Everyone suffers. Now that work has ramped back up post pandemic, it is very apparent how our talent pools have been impacted.

It’s the worst kind of problem: hard to fix and slow to show fairly significant consequences.

Feel like I have the same argument at work everyday. Some things just take a definitive time. 20 cooks won’t make a cake faster. Cooking that cake at 1000 degrees won’t make it faster. It will take the time it takes.

Slow down your thinking and consider this: why would any practical person fully develop something without getting market feedback and understanding demand?

This is by the book “Preto-typing”. You can frame it as lying, but the reality is Apple had faith that all of the “faked” features in the demonstration would be fully developed before launch.

IBM did something similar before voice-to-text existed. They faked the technology during market research and discovered that people didn’t enjoy speaking to their computer as much as initially thought. It showed them that they could better invest that money elsewhere.

It would make zero sense and be a foolish use of capital to fully develop a product that complex and expensive without understanding market preferences.

This is a non-story, rage-bait headline.

My take is that Excel is great for people to throw together quick and efficient tools for their own use. The problem is when these get distributed and then everyone uses something that has no version control or QA/QC.

I see this a lot because an engineer gets annoyed with IT or existing software restrictions and learns enough VBA to be dangerous. (Spoiler, it me.)

Sneeze every time you go down

I’m skeptical of a 1000 person survey, especially when overall home sales are still down.

That being said, some people may be getting tired of waiting and willing to gamble on refinancing with favorable interest rates in the future.

Anyone that bought when rates were still 2-3% isn’t selling unless they’re being forced. Why would they, considering their real interest rate is negative at this point.

This is a non-headline because it’s reporting on something that was expected to happen when interest rates rose.

That being said, this does suck for those who have yet to purchase their first home. Property investors buying with cash have no incentive to stop buying. This is where government should step in and regulate. Those conversations should be headlining instead.

Didn’t Teddy Roosevelt implement wealth taxes via the Estate Tax and Capital Gains Tax?

These aren’t exactly new ideas. We’ve just slowly dismantled them over the past decades.

My summary of his book is that people rise to power by contributing to the greater good. They empathise with those around them and are likeable. Power is thus given to them by others.

The paradox is that it’s been suggested by several studies that those that gain power (or those that feel powerful) tend to be less empathetic and focus more on themselves.

He does not prescribe to the Lord of the Flies world view.

Keltner’s The Power Paradox covers this phenomenon. As we rise in power and influence, it is very easy to lose those same qualities that allowed us to gain power in the first place.

Red Rising would be a phenomenal TV show.

Mistborn and Stormlight Archive from Sanderson would also be incredible.

That’s interesting, thanks for bringing that up! Just goes to show that there are always multiple sides and layers to every issue.

Well, yes and no. It’s grey like most things in life.

Banks and credit are a means to “grow the pie” by allowing us to factor in future value. Before banks and credit, the world was a zero sum game where one person only had because the other person had not.

They do serve a real purpose but are only valuable when properly managed.

I encourage everyone to read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Excellent book that covers this topic with examples ranging from successful businessmen to why most professional Canadian Hockey players are born around the same time of year.

So basically,

1. Banks will repossess vehicles to try and minimise losses
2. Banks will not be able to sell those repossessed vehicles, resulting in losses
3. Banks may become insolvent as they are unable to liquidate the vehicles
4. Government steps in to bail them out

New vehicle prices are not in line with their actual value, so banks are making loans that aren’t covered by the collateral. This is shit management by the banking industry. If it’s impossible to get an auto loan then vehicle prices will eventually fall as supply stacks up. Banks are feeding this cycle by being unrealistic in these loan assessments.

This is a great example of why completely de-regulated markets don’t work. It’s the government’s job to ensure that consumers have choices and prevent both regional and outright monopolies.

Provision of choice allows consumers to vote with their wallets unless firms collude to fix prices.

Either way, this is the fault of government regulators.

I do believe market economies are still the most efficient means of managing resources, but there have to be guardrails. Free Market implies that consumers are free to choose, but that choice shouldn’t come down to Option A or Nothing.

Apple will start selling subscription services to Android platforms including iMessage. It’s just a matter of time.

Don’t blame tech, blame the bait-and-switch business model of loss leading products.

Uber never made money because they chose to undercut prices of all competitors and bleed them out.

I’d argue that newer streaming companies (those founded by studios, such as Disney +) did the same thing by roping in customers before jacking up prices.

It may be the “fault” of capitalism, but consider it was capitalism that birthed streaming in the first place. In the long term, the expectation would be a better solution will surface in reference to streaming… the same way streaming was a solution to cable. Thus is the business cycle.