How a city or a state or a nation is governed is of paramount importance. Not friendly to those guys, they will leave with their money Add a little politics: Republicans understand this principle well, Democrats love to kill the golden goose.
The shift has already begun. Just not at inflection point yet. An alternative vision is centers of excellence. For example, Seattle could be the place for ML/AI startups, Austin could be the place for semiconductor startups, and NYC could be the place for fintech startups instead of most startups have to come to SV for money and talents. Again a little politics: It seems those regions that welcome foreign talents, rather than limit themselves to local talents, are doing better.
Once again politics has clouded your thinking. Is NYC a liberal city? How about state of NY? How come itâs still the worldâs Number 1 financial center for almost 100 years?
Nothing lasts forever and all empires crumble eventually. But timing is everything. If you were the guy who proclaimed the demise of SV in the 80s because of Japan you were too early. If you said that after dot com again you were too early. What about after the GFC? Too early again.
By now you should have been more careful in predicting SVâs demise. The book âThinking Fast and Slowâ has a good chapter on thinking method. Often times people focus too much on a problemâs special features but fail to just look at the aggregate. So asked how long they will finish a project people almost always underestimate, because they keep focusing on how much resources they have, how good their management is etc. Instead, the best predictor is just to look at how long other similar projects have taken in the past and ignore everything special about the current one you are trying to assess.
Ultimately this is just a fancy way of saying you should distrust âthis time is differentâ, or at least be highly skeptical. Because chances are 99 out of 100 times things will just be the same, or similar.
Nobody in this forum make this prediction Havenât come across such prediction on the web too
If you insist that I have made a prediction, Iâm thinking of centers of excellence Refer to the same post - at the bottom of the post. Btw, I donât believe in making predictions, I believe in considering possibilities and what can I do to deal with them. My ideal position is one that can survive, hopefully prosper, regardless of what is the eventual outcome.
Donât quote the past. How many times must I tell you investment is about the future Recall in the beginning of the PC era, IBM is already a 100 years old company, own many patents, has a team of excellent lawyers and a reputation of donât get fired recommending IBM? Where is mainframe now? Where is IBM now?
Also, I notice you like to spout what you have learned recently
Again, I didnât tell you to ignore or deny past is our best teacher Ok, I think I use the wrong word in the sentence, donât extrapolate (quote is the wrong word) the past.
As for the thinking book, people tend not to understand the real drivers of the outcome, so they either extrapolate or consider those âspecial featuresâ which are not real drivers.
The world is complex. Nobody understands how much anything is the ârealâ driver. Thatâs the whole point of looking at the past and see how similar situations in the past have worked out.
People often ignore how much complex systems can adapt. I used to be a believer of peak oil. It makes geological sense but I forgot how the price signal can change behavior. There would be no peak because higher price means people will just consume less of the stuff. And then the shale revolution overturned even that original geological reason.
Speaking of books I am reading âRangeâ now. Highly recommended.
The driver is cost of extraction relative to the price of the oil. The oil reserve changes as the driver changes. For a certain price level, the reserve is where it makes sense to drill wrt cost of extraction. As price rises, can drill in places where cost of extraction is higher since it makes financial sense, hence reserve goes up. haha to peak oil which predicts a fixed oil reserve regardless of price. Ditto for reverse. Of course when oil price gets too high, people would start to explore alternatives & substitutes (familiar?) and people would consume less (leave the oil)
The idea of peak oil came from people of same mindset who gave us other absurd ideas like population explosion, climate change, renewable energy, rent control, universal basic income, and so on. Be not surprised if someday you hear calls for reducing voting age to 5 years.
I still believe we might run out of oil someday. But, we would have figured out how to extract energy from some other sources by the time that happens. To quote an unnamed author from The Economist. People did not leave stone age because they ran out of stones. To innovate is a basic human nature because it leads to better resource utilization. At the same time, there are others who believe in controlling behavior of others to achieve utopia. Basically it is a struggle between innovation and control. Innovation comes from more freedom, not less.
