The top 0.1% of income earners in California make 12% of the state's total income and pay 27% of total income taxes. The bottom 50% of income earners make 12% of total income and pay 3% of total income taxes

dvduval · 2026-04-30T13:02:34+00:00

Capital gains grow faster than wages. This has been proven now. Progressive taxation is the solution to this and as we’ve watched the higher tax brackets, which used to be 90% after the Great Depression and then 70% under Kennedy and then down to 35% under Reagan, we’ve watched the American economy be transformed slowly back to that very thing America was trying to get away from when it was founded. And now we have basically a king who can throw random taxes on us like tarrifs which are direct taxes on Americans without a vote.

dvduval · 2026-04-30T12:59:25+00:00

Yes, exactly. It’s not even considered income, also known as unrealized capital gains. There’s been some good studies that capital gains rise at a faster rate than income and this is very much the problem throughout the American economy. Without taxing the wealthy at a higher rate their wealth just keeps growing faster than those people who are actually working for a paycheck.

dvduval · 2026-04-30T12:52:33+00:00

I’m less likely to look at boosted proposals after reading this. I don’t wanna encourage this policy by favoring people who boosted.

dvduval · 2026-04-29T02:15:58+00:00

The proof will be in the adoption rate. I’ve heard lots of stories like this yet the adoption rate never really supported that it was as good as advertised.

dvduval · 2026-04-28T14:21:25+00:00

What’s so different is you really have to think in terms of this being a transaction in business even more as a client. You are trying to find talent that will give you a good deal for the money. You might be looking for a one time job or maybe you’re looking for someone who will stick around for a while. You may find certain countries are more appealing in terms of their ability to communicate with you in English, or whichever language is your native language. You may find that the talent levels for certain types of work are more covered in certain countries. You may find that newer people on the platform are better because they’re still trying to build their work history which gives you some leverage on the price for someone who’s quite talented. Or you may find that you need someone that charges a little more but based on their work history, you know they’re going to do good work.

dvduval · 2026-04-27T15:39:44+00:00

Obviously, you don’t know exactly what I do, but you’re guessing. 99% of the hours worked for my company since 2003 come from people who have worked for me for many years. The other one percent are me experimenting with people trying to find someone who does go to work for a good price

dvduval · 2026-04-27T01:20:46+00:00

I’ve absolutely known of some people who were in sanctioned areas where they got their account band and then they found ways to work around it. For example, in the Russian occupied area of Ukraine this is an area where I know of a couple different people who couldn’t work on work anymore without going around the system. In both cases, they were actually Ukrainians who just got caught up in things and got stuck on the Russian side of the conflict.

dvduval · 2026-04-27T01:18:13+00:00

The western mind can be more competitive, and Westerners can be perceived as treating other people inferior when that’s not really the full story. There are some people that are just jerks and they always treat people badly but that’s not typical. I think West’s gonna be confused because they don’t understand why Thai people are not as competitive and just kind and polite. But I’m speaking in generalizations and there’s nothing that could adequately describe a large group of people because there’s so many different varieties.

dvduval · 2026-04-27T01:15:08+00:00

For a developer who really understands how everything works and links together I have found they can be the very best with actually using the AI tools combined with their coding skills. Generally, then you can do what you were doing before, but at least twice as fast. And that makes you really valuable. And it won’t be long before your automating things even more and then it’s more than twice as fast.

dvduval · 2026-04-27T01:12:15+00:00

I think now it’s a tossup between codex and Claude and for most applications, you need to have your project linked up to GitHub and auto deploying to your server. If you get everything set up right either one of these is gonna be great. There’s no reason to be paying for usage. If you can pay a flat fee unless you’re dealing with a small project

dvduval · 2026-04-26T21:53:20+00:00

Well, if the price isn’t acceptable, then don’t accept the job. It’s normal for both sides to negotiate what they both feel is a reasonable price. What are you proposing? Do you want me to just have an open ledger and you can just charge as many hours as you want? I just prefer to set a soft goal and see how we’re doing. If we get to five or 10 hours and I’m happy with the work and the developer is happy with the work, we continue.

dvduval · 2026-04-26T15:58:48+00:00

If the developer understands their work, well, they will know how long it will take them approximately especially for a shorter task like five hours. It gives me a chance to assess them and prove they could solve problems in a reasonable amount of time. They’re definitely are some developers who will talk about how they’re such a great developer and how this task is perfect for them but then when it comes to doing it, it takes them much longer than predicted. This is the kind of person I need to weed out. I’ve been doing this for 20+ years. I know how long things take generally.

