Hacker News: BJones12

New comment by BJones12 in "Dua Lipa opens library for banned and censored books in Portugal"

BJones12 — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 15:14:38 +0000

Mein Kampf?

New comment by BJones12 in "The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level"

BJones12 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:55:46 +0000

Starbucks sells its stock to its baristas at a 5% discount every 90 days through payroll deductions.

https://www.starbucksbenefits.com/en-us/home/stock-savings/s...

New comment by BJones12 in "The labor share of income in the US is at its lowest post-war level"

BJones12 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:54:51 +0000

Every share is a voting share. There are a small number of weird cases (e.g. Meta super-voting shares limited to Zuck), but your statement is broadly false.

New comment by BJones12 in "Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants"

BJones12 — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:37:44 +0000

> has no uranium and no strong relationship with an uranium-producing country

The uranium-producing countries are Kazakhstan, Canada, and Namibia. There is zero chance that you cannot get one of those to sell to you.

> Nuclear will also boil over Swiss rivers and shallow lakes.

Wut?

New comment by BJones12 in "What I've learned about the trombone"

BJones12 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:50:42 +0000

I recently learned that valve trombones exist [0], where there is no slide and the notes are selected via valve-presses like a trumpet.

[0] https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/winds/tr...

New comment by BJones12 in "Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'"

BJones12 — Fri, 29 May 2026 17:36:35 +0000

No, because the unlimited risk of shorting is balanced (hedged) by the unlimited upside of holding the same number of shares via the ETF.

New comment by BJones12 in "Danish Pension Blacklists SpaceX over 'Catastrophic Governance'"

BJones12 — Fri, 29 May 2026 17:35:42 +0000

Yeah. For comparison, SpaceX will be maybe half the size of MSFT. MSFT is 7.4% of the SP500 index, so for a $1,000,000 portfolio if you were to short MSFT you'd pay 0.25% on the value of that 7.4%, or $185/year.

So eliminating SpaceX exposure will cost you $100 per million of your SP500 ETF per year, or so.

New comment by BJones12 in "Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly""

BJones12 — Sat, 23 May 2026 21:18:35 +0000

This is a great example of how some cultures are better than others.

New comment by BJones12 in "Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly""

BJones12 — Sat, 23 May 2026 17:12:13 +0000

> if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives

There are ~197 countries in the world, you should also criticize the other 196 for also not wanting to pay for the exact same thing.

New comment by BJones12 in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

BJones12 — Fri, 22 May 2026 16:02:07 +0000

> how would a Westerner react if they saw me romanticizing the Mondragon cooperatives in Spain?

HN has had posts romanticizing them, maybe check those

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32622140

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41438060

> it created a massive 'zombie company' problem—a heavily discussed issue in Korea and Japan that the West seems largely blind to

Zombie companies in the west are mentioned as a low/ZIRP phenomena. But the west shouldn't have as big an issue with those because companies, when less diversified, get killed off more often by interest rate hikes.

New comment by BJones12 in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

BJones12 — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:42:40 +0000

I, from a country with few conglomerates, found the Commoncog explanation for why they exist to be interesting

https://commoncog.com/how-to-become-an-asian-tycoon/

https://commoncog.com/the-asian-conglomerate-series/

New comment by BJones12 in "Why Japanese companies do so many different things"

BJones12 — Fri, 22 May 2026 15:38:37 +0000

The core of the article is buried 60% down:

> you have a firm that has lots of lifetime employees who can’t be fired, and whose skills are tailored to what your firm needs rather than to a particular occupational category transferable to any employer

> the system only makes sense if the company is also insulated from outside pressure

> the J-firm [Japan-style company], run by its employees and largely indifferent to the interests of shareholders, exists simply to continue existing

> And that basic impulse toward survival is why Japanese companies are so insistent on diversification. If you’ve made a commitment to keep people employed for life, then you need to create jobs for them if their current jobs stop making sense

> If you’re not very worried about profitability, and have lots of well-trained generalist employees, then it makes perfect sense to reinvest your company’s earnings by expanding into new industries

New comment by BJones12 in "Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars"

BJones12 — Thu, 21 May 2026 14:45:16 +0000

There are a lot of real Chinese firms (factories) that make unapproved copies including body shape, headstock shape, logo, and brand name.

New comment by BJones12 in "Virtual violin produces realistic sounds"

BJones12 — Wed, 06 May 2026 17:16:25 +0000

> physical models of music instruments... has been around for over 40 years

And in consumer products for 20+. Pianoteq [0], which is awesome, was first released in 2006.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pianoteq

New comment by BJones12 in "If America's so rich, how'd it get so sad?"

BJones12 — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:02:41 +0000

Because the article's question is 'how did America get so sad' and the answer is 'because it lost Christianity' because Christianity makes people less sad.

New comment by BJones12 in "Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line"

BJones12 — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:12:22 +0000

You seem to think that the only way to eat a cow is to raise it. Humans have been hunting before a long time. Before cattle were domesticated, they were wild, and were hunted and eaten. So were other ruminants with similar meat flavors.

So yes, cattle (and their ancestors, and their relatives) have been human food since the dawn of man.

New comment by BJones12 in "US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement"

BJones12 — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 16:57:27 +0000

> Give them no stock, pay them 100k a year

That used to be the case, though more like millions a year. Clinton ended it.

New comment by BJones12 in "UBI as a productivity dividend"

BJones12 — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 21:32:40 +0000

> Inflation is a common red herring that people arguing in bad faith throw at policies they don't like, because most people don't know enough to reject it.

That's very dismissive. Since you know so much, why don't you try to reject it?

New comment by BJones12 in "US asked Ukraine for help fighting Iranian drones, Zelensky says"

BJones12 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 19:44:00 +0000

Yeah because we haven't seen innumerable similar lies [0] in the past, with lies about deaths and lies about who fired the weapon.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio...

New comment by BJones12 in "GPT‑5.3 Instant"

BJones12 — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 21:28:12 +0000

> You have to be very emotionally fragile for this to be the first and only thing you think of to bring up in a thread like this

No, I just don't like racism.