Hacker News: GreenPlastic

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study"

GreenPlastic — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 16:29:41 +0000

This is what is never mentioned. Quality of care, access to cutting edge treatments, timely access to care are never discussed when moving to universal healthcare. There are examples of private and public systems out there, which would be a much better model.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Startup lender Silicon Valley Bank to sell stock to cope with cash burn"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 23:46:29 +0000

We've been in one long cycle since 1998, continuing with the .com bubble and the GFC and finally Covid. With each one we've had to print more and do more to get out of it. Where it ends is anybodies guess...but each crisis requires a larger response

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Google wants to take on Dolby with new open media formats"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 22 Sep 2022 20:29:21 +0000

The last thing I want to do is upgrade all my TVs and audio equipment for new standards

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Amazon investors nuke ethics overhaul and say yes to $212M CEO pay"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 26 May 2022 18:21:22 +0000

The purpose of a company isn't to employ people. It's to take raw inputs, including employee labor, and turn that into outputs that people want. Employee relief comes in the form of voting with their feet or if they're critical inputs into what the black box produces

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Tether starting to lose its peg too, after Terra did"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 12 May 2022 16:34:39 +0000

Attorney General of NY looked at their books and found most of the collateral was there, although in the form of commercial paper. The risk is really in which companies debt they hold. If we see a perfect storm of something like 2008 where correlations go to 1 resulting in massive defaults AND a significant number of redemptions then I'd be worried.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Facebook Morale Takes a Tumble Along with Stock Price"

GreenPlastic — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 21:20:52 +0000

This could read "Stock price at public companies a distraction for employees"

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 00:29:55 +0000

Saw several people at work picking up this weekend. In a company of 200 there are now over 20 in the lot and this isn't the Bay Area.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 00:20:29 +0000

There are also a great number of people who have never spent more than $35k on a car who are buying a M3.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Tesla’s Model 3 Is Becoming One of America’s Best-Selling Sedans"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 00:19:26 +0000

The car is unbelievably good coming from someone who used to drive entry-level luxury sedans. It's light years beyond anything BMW, Infiniti and Lexus have to offer.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Introduction to Augur, an open-source, decentralized betting marketplace"

GreenPlastic — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 17:37:19 +0000

Yes, it works very well but not for the 'wisdom of the crowds' effect. It works because the people with the most information and best models sharpen up the price. Over time, the sharpest bettors grow their bankrolls or capital exponentially and place larger bets and have a disproportionate weight on the markets and their opinions matter more, making markets more efficient.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "The Stock Market Is Shrinking"

GreenPlastic — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 15:12:50 +0000

Ironically, one of the core reasons for less IPOs is Sarbanes-Oxley, which was meant to protect retail investors but instead has had the second order effect of reducing the number of IPOs and limiting the available higher growth / higher risk opportunities these same investors.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Tesla is building its own AI chips for self-driving cars"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:59:47 +0000

Are they hardware limited? It seems like the limiting factor is the convnet rather than the hardware...do they think it would be more safe with less latency?

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:48:41 +0000

What city was this in? The wait time was 6-8 months in Toronto for my uncle.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:47:15 +0000

The quality is also better if you have insurance. Firstly, because it's easy to see a specialist. Our friends in Canada don't even know you're supposed to see specialists for a lot of ailments. Second, most facilities have access to diagnostic equipment that even hospitals might not have in Canada (MRI machines, etc).

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:45:09 +0000

It'd be great if there was both but it's not allowed in Canada so the net effect is you get less tail outcomes, both positive and negative. For folks in the US with insurance, it's a big drop in the standard of care and for folks without, it's a big improvement.

One other thing that's not often mentioned is the best doctors tend to move. When my grandfather was super sick, he was next to a man who's 3 sons were there looking after him. They were all doctors and came to the US to practice because Canadian salaries were so low (they too were ranting about how bad the care there was).

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:41:08 +0000

We (my wife and I) currently pay out of pocket for them to see specialists or to get an opinion so that they can see a specialist in Canada. If we apply now, they qualify for medicare in X years and they get higher quality of care + we don't pay out of pocket.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:38:30 +0000

If you've read Debt: The first 5000 Years, historically, debt has been one of the biggest factors in enslaving the poor. I think we'd be much better off with a system of credit instead of debt. For example, maybe instead of borrowing to go to school, a college gets 10% of your future wages for 5 years.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 19:15:27 +0000

From a cost point of view, I think that's totally reasonable for most care. If you have something catastrophic and need quick access to top-notch care, you don't get that from the Canadian system and our Canadian relatives and friends don't even know how bad it is because that's all they've ever known (wife is from Canada and now realizes how bad it is and is trying to move her parents to the US so that they have access to US care).

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 19:13:16 +0000

I'm happy to have a public system to raise the baseline and to act as a safety net as long as there's still a private system and employers still provide insurance.

New comment by GreenPlastic in "Three Levels of Wealth"

GreenPlastic — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 19:09:23 +0000

This is what scares me about the push for universal health care in the US. For the majority of the hacker news crowd with employer sponsored care, they'll see a regression to the mean and poorer overall care. I do think there needs to be an option for the poor, but not at the expense of world class care with no wait times.

This is all anecdotal, but here is my experience with the Canadian system:

1. Uncle died of cancer and waited 8 months for chemo and never got it.

2. Almost no family doctors are taking new patients in Vancouver. You can't see a specialist directly unless referred by a family doctor.

3. When mother in law needed a breast scan, we called like 10 different hospitals to ask if they had a breast MRI machine because the wait times were so long and we only found 1 machine.

4. She was also mis-diagnosed with asthma for 3 years because they didn't have the diagnostic tools. We sent her to an allergist in the US and it turned out it was allergies. We've taken to seeing doctors in the US to get referrals to specialists in Canada.

5. Wouldn't let a friend see an OB until 23 weeks and she was bleeding. Friend didn't think it was a thing and we were appalled.

6. Grandfather was mistreated for a low platelet count.

7. No private rooms - if you're deathly ill you're in a hospital bed next to others who are deathly ill.