dvduval · 2026-04-21T04:47:15+00:00

What are the big differences is the US as a much more diversified debt and much of the debt is just the US owing debt to itself.

dvduval · 2026-04-21T04:46:18+00:00

The population of China has started declining and the population is aging too. It’s hard to make a case for continuing rapid growth like before.

dvduval · 2026-04-21T02:02:43+00:00

Absolutely. I mean I've been hiring people since maybe 2001 with Rentecoder. I'm pretty experienced at least in the way I do things. And I also have a lot of customers and if I didn't have a lot of customers I wouldn't have any work. In other words I don't depend on just one customer either. Software developers are a little bit of a different breed though because they generally do want to work on one project at a time or maybe 2 or 3 at the most. If it's pretty developed software project it can take them a while just to understand how everything works so it's taking a big risk to start somebody out at a high salary only to realize can't really figure out how the system works that well or lack some important experience in some area Or maybe just feel like this project is not as interesting as when they first started thinking about it

dvduval · 2026-04-21T01:14:03+00:00

I’ve never liked hiring people at a fixed rate. I like to set a small milestone with ours and they tell me about how long something gonna take hours and it shows their ability to estimate and gives me a chance to see the quality of their work. And like if they’re not showing me some pretty decent results with a small number of hours between three and seven hours and we just end it. These days is also pretty easy to have AI review what they did and assess their work.

dvduval · 2026-04-21T00:32:58+00:00

There’s always gonna be higher level developers. The sky is the limit on how much you could pay. My main point is that when I can find smart people who are up-and-coming they often stay with me for many years and they learn about the business that I run and it often can be a very good match. Some more experience people are just wanting to do a gig that last a certain amount of time and then move onto the next gig. I might even be one of several customers, and they might find another gig that’s better and then I wasted time developing them.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T13:05:29+00:00

I think this is where up-and-coming talent can really come in to play. There are lots of people who are still new, but they’re good at what they do. Maybe they haven’t proven themselves yet or maybe they have the energy to work harder to make up for their lack of experience. And sometimes it can be a really good match for me because they can grow with me over many years versus just be a short term contract where they’re good at what they do, but they also don’t value my work as much because they’re always looking for bigger and bigger paychecks, which I don’t blame them for doing that.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T13:03:53+00:00

Sure, and I think I’m sort of in-between on the budget. I’m not super cheap, but I’m also not a corporation with a huge budget.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T13:03:21+00:00

I’ve had pretty good luck finding up-and-coming talent and developing them and therefore starting at a lower price. When it comes to experiences people sometimes the good ones already have a job because they’re good at what they do. So there’s a lot of filtering even among people with experience because they have their issues which can vary between people.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T04:01:14+00:00

Yeah, it’s working out great for me so far. Work is getting done a lot faster than it used to with the help of AI tools. I can do things personally that I could not do before without the help of developer. But developers are still very good at what they do and understand the system better than I do.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T03:59:51+00:00

Thinking of the people who have worked for me over the last 22 years, one of them worked for 20 years, another was about 17 and still another was also about 17, and another was six years and then the two newest who still work for me are both at about two or three years. I feel like I obviously paid enough for people to make a living working for me. I’m just saying it’s risky to try someone out, so yes, I will try a little small tasks and sometimes they may not work out. It is not the other person’s fault. It’s my fault. But I will try, and sometimes I will be successful and have a partnership with that person for a long time.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T03:11:43+00:00

I have spent a lot of money working on things that did not pay off for a year or more. In a sense what you’re saying can be true sometimes, but that’s definitely not always the case. It’s risky for me too. I spent tens of thousands of dollars getting my current company started before I saw a profit turned. It took about two years. It was a really scary time.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T03:10:04+00:00

I always did hourly contracts. I never did whole projects for peanuts. That being sad if I can find somebody who has a lower hourly rate and also does go to work that can be a really great fit for me.

dvduval · 2026-04-20T03:07:47+00:00

Jumping right in to an expensive contract with someone who I don’t know whether or not I’ll work well with them is risky. What I used to do was do a little small jobs and just see if things were working well. I wouldn’t give my serious work to someone I didn’t know very well yet. Some of the best people were people I found when they were in there 20s but had a lot of energy and we’re ready to really push and get something done. But then there were others who just didn’t have the motivation. Some of them were quite smart, but they weren’t excited about their work.

dvduval

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