Earth has a finite mass. At this moment, people think oil deposit is not renewable or at least takes centuries or more to form and current human activities donât allow such activities to happen. If true, would run out of oil eventually, but definitely not in our lifetime.
While the above statement is true, for some people, giving freedom to them is like sending them to a desert, they would die because canât innovate effectively.
I have always wondered, should we ensure each human being ever born is given a chance of a decent life or to ensure the survival of the human species?
Only the fittest survive (Darwinism) and over the period of time, the species that cannot adapt become extinct. It sounds very heartless but that is how it works. A person who is incompetent due to any reason will not be able to make use of freedom given. At any given time, only 50-60% of the population works. Others may be sick, disabled, old, retired, children, or someone at home to take care of family. So, who can make best use of the freedom? If you throw a person who cannot walk into a desert, the chances of his survival are definitely bleak if no one is around to help.
When we talk of freedom in political and social context, it is meant for those who are capable to benefit themselves and make others benefit from it. You can argue a person can use the freedom to steal from the begging bowl of a blind. It can happen, and that is why we want people to live moral life and within legal system. The legal system itself should promote freedom, choices, self-responsibility etc, not stifle them. Legal system should punish bad behavior, not freedom.
Current MV rent caps make no sense. Itâs far lower then state caps. The state law allows anything stricter then their limits. So MV has room to raise. Right now I wonât touch MV with current rent control unless I am getting a fully vacant unit
Just read article. The proposed regulation is stupid. They want to change from cap at CPI (running at 3.5 or less for last 4 years) to 4% flat. That makes no sense if we have inflation. Argument is people are exiting business by selling rentals for redevelopment to TH/Condos (no surprise, duh!). 4% wonât change it as low rent increases plus JCE makes no sense for someone to stay in the rental business
4% for inflation is a very kind number. Some kind of QE is in progress as we speak and the FED is pumping money in REPO market. It is not clear who FED is trying to prevent from defaulting. If true and the feared default does happen, it may trigger a market crash. At that point, there will be two options. Asset prices drop (deflation) or FED will pump more money to protect prices or create more inflation. I remember I could eat a buffet lunch in Bay area for about $10 in 2010. The same buffet lunch costs around $15 today. As I am getting ready for $20 buffet, I am wishing my boss to give me a matching raise. The economic education from last hundred year has trained us to believe inflation is good for us. But, my boss does not agree with inflation when it comes to giving raises.
Dominoâs sells a Large (14") Hand Tossed Pizza for $15.20. CA can fix the minimum wage to the price of Large (14") Hand Tossed Pizza. Personally, I am against any legal minimum wage. Not having any minimum wage will leave the wages to be determined by the market (demand and supply ). It will encourage people from leaving oversupplied occupations to join thinly supplied occupations. But, If we have to have some kind of minimum wage, better have a number decided by market that can reflect the true purchasing power of the dollar.
donât confuse actual consumer prices with what the government puts in their basket to calculate inflation. (In 2014, Safeway sold a box of 10 chocolate croissants for $5. I remember the year because someone started eating them in that year. They changed to 8 for $5, 8 for $6, now itâs 5 for $5⌠price doubled between 2014 and 2019)
To keep price inflation down, substitution is applied. Go from an 8oz steak to a 6oz steak to a double patty burger, single patty burger.
See? Prices are not going up and they donât need to increase social security payouts much.
The official inflation rate is between 1.5% and 2% annually
Your buffet lunch should have increased to a max of $12 by now.
Add a little politics: Republicans understand this principle well, Democrats love to kill the golden goose.
Havenât come across such prediction on the web too 
Refer to the same post - at the bottom of the post. Btw, I donât believe in making predictions, I believe in considering possibilities and what can I do to deal with them. My ideal position is one that can survive, hopefully prosper, regardless of what is the eventual outcome.
Recall in the beginning of the PC era, IBM is already a 100 years old company, own many patents, has a team of excellent lawyers and a reputation of donât get fired recommending IBM? Where is mainframe now? Where is IBM now?
word) the past.