absherwin (u/absherwin)

absherwin commented on State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds cbsnews.com/news/state-lo... · Posted by u/lxm

pyrolistical · 3 years ago

So remove the very reason why people pay the lottery in the first place?

I actually think this is a good idea as long as the gov keeps the ban on black market lotteries

absherwin · 3 years ago

Increasing payouts should bring more players though it would be offset by eliminating the advertising that currently consumes some of that revenue. Flattening jackpots would have a negative effect but we just need to optimize for being above the point at which there's competition instead of maximizing lottery revenue.

absherwin commented on State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds cbsnews.com/news/state-lo... · Posted by u/lxm

bogomipz · 3 years ago

>"Offer a lottery with a high payout rate and flatten jackpots to the extent they don't cause a shift into other worse sorts of gambling"

What is meant here by "flattening" jackpots? And how does it help?

absherwin · 3 years ago

If we assume the main problem with lotteries is that they make some people poorer, we need to solve two things: The payout being less than the cost due to both high overhead and transfers and the payouts tending to concentrate wealth since even in a lifetime of play few win the largest jackpots.

One can't make them too flat because consumers like large jackpots which is why they've grown over time and become harder to win. Presumably there's a level below which consumers would switch to other types of gambling regardless of legality.

absherwin commented on State lotteries transfer wealth out of needy communities, investigation finds cbsnews.com/news/state-lo... · Posted by u/lxm

absherwin · 3 years ago

There's a simple answer: Offer a lottery with a high payout rate and flatten jackpots to the extent they don't cause a shift into other worse sorts of gambling. The total amount of money transferred to support government programs makes up less than 0.5% of total government revenue; it's trivially replaceable.

absherwin commented on About Last Week’s Announcement brex.com/journal/last-wee... · Posted by u/collectedparts

absherwin · 3 years ago

These criteria are such a low bar that merely stating them upfront would have changed the discussion last week.

I wonder if these were the original criteria or if this is a partial walk back. The SBA usually defines a small business as having less than 500 employees even if it has significant revenue.

If I had been asked to guess the criteria based on the initial announcement, I would have guessed 500 employees, $100MM in revenue, or $5MM in money raised with some exceptions for top-tier investors or other judgmental criteria.

absherwin commented on Uber posts first profitable quarter on adjusted basis reuters.com/technology/ub... · Posted by u/geox

ldbooth · 4 years ago

Uh huh. Adjusted, meaning EBITDA, or as Charlie Munger refers to them "bullshit earnings".

absherwin · 4 years ago

That’s true for most adjustments. Buffett also suggests investors ignore income statement effects of marking securities to market.

“I must first tell you about a new accounting rule – a generally accepted accounting principle (GAAP) – that in future quarterly and annual reports will severely distort Berkshire’s net income figures and very often mislead commentators and investors. The new rule says that the net change in unrealized investment gains and losses in stocks we hold must be included in all net income figures we report to you. That requirement will produce some truly wild and capricious swings in our GAAP bottom-line.” https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2017ar/2017ar.pdf

absherwin commented on Uber posts first profitable quarter on adjusted basis reuters.com/technology/ub... · Posted by u/geox

lumost · 4 years ago

How were they possibly able to adjust away 2.4 Billion dollars?

absherwin · 4 years ago

The most significant adjustment was excluding a $3.2B writedown of the value of their stake in Didi

absherwin commented on The Greshm System [pdf] greshm.org/files/greshm.p... · Posted by u/Suncho

absherwin · 5 years ago

The key challenge with this system is merchant adoption. Since merchants are forced to charge the same prices in the less valuable currency, they'll drop out if its exchange rate falls by more than their profit margin (and perhaps before then).

absherwin commented on What Working At Stripe Has Been Like kalzumeus.com/2020/10/09/... · Posted by u/yarapavan

tptacek · 5 years ago

The idea that any form of price optimization among firms violates antitrust laws would put basically all management and marketing consulting at antitrust risk. This doesn’t sound plausible.

absherwin · 5 years ago

You will find that management consulting firms (and the companies that hire them) have fairly clear rules about how they approach and talk about pricing and competition to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Most notably, they would never ever: 1. Indicate that their advice always is to raise prices 2. They would never share the pricing advice they gave to a competitor.

I don't know if what Patrick does is problematic. It wouldn't surprise me if he was trying to be glib and his actual advice is more nuanced.

If one interprets it literally: Someone who receives advice from him to raise prices can look down Stripe's customer list and find its competition and feel confident that the competition will receive the same advice.

Again, I don't know what he does. All I know is that what he says if read by the right person would be sufficient to trigger their curiosity to ask for records of his correspondence and find out.