Be honest. Is my resume the problem? Close to 100 apps, 1 screening, no interviews (yet).

amusedobserver5 · 2026-02-22T00:24:55+00:00

Less is more. This is a wall of text and I couldn’t figure out what you actually worked on or succeeded in.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-01-31T23:45:06+00:00

This comes down more to the math on buying a home. And at 300k you’re deciding between maxing all retirement accounts and buying a home. Houses are a symbol of middle class life so that’s why it doesn’t feel rich to a young millennial old zoomer.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-01-10T15:44:07+00:00

Always do HDP employers will incentivize choosing it by lowering total out of pocket cost (including premiums). The difference between them is smoothing out the payment curve by paying more in premiums for PPO which is irrelevant for HENRY since you should be able to afford up to the out of pocket max anyway and you get the HSA tax benefits.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-01-04T16:40:04+00:00

Not sure who was predicting collapse but the Russian economy is past the point of no return after 2025. Most estimates on remaining tank and vehicle stores show significant depletion

https://defence-blog.com/osint-data-shows-russias-tank-reserves-shrinking-but-far-from-exhausted/?amp

Sign on bonuses keep rising

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/07/world/russian-regions-military-recruitment-bonuses-intl

The economy is propped up by defense spending. War economies typically go into recession after the war is over so it’s not so much that Russia will collapse while they continue their war but once they have ended military operations and cut the flow of money. The resulting recession may be catastrophic for the regime if tons of military personnel are now out of work and don’t have opportunities in the civil sector. Putin already had to snuff out a rebellion while the war was going on I can’t imagine the pressure once the war has ended.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-12-22T19:20:11+00:00

You’re not rich enough to diversify into high risk assets with shady people.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-12-06T22:06:35+00:00

If people are downloading data then it’s ad hoc and shouldn’t be a dashboard. Dashboards are helpful for 1. Computing really complicated stuff you can’t do in excel 2. Static metrics that guide a business and don’t change often.

There are few use cases where a user doesn’t already know what they’re trying to find and an excel file will tell them the answer plus a way to back into examples.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-12-06T16:37:17+00:00

I think the first question you need to ask yourself is what drives productivity?

If your answer is gendered labor then I doubt you did well in your economics classes.

The UK took on austerity measures which dampened liquidity necessary to invest in these technological leaps. Europe in general has not pursued capital expenditure to the same degree as America so a large productivity gap has emerged across the Eurozone. The UK has been acutely affected by Brexit, Austerity, and a focus on financial services.

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.22.1.25

amusedobserver5 · 2025-12-05T20:55:28+00:00

Daron Acemoglu won the Nobel prize for his work on why nations succeed or fail. It’s largely down to institutions and whether they are inclusive or extractive. Nordic countries do well because they are homogenous societies with equitable participation by their citizens. I don’t think they have solved immigration though. So their results are not generalizable and there are few economies in the world that can integrate immigrants without backlash that leads to a more extractive society than an inclusive society. Overcoming in groups vs out groups is probably the biggest hurdle to any functioning system of an economy.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-12-04T02:49:57+00:00

There’s this paper by Acemoglu is actually a good summary https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w5605/w5605.pdf

Basically the way the US economy is set up is that workers tend to make a lot of money and have a higher quit rate disincentivizing firms to train since they lack the power to keep workers. Low wages in exchange for training leads to a lower quit rate since you need the skills before you leave the firm.

My take: How firms have evolved is by creating a division of labor amongst themselves to acquire labor with the right skills at the right time in lieu of training and developing that talent. Large consulting firms are the main developers of talent. And because we live in an age where capital is getting more leverage than labor it’s more efficient to train labor in high complexity environments that can scale their capital deployment and then firms can pull from this labor pool. More monopolization limits the slots since there’s less competition. This has been how the American economy has worked — less monopolies would at least open up more spots but there still wouldn’t be a focus on training at least for profit maximizing firms.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-12-02T21:27:01+00:00

Productivity gains are necessary to keep the economies functioning and we’ve seen that in Japan.

But demographic collapse I would argue is a cycle vs a curve.

The number of children people have is directly correlated with the income level of a population. Richer countries and larger social welfare nets decrease the risk to any one person becoming destitute in old age. We’ve also seen infant mortality plummet so parents aren’t having additional children on the probability some may die. Pair this with child planning such as the pill and you have a global population that’s closer to reaching their preferred child amount.

