If you didn't bother to write it, why should I bother to read it?
Readit Newsoramit commented on Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans news.ycombinator.com/news... · Posted by u/usefulposter
I had to check the year on this post because I couldn't believe someone could post something this naive in 2025.
"...boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September to stimulate the economy"
The new unemployment rate is 4.3% That's above the Fed's 4% target for full employment, but not all that high above it.
By contrast, inflation is about 3% -- a full percentage point above the target of 2%, and 50% higher.
Lowering target rates is supposed to lower unemployment and raise inflation. Once you hit full employment, additional money for wages increases money supply without increasing product supply.
The Fed, of course, has more precise models than I've just described. But these numbers suggest to me that the Fed should leave rates as they are; they aren't any kind of emergency or pending emergency. The market is at or near record highs; it doesn't need its bubble expanded.
I know the the Fed is under political pressure because politicians like soaring stock markets. And the pressure is now verging on threats. But it still seems unlikely that the Fed will cave quite so soon when the numbers say to do just the opposite.
With the current data we have there's simply no good policy reason to cut interest rates.
Inflation is either staying elevated or slightly increasing. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/29/pce-inflation-report-july-20...
The jobs reports are bad, yes, but cutting interest rates is not gonna have any effect there. Companies are actively trimming their workforce or not hiring for macroeconomic/policy reasons like tariffs that have nothing to do with the FED. There simply isn't any meaningful connection between unemployment and rate cuts. No executive is sitting around waiting for a .25 rate cut to hire a bunch of employees when all the other economic data is flashing red. Hell, even the FED themselves say this and point out correctly that lowering interest rates to "help" employment doesn't work especially in an elevated inflation environment.
"When discussing this trade-off, it is important to emphasize that, since the stagflation of 1970s, the consensus position among macroeconomists is that loose monetary policy can easily lead to high inflation without persistent gains in lowering unemployment rates. Therefore, a guiding principle of post-1980s monetary policy has been that it should not be used to try to achieve permanently higher employment." https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_b...
But of course, we have already passed through the authoritarian looking glass and the Trump regime doesn't even bother to lie badly about their justifications at this point. Trump wants lower interest rates therefore they should happen. Anything else is noise.
oramit commented on US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU bbc.com/news/live/c1dr7vy... · Posted by u/belter
How did the value added tax (which is paid by all companies including domestic ones) become the same as import duty?
The only way that you can make that tariffs charged to the USA is the level Trump claims (ie. 39% in the EU) is if you include VAT.
People keep making the mistake of thinking that there is any sort of logical consistency to Trump policies.
oramit commented on Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019) exurbe.com/stoicisms-appe... · Posted by u/Tomte
I was recently listening to a podcast about Silicon Valley thought which theorized that at its root it is a justificatory mechanism and not a coherent worldview. Whatever the current problems facing Silicon Valley, its leadership will find some new theoretical underpinning that happens to justify whatever is in their naked self-interest. It's "move fast break things" but with philosophy. Their example was Marc Andreessen who once had coherent ideas that could be agreed with or disagreed with, but saw the writing on the wall and has aligned his "thinking" with the political movement he thinks will most protect his interests.
Yes. The founding mythos of Silicon Valley is of plucky upstarts destroying all the middle men and dis-empowering the establishment.
But now tech is the establishment and has all the power so that story isn't useful anymore. Instead they are justified in their control because they were so successful and are so wealthy. To fight against them is to fight against "progress" and "the market has decided".
Put another way: "The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny"
oramit commented on Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019) exurbe.com/stoicisms-appe... · Posted by u/Tomte
> Now, post Covid I see a hard pivot towards Christianity, but importantly, "traditional" forms of it. Protestant sects are being ignored and Catholicism, or if you are really intense, Orthodoxy seems to be in vogue.
I have seen these trends as well, especially Orthodoxy of late. My assumption is this is a response to rampant moral relativism that has become the dominant culture in the west.
I think you're being too kind in assuming there is some sort of real philosophy or faith here. I laid out what I have observed the tech elite doing precisely to show that they are rootless and will join with whatever bandwagon is popular in their techbro circle.
It's the great irony of our tech elite. They all believe they are independent thinkers who are changing the world but like any clique they follow what the group says and found another Sass App or become another VC investor.
oramit commented on Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019) exurbe.com/stoicisms-appe... · Posted by u/Tomte
It's been interesting to watch and experience Techbros jump on different philosophical/religious trends over the years. Post 9/11 through the Great Financial Crisis New Atheism was all the rage. Once the tech boom was in full swing Stoicism became the dominant ideology.
Now, post Covid I see a hard pivot towards Christianity, but importantly, "traditional" forms of it. Protestant sects are being ignored and Catholicism, or if you are really intense, Orthodoxy seems to be in vogue.
oramit commented on The failure of the land value tax worksinprogress.co/issue/... · Posted by u/eamag
As a fan of Georgism and Land Value Taxation I was hoping for a good rebuttal but I am mostly just left confused by this article. It spends a ton of time talking about the political environment (not entirely uninteresting) and almost nothing on the "failure" part. The two points raised were that it was too difficult to implement and less was raised than expected.
LVT being too difficult to implement doesn't make any sense to me. We already have a property tax system in the United States that is really complicated. When property is sold that fact is recorded at your local county registrar. Property taxes are then calculated based on the most recent sales price, the rate, your tax districts, there's usually limits on how much it can increase, all sorts of deductions, etc. This is calculated down to the owner level for every plot already - how can LVT be more complicated than that?
This line in particular stuck out to me: "What’s more, in line with Georgist theory, the tax was supposed to credit owners for improvements they made to the land"
I think we're talking about different LVT systems here. The current property tax system takes land improvements into account (and charges you more for them). My understanding is that LVT should be a flat tax on acreage (different tax rates for different areas of course) that doesn't care about what is on it.
This article is attacking a very different LVT than the one I know.
oramit commented on What's happening inside the NIH and NSF science.org/content/blog-... · Posted by u/rrock
I’m pretty sure the coup happened in the 1930s when the government created the modern system of unaccountable executive agencies and a Supreme Court, under duress, approved it.
Why this amorphous "the government" wording? The people elected Congress and Presidents, who did this over decades with popular support.
Executive agencies are not unaccountable. They have specific charters and there is a huge volume of rules they have to follow. eg:(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act). Congress writes their budgets every year and the heads of those agencies are reviewed at congressional and presidential levels.
oramit commented on Most gamers prefer single-player games midiaresearch.com/blog/mo... · Posted by u/omnibrain
"Hitting a few singles and doubles beats trying to hit a home run and striking out."
As game developers and publishers have consolidated into mega corps this line just isn't true anymore. You need a billion dollar game to move the corporate needle these days. It's a very similar dynamic to what has happened in Hollywood. All the mid-budget projects are being squeezed out and you either go very low budget/indie or you go huge budget and swing for the fences. There is no career reward in the current corporate marketplace for modest wins.