Hacker News: yyy888sss

New comment by yyy888sss in "Six Levels of Dark Mode (2024)"

yyy888sss — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:06:23 +0000

Level 9 (or 0): Turn off the computer and go to sleep.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Australia must treat housing as a human right: Former State Supreme Court judge"

yyy888sss — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 09:00:28 +0000

We actually do need something like this, or at least the right to develop land.

Right now in Australia we have tyranny of the majority, because the 30% of home owners + 30% of mortgage holders have realised they can get rich if the government restricts supply (bans development) and increases demand (adjusts immigration yearly to outpace construction). For a century there seemed to be a 'social contract' that getting young people a home and helping them start families was important for the country, now though that concept seems to be totally dead.

Just creating a legal 'right' to build a house on your land would be the best fix and help a lot, but long term we really need to fix the social contract which held everything together in the first place.

New comment by yyy888sss in "The UK can go back to being the richest country in the world"

yyy888sss — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 05:18:08 +0000

They should try catching up to their European neighbours first:

https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/D4D22AQFfh_jg66bW1A/feedsh...

New comment by yyy888sss in "The EU should be the heat-pump pioneer"

yyy888sss — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 09:40:28 +0000

Pioneer? Nearly every home in the US already uses heat-pumps: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/technology-adoption-by-ho...

In cold climates many people still use gas heating because its cheaper, making electricity cheaper would be the only realistic way to increase heat-pump usage in winter.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Japan's Nikkei surpasses 1989 all-time high"

yyy888sss — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 03:10:49 +0000

Price of gold in 1989: ~2000 yen/g

Price of gold in 2024: 9,800 yen/g

New comment by yyy888sss in "Analysis finds Australia’s inflation being driven by company profits, not wages"

yyy888sss — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 02:15:21 +0000

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Prices are rising in Australia because the Central Bank created $450billion out of thin air during the pandemic [1]. The bank has persistently kept interest rates low, creating a massive housing bubble [2]. For everyone saying there was 'low' inflation in the 2000s despite cheap money, remember that China and Asia were rabidly growing, flooding the world with cheap manufactured goods and lowering real prices (often 10x reduction). The inflation can still be seen when looking the price of Australian real estate, or stock markets such as Nasdaq. As for this article, companies would always like to increase prices and profit. They can only do so in unison if there is suddenly more money sloshing around.

[1] - https://www.rba.gov.au/chart-pack/central-bank-balance-sheet... [2] - https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2012/dec/images...

New comment by yyy888sss in "UK pensions hit with margin calls as gilts and sterling slide"

yyy888sss — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 01:47:03 +0000

Heres what happened: The Bank of England (BoE) suppressed interest rates for 2 decades, driving government bonds from 6% to 2%. Pension funds typically had a high percentage of bonds, so they decided to borrow money (again, made artificially cheap by the BoE) to buy 2-3x the amount of bonds on leverage to be able to pay out the same as one 6% bond. Now the BoE is slowly raising rates to 'fight' the inflation it created over the past 20 years, which is causing these house of cards pension funds to start to tremble. The fund directors are relaxed though as have already paid themselves large bonuses every year, and after 2008 they realised they could rely on the government to come in and socialise the loses stemming from their financial recklessness.

New comment by yyy888sss in "New insignia for Air Domain Intelligence has a UFO"

yyy888sss — Sun, 25 Sep 2022 04:04:45 +0000

It could of course be the AvroCar [1]. Although in this case they are referring to 'UFOs', there have been multiple experimental aircraft that look exactly like flying saucers. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar

New comment by yyy888sss in "No, YouTube, I will not subscribe to Premium"

yyy888sss — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 15:57:15 +0000

Youtube premium is the best value video subscription there is and its a win-win: You can a clean ad-free experience and both Youtube and the video creator get more revenue.

New comment by yyy888sss in "MIT invents $4 solar desalination device"

yyy888sss — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 08:52:09 +0000

Modern desalination plants produce at less than $1 per cubic meter, thats $0.001 per litre...

New comment by yyy888sss in "How Inflation Works"

yyy888sss — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 16:46:42 +0000

Yep, innovation means prices understate the true level of inflation. Eg: If technology reduces costs by 5% and the CPI measures 2%, then the real rate of inflation is at least 7%.

New comment by yyy888sss in "How Inflation Works"

yyy888sss — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 16:41:12 +0000

Defining inflation as rising prices is the newer, MORE narrow definition as measurements such as CPI are capturing the downstream effects of a fundamental cause (creating money).

New comment by yyy888sss in "Construction is life"

yyy888sss — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 16:31:40 +0000

Very true, as construction is not just new builds but also renovation and maintenance. Even a theoretical city with completely stable population still needs to keep its structures up to date and renew infrastructure.

New comment by yyy888sss in "How Inflation Works"

yyy888sss — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 16:18:53 +0000

Inflation is the expansion of the money supply (eg by money printing). A long term rise in prices (houses, stocks, CPI) is the consequence of inflation, just as a rising water level in a lake is the result of rain. The global economy is like a lake with growing capacity, so prices UNDERSTATE the true rate of inflation.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Show HN: A central bank simulator game with a realistic economic model"

yyy888sss — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 23:06:11 +0000

In reality of course central plannners 'pulling levers' and setting prices never works. The interest rate is one of the most important prices of them all, which is why having the government meddle with it has proven so destructive.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Inflation is differential and restructuring (2021)"

yyy888sss — Fri, 27 May 2022 11:13:56 +0000

Inflation is an expansion in the money supply, such as new discoveries of gold or or printing paper money or creating credit. A baker would say he will 'raise' or 'lower' the price of his bread, not 'inflate' it. Defining inflation by the CPI or a similar measure is like defining the rain as a "increase in height of a river". It is the rain that CAUSES the rise in the river, and inflation CAUSES a general rise in prices.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Neoliberalism has resulted in preference for greater income inequality"

yyy888sss — Wed, 11 May 2022 11:51:59 +0000

But the 'neo' refers to the resurgence of basic ideas of freedom, not a big change in philosophy over the original liberal ideas.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Neoliberalism has resulted in preference for greater income inequality"

yyy888sss — Wed, 11 May 2022 11:50:03 +0000

Freedom to do whatever you want as long as it does not infringe the rights/freedoms of anyone else.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Neoliberalism has resulted in preference for greater income inequality"

yyy888sss — Wed, 11 May 2022 11:43:35 +0000

Liberalism means freedom in all spheres (including economically and socially), no need to add the neo- prefix. When you have freedom in a global economy there will be massive income inequality (think about Lebron James or Elon Musk vs the average person) but everyone is better off. Technology allows the best athletes to entertain millions, and the best entrepreneurs to serve billions.

New comment by yyy888sss in "Architect Resigns in Protest over UCSB Mega-Dorm"

yyy888sss — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 15:34:44 +0000

For $1.5 Billion, why don't they just build 1000 luxury 5 bedroom mansions? If they had the land area, they could even build 5000 individual detached homes for that budget. They could even splurge and give each bedroom a window!