The parent described "exponential returns", which I was reacting to.
For what it's worth, the S&P dividend yield is typically 1-2%, and below inflation for the majority of relevant years. So you are not ahead in real dollars until roughly the dates I mentioned.
>would likely have been under the level allowing for straight probation (go to a sentencing calculator and plug the values in)
Depends alot on the values inputted into such a calculator. See [0] for a solid discussion of what his future could have been (search for "That brings up the important question of how much time Swartz was actually facing"). TLDR, it's certainly not the case that only probation was guaranteed or even particularly likely.
The median US commute distance is <10 miles [0], which is well within ebike or motorcycle range. You can get a new ebike on Amazon that will go up to 30mph for $500, or get a used motorcycle that will go highway speeds for ~$2500.
There are of course other trade-offs with these modes of transport, but they are usually just as fast (and sometimes faster) at single-digit-mile distances. My hope is that as we improve biking infrastructure, biking will become an increasingly-viable primary mode of transit.
I cycle everywhere in Shanghai and I would not even buy a bike if I lived in the US. Motorcycles are for wannabe organ donors. Maybe I’d change my mind if robocars took over from human driven ones but I’d be hesitant about commuting by bike in Ireland, never mind anywhere in the US. Good bike infrastructure is rare.
Second, with the exception of food, you get what you pay for. The housing is of poor quality compared to what you get in the west—it’d never pass inspection there. Everything is made with cheap materials. The cars are just decent enough but also aren’t salable in the west—they wouldn’t meet crash safety standards (no airbags, insufficient bumpers, etc.). Think 1970s-80s econobox.
Third, the government is more than willing to allow increased housing density. Towers are popping up everywhere. But the transportation infrastructure is still terrible, traffic is congested, and commutes are long. It can take over an hour to move 10km there.
> The housing is of poor quality compared to what you get in the west—it’d never pass inspection there. Everything is made with cheap materials.
All the houses are built with concrete. They are pretty much indestructible. You could say India has the worst products/services in the world, but housing might not be one of them.
> The cars are just decent enough but also aren’t salable in the west—they wouldn’t meet crash safety standards (no airbags, insufficient bumpers, etc.). Think 1970s-80s econobox.
> Third, the government is more than willing to allow increased housing density. Towers are popping up everywhere. But the transportation infrastructure is still terrible, traffic is congested, and commutes are long. It can take over an hour to move 10km there.
Mahindra is selling cars in Australia but they’re not the same models sold in India. Same names but different specs.
Fair enough that the housing is made from concrete but the quality is still pretty poor. The foundations are uneven, as are the floors. The doors, windows, flooring, plumbing fixtures, etc. are, for the most part, cheap junk. The same is happening all around the world as builders race to the bottom, but India was pretty far down there. They’re in good company though; the same is true of all poorer nations.
The labour share of GDP has been roughly within a narrow 50% to 65%-ish bound throughout. It's moving up and down a bit, yes, but still within that bound.
Btw, if you are looking for a villain, look at the land share of GDP. The capital share has been fairly steady.
Yes, but that data is dumb in itself without an analyst explaining what caused that trend and what is happening now and which new forces will apply to that trend.
Is it "level headed" to ignore the concerns of somebody pulling their gold out, even if they are a small country?
Your figures do point out that the Netherlands's amount of gold is small, but it is not level headed to think that they are somehow alone or unrepresentative of far more countries with far more gold.
What is the value of this? Clearly the US won't sell me gold for $42/oz or the arbitragers would own the country, and nobody will sell the US gold for that amount ... so what does the $42/oz "peg" actually mean?
If you're familiar with par value, it's the same thing. It's a measure to account for changes in asset holdings over time while neglecting changes in market value of that asset. They could have just used ounces to do the same thing here. It made more sense when there was a dollar peg.
With only ~5% of shares floated, the recent SpaceX drawdown didn't correspond to nearly as much economic value really changing as the headline numbers imply. The DeepSeek-caused Nvidia crash from 2025 is much more of a "real" loss (since mostly recovered).
I haven't seen any evidence that Anthropic is delaying its IPO; they're slated to unveil the public IPO prospectus in a week and start trading sometime in October.
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