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pantone159

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Everything posted by pantone159

  1. Actually SVB would probably be fine now if they had invested in Treasury BILLS which are short duration, have not lost value, and are now having their best investment performance in 15 years (finally!). These are the possible replacements for bank deposits as cash-equivalents. Instead they bought long duration Treasury BONDS and apparently quite long term which gave them the most possible exposure to interest rate increases, and made these investments at a time when interest rates were at the lowest level in generations. Oops. But yes the banking industry does provide very important liquidity to the economy and it is important that it keeps operating. It is also a good idea to diversify the banks used so you don't have an entire industry going to one single bank for their financial needs in a mad rush to follow the herd. Oops.
  2. It is like nobody in the industry is over 40 and so has no memory of interest rates being other than zero. Interest rates now are not 'high'. They are about 'normal' now. The past 15 years have been the abnormal ones.
  3. The SVB failure is directly related to the bank management making the obvious mistake of backing short-term money (deposits that can be withdrawn) with long-term assets (long duration Treasuries). This has caused plenty of banks to fail in the past and being aware of this risk should be Banking 101 level obvious. For a more local variety of this issue, see the S&L crisis from the 1980's or so. At least the S&L's had the excuse that they were basically forced into investing in long-term mortgages, while in SVB's case, being that they invested in marketable securities which they chose, was an unforced error. And it should also be completely obvious that bank deposits in excess of FDIC coverage were a credit risk from the bank. It is kind of astonishing really that somebody who claims to be financially sophisticated (Ackerman) would ever think to utter that. This should have been 100% totally obvious to the management of every single one of the companies who had large deposits with SVB. I do agree that there will be rippling effects that go beyond SVB's customers, which will have unknown consequences, but for now those who are caught by this made their own unforced mistake. They will probably eventually get almost all of their money out, but for now I guess their management has finally learned that credit risk is a thing. Edit: I am mixing threads in my head and was half responding to this:
  4. This is one aspect of self-driving infrastructure that I am disappointed to see that little is happening (as far as I can tell). If we have computers driving cars, it seems like it would be a really good idea to make it easy for the computers to figure out the situation. One aspect would be things like electronic lane markings. Maybe there could be cheap RFID tags along the roadside to help the cars figure out where and how many lanes there are. And also some way to electronically signal that a road is closed (maybe a giant sinkhole just opened up, or a truck carrying nitric acid just rolled over on the road ahead, or whatever) to make it easy for the self-driving cars to figure out the road is closed, and not have to e.g. notice red smoke clouds in the distance and realize that is a nitric acid spill. Adding some signals from each car so other cars can identify others would be part of this as well. I really hear very little about work in this direction. Of course a full self-driving car needs to be able to deal with the absence of such help, but why not make some of the problem easier?
  5. Imagine somebody who absolutely has to comment on any possible subject, whether they know anything about it or not. They may be ignorant, but have heard enough buzzwords that sound related to whatever subject comes up, so they go on and on and on spewing out stuff that sounds kind of related, but is actually nonsense. This is EXACTLY the kind of conversation that these chatbots are making. You probably know somebody that talks like this. Do you look to them for advice?
  6. These candy hearts are chalky and unpleasant! I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!
  7. It does of course, and so if this has really not fallen far off the road, it will not take too long to find it, even if they have to look for thousands of miles. Gamma ray spectroscopy FTW!
  8. I suspect your problem is the sleazy salesman who sold you your internets. Never trust anyone wearing a tie.
  9. Yes, I believe it. SOMEBODY gave this guy a bunch of money, he went from broke to having $700k in the bank or something like that, in the runup to his campaign. If all this did not come from the ponzi scheme profits (and I suppose it could have), then SOMEBODY paid him to get in this position. So, who?
