pilom (u/pilom) - Readit News

pilom commented on End Mandatory Single Family Zoning by Overturning Euclid vs. Ambler maximum-progress.com/p/en... · Posted by u/jseliger

Eumenes · a year ago

I don't want any development in my charming rural town. But if I have to pick, I'd prefer single family homes. Everyone knows that big developments bring crime, traffic/more cars, environmental concerns, burdens on the school system, etc. If you say otherwise, you're delusional. Build vertically in urban areas with jobs/resources/retail around.

Actually, one of the first times I participated in local politics, was to successfully block a large development (100+ units, some of which included "affordable housing" lol). The developer was a favorite of the state - they get all the big contracts all over the state, and some former government officials are on their board (no doubt accepting bribes for their influence). It was a coalition of residents that spanned partisan politics. Just showing up to meetings on these issues, and if you have any public speaking skills, highlight the ties of the corrupt local political class to the developer/construction companies - locals don't like being hoodwinked by that.

pilom · a year ago

And how much more expensive is rent in your town because it has 100 fewer units? That is the opportunity cost. Unfortunately, these opportunity costs are not borne by landowners, just by renters. And then when the government charges landowners higher taxes on their now more valuable property, the owners balk.

pilom commented on Ask HN: How many of you are self employed? · Posted by u/asim

pilom · 2 years ago

I teach whitewater kayaking and swiftwater rescue with my company https://whitewaterworkshop.com. I started doing it on nights and weekends around a full time tech job and then when COVID hit, demand for outdoor activities skyrocketed so I went full time with it.

I worked in tech for about 15 years where I paid off my student loans very aggressively, then once those were done I started pushing the same amount of money into retirement and savings accounts. My wife and I have no kids and were probably putting $50k+/year away. Turns out if you do that for 15 years, you end up with enough money to never need to worry about rent or health insurance again and you can choose what you want to do that is more fun. For me that was instructing and leading epic multi-week rafting trips like the Grand Canyon 3 times, the Maranon River in Peru, and the Alsek River in Alaska.

pilom commented on Why not tax private jets out of business? pressherald.com/2023/08/0... · Posted by u/webdoodle

j7ake · 2 years ago

What coercive mechanism made people buy JK Rowlings books, and made her a billionaire?

Who did JK Rowling exploit to funnel so much of those book sales towards herself?

If someone buys a Harry Potter book, is she not entitled to a portion of the money?

In winner take all dynamics, like what books parents buy for their kids, a person can easily earn 1000 times more than the average person by doing a similar amount of work.

pilom · 2 years ago

Above a certain level I could certainly get behind saying no she's not entitled to it. 100% marginal tax rates above $10 million in annual earnings seem perfectly reasonable to me.

pilom commented on Why not tax private jets out of business? pressherald.com/2023/08/0... · Posted by u/webdoodle

SoftTalker · 2 years ago

Their $10s of billions is not a vault full of gold coins in their basement, like Scrooge McDuck has. It represents companies and investments that are creating jobs and wealth for lots of people, probably many of the people who post here owe their job to a billionaire. Those things would not exist if "net worth" were somehow capped at $100m.

pilom · 2 years ago

Sure they would. The companies would just have to have different ownership models that incentivized more distributed ownership between more people. If we somehow said that no one could own more than $100 million of a company, then for every person who has $1 billion of a company now, there would be 10 people with $100 million instead. This would be a net benefit to society.

pilom commented on After Callous Layoffs, Workers Are Done with the Full-Time Work a.team//mission/the-great... · Posted by u/raunometsa

yodsanklai · 3 years ago

> The lifestyle creep just gets most people.

I changed industry a few years ago and as a result had a big income increase. I made a point of not changing my lifestyle because I know it won't last forever.

Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to commit to it. Not that I live a particularly wealthy lifestyle, but it's hard to renounce to the extra little comfort that money can get you. Little by little, you get used spending a bit more money.

Also, when you live in a very expensive city like NYC, simply living not too far from work in a decent appartement takes a big part of your paycheck.

pilom · 3 years ago

The key to avoiding lifestyle creep is "pay yourself first". Set up automatic deductions to automatically pull money from your paycheck before it ever gets to your bank account. In the US, you can put $20k per year into a 401k account and another $6k into an IRA account tax free.

pilom commented on So, why not the coin? joshbarro.com/p/so-why-no... · Posted by u/danboarder

causality0 · 3 years ago

What's the grand strategy behind the idea of forever spending more money than we have? Are they betting we're going to invent replicators and end scarcity? Are they just hoping to keep kicking the can down the road until they die of old age? Sooner or later the bill comes due. How utterly fucked are our grandkids?

pilom · 3 years ago

I'm going to take your comment at face value and assume a good faith question. There are a couple arguments for higher federal debt levels. Federal Debt doesn't really matter the way a household's debt matters. The debt to GDP ratio isn't the same as a family's debt ratio because the government can always just print more money to pay down the debt. Will this increase inflation? Very probably but not necessarily. Is higher inflation an absolute bad thing? Also likely but not proven. Modern Monetary Policy would state that you can just increase taxes (in particular on the wealthy) to avoid inflation if you need to.

pilom commented on Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date? · Posted by u/debanjan16

pilom · 3 years ago

Passive investing with savings from my tech job. My wife and I earned around 150k per year for 10-12 years but lived happily off of 40-60k per year for that time. The difference went into savings and retirement accounts and now we live off that nest egg and do what we want. I started a business teaching whitewater kayaking, packrafting, and swiftwater rescue which really took off during COVID but honestly the nest egg is what allowed me to do it pretty risk free.

pilom commented on Why women receive less CPR from bystanders (2018) sciencedaily.com/releases... · Posted by u/bryanrasmussen

hprotagonist · 3 years ago

For the obvious and purient reason.

Semi-related reasons at least partially explain why the AHA moved away from rescue breaths as part of CPR: they found high rates of total noncompliance because people don’t want to do that. Compressions only turns out to both be fine from a perfusion perspective and also increases bystander participation. I think not taking any breaks for breaths during compressions also reduces clotting, but i’m not sure.

The other reason to not bother with rescue breathing is that AEDs are everywhere now and you’re much more likely to get pads on someone promptly.

pilom · 3 years ago

Counterpoint, I'm a whitewater rescue instructor. My students and I are much more likely to see drowning victims than heart attack patients. Compression only CPR doesn't help drowning victims at all so we've had to add a "don't listen to your CPR instructor, do rescue breaths first" statement to our classes.