Hacker News: neilwilson

New comment by neilwilson in "People are worried about America's solvency"

neilwilson — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:18:15 +0000

The US can’t become insolvent. Those who say it can are just hard of accounting.

It’s scaremongering nonsense.

All treasuries will be swapped back into dollars on maturity and interest settled

New comment by neilwilson in "Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)"

neilwilson — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 20:19:19 +0000

The rich own things. They collude. You hit them with costs and they put the price up which is validated by the extra money given to the poor, or by wage suppression as there aren’t enough jobs to go around.

Taxes on the rich are like increased power bills. Businesses pass on costs at a markup.

They can do that because you need a job to eat and they only need to hire if there is a profit to be had.

New comment by neilwilson in "Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)"

neilwilson — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 18:10:35 +0000

The poor will then give it back to the rich in higher prices for the same amount of stuff.

The only real way to tax the rich is to ensure that the rich have to compete for workers by paying competitive wages

New comment by neilwilson in "Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)"

neilwilson — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:54:47 +0000

It’s not even honest on the tax trade offs. Total tax take is not a constraint on public provision in a floating exchange rate economy.

New comment by neilwilson in "Reverse Jevons Paradox"

neilwilson — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:31:09 +0000

Except that revenue doesn’t crater in a floating exchange rate system. Revenue from them craters but the money moves elsewhere and revenue improves there - including an increase in total transactions. Total revenue will always be Total spend less what people decide to financially save rather than spend. Because tax are percentages and the process is a geometric series.

New comment by neilwilson in "British Steel taken into public ownership to protect 'vital' UK supply"

neilwilson — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 13:13:32 +0000

Having said that if you have no source of iron ore and no self sufficient energy production you’re stuffed anyway.

The UK ran out of both a fair while ago

Ancient 'Robin Hood' tree is dead, experts say

neilwilson — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 14:31:55 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyer9m0jmko

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48609504

Points: 6

# Comments: 0

New comment by neilwilson in "Providers, not insurers, are responsible for excess U.S. health care cost (2024)"

neilwilson — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:11:45 +0000

It’s not a matter of profit. It’s a matter of costs.

From the graphic the insurers take in $371.6b and pay out $241.9b in medical services costs.

That’s $130b on a pointless activity that uses up physical resources that would be better deployed elsewhere in the economy.

Healthcare needs to be provided as a matter of course, and “competition” won’t improve it or control it because there is always a supply side shortage of provision.

That’s a difficult problem to solve, but solving it by forcing a huge bill on expectant mothers and cancer victims, etc in a futile attempt to control demand is not the way.

Which is why the rest of the world charts a different path.

New comment by neilwilson in "David Attenborough's 100th Birthday"

neilwilson — Sat, 09 May 2026 21:19:04 +0000

Pretty much.

Used outside that frame it’s an insult as in:

You, sir, are a cad and a bounder.

New comment by neilwilson in "How Monero’s proof of work works"

neilwilson — Wed, 06 May 2026 10:30:42 +0000

Also the process is loans creates deposits creates equity.

What do you buy bank shares with? Bank deposits.

New comment by neilwilson in "How Monero’s proof of work works"

neilwilson — Wed, 06 May 2026 08:27:33 +0000

They never did loan out anything. It’s always been a myth propagated by people who have never been involved in banking [0]

The limits to banking are when the last creditworthy person prepared to pay the current price of money walks through the door.

[0]: https://new-wayland.com/blog/post-war-banking-policy/

New comment by neilwilson in "The fun has been optimized out of the Internet"

neilwilson — Tue, 05 May 2026 15:08:14 +0000

Or just make homebrew.

It’s amazing how good just fermenting juice from the supermarket with a bit of added sugar can be.

It teaches patience and the blip blop of an airlock is a terrifically calming way to mark the passage of time.

New comment by neilwilson in "How Monero’s proof of work works"

neilwilson — Tue, 05 May 2026 13:10:53 +0000

"This million dollars can be lent out to another person as a mortgage"

It can't. It isn't. And it never has been.

What banks do is provide liquidity against your collateral. You sell them a charge over your house (for example), and they give you a credit for it. That credit can then be passed on to other people.

Banks are in the business of discounting. They don't take anything in and give it out to other people. [0]

[0]: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...

New comment by neilwilson in "How Monero’s proof of work works"

neilwilson — Tue, 05 May 2026 13:08:16 +0000

It's amazing this myth continues when the Bank of England debunked it in 2014. [0]

[0]: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...

New comment by neilwilson in "German men 18-45 need military permit for extended stays abroad"

neilwilson — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 21:35:41 +0000

Other than moving within the rest of the EU under Article 21

EU law trumps German law.

In US terms such a requirement is not “constitutional”.

New comment by neilwilson in "English to LinkedIn Translator"

neilwilson — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 13:37:55 +0000

Turn plain English into sharper, more professional LinkedIn wording. Rewrite post drafts, About sections, bios, and comments in a style that feels more polished and platform-ready.

English to LinkedIn Translator

neilwilson — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 13:37:55 +0000

Article URL: https://linkedinspeak.com/english-to-linkedin-translator

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47563043

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

New comment by neilwilson in "Go hard on agents, not on your filesystem"

neilwilson — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 06:29:08 +0000

It's always struck me that agents should be operated via `systemd-run` as a transient scope unit with the necessary security properties set

So couldn't this be done with an appropriate shell alias - at least under linux.

New comment by neilwilson in "US national debt surges past $39 Trillion"

neilwilson — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:06:39 +0000

Comparing a currency issuer like the US to currency users like Italy and Greece is a category error. You can compare Alaska to Greece or California to Italy. But you should compare the US to other currency issuers - like the Eurozone, Japan or the UK.

New comment by neilwilson in "US national debt surges past $39 Trillion"

neilwilson — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 18:04:45 +0000

It’s rather more simple than that. In a floating exchange rate world, which is the one we live in a dollar is just a 0% bearer bond.

So when a government bond matures it is replaced automatically with a simple bank deposit. It’s nothing more than an asset swap.

“People with savings” are precisely why there is a “debt” in the first place. When they spend those savings they pass tax points which then creates the tax that retires the “debt”.

To put it in simple terms the “grandchildren” will “service the debt” using the counterparty “savings assets”inherited from their “grandparents”.

Don’t fall for the standard narrative. It’s not true.