  10. In my book, this makes Android Auto absolutely unacceptable for use in a car. Period. I don't want to mess with the phone or car to decline the call, I'm busy driving. With my phone by itself, it is easy enough to ignore the ringing. But with Android Auto I just can't ignore it, the ring is too loud, and so I am distracted either by the sound or the anticipation of the distracting sound, until the ringing stops. The #1 most important feature that any car app MUST have is to make it easy to mute the phone so the driver absolutely NEVER has to respond to an incoming call. Android Auto fails miserably.
  11. The part of his background to figure out is who financed Santos. Both his campaign, and also how he improved his personal finances in the past couple of years, with no obvious job skills or initial connections to do that.
  12. It is oddly satisfying to put somebody on ignore when they still have 0 posts, and be completely sure that was the right call.
  13. My worry is mass bankruptcies when the 'guaranteed' cash from USA government obligations does not arrive and bills cannot be paid. I don't know how that shakes out and I don't really want to think about it, but I guess I gots to, sigh.
  14. Any deal has to include that all the concessions to the nutbars are dropped. So basically McCarthy reneging on everything he has promised so far.
  15. Yeah, medical issues don't necessarily follow the schedule you want. And as a general principle, health is more important than any job.
  16. Lulz. Literally the first completed action of the new House of Representatives is Santos lying about it.
  17. I don't understand the refusal to pay bills. I guess if you are a billionaire you can just ignore whatever bills you want to. Generally I expect that businesses pay their bills, but not Elon it seems.
  18. In Capitol Reef: My favorite hikes were Cassidy Arch, and Rim Overlook (4.6 miles RT from the Hickman Bridge trailhead) which had a fantastic view at the end. Panorama Point/Goosenecks were also pretty near sunset and very easy. And +1 for the pies. I did not have to rush too much, I was able to do a hike in the morning and then get a pie as a post-hike snack, though I had to settle for rhubarb one time. Last June the road was under construction which made it kind of a PITA to drive (you might have to wait 15 minutes), but you could get wherever you needed. I mostly did not think too much of the places I ate in Torrey, but I did like the Rim Rock Patio, which had open seating under the sky and fire pits to keep warm in the evening, and sometimes live music. The food was not memorable but the setting was cool. They were open a little later than the rest of Torrey which seemed to close about 9 pm. In Canyonlands: The Island of the Sky area is easy to check out, you can drive the roads to the viewpoints, and pick which short hikes you want to do. Aztec Butte took you to an old Anasazi granary, and I thought Whale Rock was really cool, but all the short hikes I did were fun. The next day I went to the Needles area, drove to the Elephant Hill trailhead, then hiked 6 miles RT to the Chesler Park viewpoint and back. That was a really cool hike with varied terrain, slickrock, climbing up and down rocks, through narrow cracks, cool views. The trail is often only visible by the cairns so you have to pay attention a bit to stay on trail. In between Torrey and Moab, I checked out Kodachrome State Park and hiked the Panorama Loop Trail, maybe 3-4 miles, also with cool views, and little shade. Mid-May is probably a good time. I went mid-June last year, and it was way too hot, at least at the start of my trip. I was 'escaping' the hell-heat from Austin then, and when I got to Moab it was even hotter there. I liked Moab Brewery in town. Moab is a lot more fun to check out (and way more walkable) than Torrey.
  19. Yea, the not reliable is new to me too. (So Brisket, they haven't lost me yet.) I haven't flown them since the pandemic, but I remember consistently that they were usually not that competitively priced, but sometimes they were, and those times they were a little quirky but fine, and I never regretted flying them.
  20. Would you sit in the airport for most of a week before taking Spirit?
  21. Don't know about CleverNickname, but the term "junk silver" is often used for the 90% silver coin that used to be used in the US, that is not in nice enough condition to be collectible. So, quarters/dimes/halves from 1964 or earlier.
  22. Yeah, this is some kind of money laundering. At first, it all sounded completely ridiculous (as you would expect), but after even all the Trumpers said this was ridiculous, and then they all sell out immediately (even though it seems very hard to actually download them), there is funny business going on.
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