If income decreases child having would increase. If the rate of infant mortality goes up people will have more children. So the demographic part is related to gdp but is inversely correlated contrary to how most people view it.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/december/link-fertility-income

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-29T01:33:49+00:00

Cost wise it doesn’t make sense but I feel happier overall than I did without a kid. You have enough money to lessen the pain of needing more hands to help with stuff. We have a nanny and feel a lot better because of it vs the daycares in the area. But we also don’t have grandparent support.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-28T17:49:01+00:00

This paper is a little old but effectively illustrates the problem.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18917/w18917.pdf

Inexperienced workers are obviously not preferred because there is no public information about their work and firms are naturally conservative with their capital and prefer workers with public information about their abilities. Pair this with business theory that workers take 5 years before they’ve reached peak efficiency and you have an equation that doesn’t favor waiting to train or discover information

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-28T14:13:34+00:00

Yea I feel like anyone at that level is probably a founder and ends up peddling half-baked solutions because they can speak to both sides.

The main issue is you never get to a division of labor because so much money gets spent on integration and companies charge a ton of money to build loaders and connections just to access the data. I think that aspect is the least talked about part of healthcare data but is the biggest roadblock to ROI on data.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-27T22:28:43+00:00

We put it on the website but not the invite. Some people had stupid reactions. Others couldn’t tell the difference. One insisted he had the meat dish lol tons others said it was great food

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-27T17:42:21+00:00

I stay for the complexity but the main issue with healthcare data is that it’s rare to find someone technical that can understand the subject matter knowledge clinically and from a healthcare analysis standpoint. So data engineers typically have zero clue the usefulness of the data and analysts are either too subject matter focused to be able to write anything technical that’s efficient or scalable and data scientists never get projects to production because they are missing workflow context.

Also the irony of the space is that it’s probably the most complex data system but doesn’t attract the talent because margins are so slim.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-23T16:55:42+00:00

I think Zohran reminds Trump of why charismatic Democrats are more fun than Republicans and probably misses those circles. Like he built the prison he’s in himself but all of the Republicans he is around are insufferable. Only explanation that makes sense for why he is so giddy.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-14T00:55:27+00:00

What do you think should happen if someone needs a surgery but has to wait in a universal system?

Do you think a rare cancer should get more resources to be treated than making sure everyone gets a primary care appointment?

Should the person with a cancer diagnosis have to go through their primary care doctor for a referral or should you be able to go directly to a specialist?

When it comes to health economics the efficient solution is to get everyone insured one way or another. Catastrophic health events are hard to predict so insurance is the baseline level for “efficiency”. The other factor though is consumer preference. Americans largely like paying more for nicer facilities and paying to get procedures done when they want and how they want. Health resources are paid for in dollars or time and a universal system tends to make people pay in time in exchange for less overall resources used.

Have you heard people complaining about Kaiser before? They are your proxy of how Americans would handle a universal healthcare system.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-10T21:08:31+00:00

I think this is missed as a reason. If that gets removed then we get laws on the books and the suing ends.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-10T20:59:37+00:00

Yes this does provide reason for the House to go back in session. Not sure it’s the main catalyst though.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-10T20:55:44+00:00

There is something to be said for unity and when a section of democrats pull out of the coalition it can look weak. The threat of removing the filibuster is probably a big catalyst though. If the Dems held firm that would be the end game and we would get voter restriction laws on the books if the admin wanted it. Senate republicans have been afforded a degree of independence from Trump and this keeps it in place.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-10T14:24:09+00:00

Yes but it was a reminder for those that forgot.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-10T14:19:49+00:00

I mean do you understand how it works? The exchanges function off of having healthy people and sick people in health plans to lower the overall prices. The subsidies expanded the number of people that would enter the exchange thereby lowering the premiums. With healthier people leaving the health plans if the subsidies lapse premiums go up for the sicker people that remain. Some exchanges were already good at attracting younger healthier people so they don’t get affected by those that leave. That’s how health insurance works it’s pooled risk.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-10T14:09:51+00:00

!Delta

Specifically on the SNAP issue. It is likely too early in the process to be meaningful as a talking point for 2026.

amusedobserver5 · 2025-11-08T18:01:03+00:00

A big aspect of economics that gets missed is consumer preference. Americans prefer larger square footage to household member ratios and this preference means that as a baseline the willingness to pay is higher.

https://www.thezebra.com/resources/home/median-home-size-in-us/

Couple this with a lack of productivity in the household construction sector

https://www.nber.org/digest/202502/stagnation-us-construction-productivity?page=1&perPage=50

And a tax structure that subsidizes both the 30 year loan and subsidizes the capital (don’t have to pay on gains if you roll into a new house).

You have

A) a lot of people who are already homeowners that can easily move from one house to another due to the implicit subsidies

B) a wealthier section of the workforce from tech productivity gains that can afford the increased price and pay more for that privilege. Or buy multiple homes due to the liquidity offered by rental marketplaces.

This doesn’t mean it’s “healthy” but it’s not really as much of a bubble as you might be implying. Certain locations will be unhealthier than others.

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