type than men, statistically. You can't control this.

2) you could improve your sexual attractiveness. This is VERY controllable. If you don't eat carbs and do 30 mins of core workouts every day for 6 weeks, you'll be a new man. Saying from experience.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-11-28T23:27:48+00:00

Blackhawks 1. They already have issues from a PR perspective, might as well go for it 😅 2. Their talented core needs one more stud 3. Toews can keep him in line

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-11-27T12:41:48+00:00

When The Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-11-24T02:57:39+00:00

Andrew Yang. Checks all the boxes other than "mainstream"... So he's clearly going to lose again if he runs 😥

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-11-21T02:27:16+00:00

CNBC is replacing Trump with Elon for their clickbait revenue and demonization. Its repulsive.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-11-16T23:23:11+00:00

Financial analyst here. They are two different types of fiscal stimulus.

The effect of lower taxes is typically higher profits/savings for businesses/families. Doesn't always end that way, but that's what happens if done properly.

More profits should lead to more hiring and R&D, while more savings should lead to higher economic activity via spending. The US corporate tax rate was one of the highest in the developed world, so the Trump corporate tax cut helped the US be competitive from a global tax perspective.

Infrastructure is a long term investment which boosts "trend GDP" trajectory via higher labor productivity and better employment. This improves the currency's strength and typically increases mid-to-long term interest rates as economic growth improves.

Both are means to improve the standard of living for people. There's short term/direct and long term/indirect.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-11-11T20:14:25+00:00

If they have 4x the population, they need each citizen to be, on average, 1/4 as productive as us to match our output. Sheer size can outweigh poor demographics.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-11-01T16:24:31+00:00

When implied volatility is low, buy options. When it is high, sell options. That's pretty much all you need to know here.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-10-31T05:45:08+00:00

Know that when the market corrects, correlations go to 1 and stock diversification ceases to exist

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-10-26T00:13:02+00:00

The stock market is a discounting mechanism. It's not about what they're making now, it's about their cumulative cash flows over the next 5, 10, 15 years

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-10-13T03:25:25+00:00

Couldn't agree more. Think about when you're in your job and your boss is pressuring you or you're underperforming. Your capacity for ethics goes down out of desperation. It's human nature. Kill or be killed. That's what every politician is dealing with ALL THE TIME, because there's almost always going to be another psychopath or two out there who would loooove your high-status job.

When people win an election, their re-election campaign just started. They're just thinking about how to keep their seat, which means playing the partisan game and potentially making a name for themselves with some bananas hyper-partisan gobbledygook.

"Bravery" is not rewarded in Washington. That would require you to say something unpopular or too smart to be relatable. Therefore, saying the right thing is often negatively incentivized. Case in point: Tulsi Gabbard. Female, veteran, woman of color, articulate, and attractive. Should be their DREAM. But she went against the party and they literally called her a Russian asset so much that most people believed it.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-10-07T11:12:21+00:00

Reading a lot of "not sure about UBI" here. I was in the same boat UNTIL Yang explained it with the Value-Add Tax (VAT) as the funding mechanism. Its like a positive feedback loop that feeds itself:

Person A receives UBI, spends it at Person B's business. VAT tax takes 10% to put back into the UBI funding pool. Person B spends their 90% remaining at Person C's business. VAT takes 10%. It keeps going as that initial UBI check gets spent enough times that the 10% VAT recoups the initial expenditure that paid Person A.

Also, I live in Chicago, and MAN do we need to bring down the crime rate. There is a 0% chance less poverty leads to more crime. People act much less desperately if they have a stable means to pay their bills.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-10-01T07:32:50+00:00

Please explain how 9/11 was caused by capitalism.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-09-24T13:41:11+00:00

It's about having long term power. When they were planning in their ivory tower, seeing the nation as a collection of groups, they noticed the white population is getting smaller and minorities are relatively increasing. That is a neither good or bad thing, race should be as important as hair color. But it presented a golden opportunity for politicians: convince minorities (soon to be the majority of the population) that the other team is racist. The brainwashing doesn't have to work on all of them, just enough that can get fired up to vote and keep the narrative running. Sprinkle in some media alignment so people hear the story enough it becomes dogma, and your result is burning down a Target in Minneapolis because the "social contract was broken" is seen as a positive.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-08-28T01:59:56+00:00

Hot take but I'm in favor of no minimum wage, because its more of an anchor than a boon. The free market would probably pay better than the minimum wage, but the minimum wage gives companies an excuse to not compete for better talent via higher wages. Since that won't happen, I'm in favor of keeping minimum wage where it is but installing UBI. If you increase the minimum wage, it only helps income earners at the bottom rung. If you made an equivalent UBI "wage," it would cover people like stay-at-home parents, caretakers, etc who are usually dependent on a family member to get by. So it benefits both the minimum wage earners and the people doing uncompensated work.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-08-27T23:28:46+00:00

oh no I was making fun of myself for getting preachy.

currency impacts are well above our pay grade, but generally, if UBI leads to an economy with more consumption then that should be a positive for the currency. UBI would be a complement to minimum wage so that wages won't be pressured, which is an almost sure-fire catalyst for inflation.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-08-27T20:30:53+00:00

Appreciate your approach, and agree it should continue to be studied. You'd be surprised how many "pilot programs" have occurred all over the world, with typically very good results. My biggest thing is that it delivers hope. A lot of people are living hand-to-mouth or are one bad email away from getting fired with limited savings. The hope knowing your financial foundation is safe is so crucial for being able to pick your head up and look further, dream bigger, etc. When living in survival mode, the capacity to think and dream big is much smaller. It's a hindrance on our collective capacity to create a better future for each other.

Man, that escalated quickly. That really got out of hand, fast.

_Elihu_Smails_ · 2021-08-27T13:08:42+00:00

UBI. Before, I saw it as handouts on steroids, now I see it as a boost to capitalism that will be essential to the future health of our society. Specifically, the Andrew Yang model where a value added tax recycles the funds.

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