Mod parent up. It’s depreciation expense. Depreciation would either reduce your operating income if you sold the bitcoins the same year you mined them or would increase your cost basis of your bitcoin (thus decreasing your capital gains tax) it you held your bitcoins for more than a year.
Be warned, the IRS makes this stuff complicated fast.
You say you don’t want parasites? That is a pejorative statement. A better statement is that I want the most efficient transaction where the middle man the least money. And that is what HFT does.
Back in the good old days when stocks were traded under a buttonwood tree the spread was 5 to 10%.
Back in the 90s, before HFT, market makers would charge me $.125 to.25 per share – on top of what my broker charges
Now, with HFT, the middle man charges me $.01 to.001 per share. It’s the least parasitic.
France introduced a tax like this and guess what – fewer HFT, larger spreads, more volatility. More parasitic.
That is an excellent counter example. I was thinking about using World War Z (the book) instead of Civil War. WWZ does use characters to draw on into the book. While I still think I am right, now I need to sit down a pick apart why I think War of the Worlds is better than World War Z. Is this the exception that proves the rule? Is it a culturally specific thing for the 19th century?
I don’t think that is the case here. Here is a question – what is the best way to avoid a strong tyrant?
One option is to make centralized government ineffective. That was America’s first choice with the Continental Congress. There are two problems with this. The first is that you have an ineffective government. The second is that people will always be looking for a way around the issue.
The second option – and the one I prefer, is to have a strong effective government with a small well defined domain and with strong independent oversight.
While we have 50 different states this does not mean we have 50 different individuals looking at what is happening – it means there is a hodge-podge of standards – and as any good programmer knows, if there is a hodge-podge of standards they can be hacked.
One state allows illegal immigrants to get driver’s license. Another uses consumer grade laser printers as a cost saving tool. Do any of them care, or know, when the FBI, NSA or the sheriff the county over does a drag on their data? When is it o.k. to pull a driver’s license? When the person is a suspect? What if the suspect is the hot girl next door? (There was a local case on this.)
Which is why I am on the fence about this, but leaning towards it. I like my privacy, but I suspect I would have more privacy if there were one standard and limit agencies to monitor instead of over 50.
You may be thinking about George Bush’s REAL ID act. The US currently has over 50 different standards for photo id. The idea is to get to a single standard.
Well, how would a movie like this work? First A happens, then B. Just sterile facts? Why would I want to see it? One of strengths of movies is the conveyance of emotion.
Take a look at Ken Burn’s The Civil War (o.k., not a movie per say, but one can think of it as a very long one. ) or any other disaster / based on true life events film you like. Lots of facts and you can see what is happening. But the reason why these films work is that you engage with the characters.
I am going to have to disagree with you. I have not seen the movie but I have read quite a few comics.
Grant Morrison’s All-Star superman comes to mind. Stuff by Frank Miller and Matt Wagner comes to mind as well.
Is Superman a challenge to write? Yes. Is he a Boy Scout? Yes – but that is not who he inherently is. Most of the Supermen comics that I have liked contains that struggle or illustrates that choice, that he could be something very different.
I also think the point about character development is a bit off. How much character development can one do with a 75 year icon who is still in his 30s. Batman, Captain America, etc. just don’t do character development. Not to say that you can’t have complex characters but there is some limit to the superhero genre.
IIRC Slashdot had an article talking about doing something like that today.
If was for busses that would be charged at bus stops. Bus stops are a lot closer, are know in advance, and are for a decent length of time. There were using normally batteries and not suppercap and induction to charge, but you need to start somewhere.
You don’t need to go anywhere on the periodic table. Automobile parts (such as the hood of a car) have been made from carbon fiber that serves as ultracapacitors. The problem is manufacturing them economically.
I will agree with you that batteries (or better yet, ultracapacitors) are the more likely solution, but they have gaps.
Cars work. Busses that travel along prearranged routs work either by battery swapping or fast charges at bus stops.
Trucks don’t work, or at least not as well. I different solution is going to be needed. If this is the solution for trucks (which I am not sure of) then would think it would be a simple add on for cars. Batteries for short trips, power from the road when on the highway. They would not be incompatible, but there would be some tradeoff for the extra weight..
Sadly probably no. Piezoelectric works because of an elastic spring when pressure is applied. Increasing the elastic spring of a road increases rolling resistance, which decreases the efficiency of the car, resulting in a net energy loss.
If one assumes that this is the solution for electric cars, then a logical extension is that everybody will adopt it. Intercity truck hauling is the low hanging fruit so that is where you start. Then it cascades down to everybody. In 20 years half the cars driving would use the technology.
Initially costs would have to be subsidized by the taxpayers, but as usage grows then subsides would disappear with costs being recouped by charging for the electricity.
It’s a long shot but there could be huge wins. That is how I would evaluate it.
You kind of hit on the head what I was trying to say. There is a difference in having the technology and knowing how to use it. The 1980s was when GUIs, network computers, and the internet – just to name the few were combined effectively. All of these technologies existed before but it was how they were combined that unleashed the massive productivity gains.
Well, no. Let me see if I can state my argument better.
The studies that I have seen show that access to contraceptives is less effective in reducing population growth then increasing family income, increasing woman’s education, or increasing woman’s access to work.
IIRC, having access to contraception knocks off about.5 kids. Getting a girl to a 8th grade education knocks of 1 to 2. Having access (does not have to be employed, just needs access) knocks off another 1 to 2 kids. If a woman is told that their purpose in life is to have kids, they are not educated to know their choices, and they are confined to their home why would they want to limit the number of children?
In the US it’s effect is statistically zero – it is used by woman to determine when they give birth, not on the number of children. I suspect that as countries get richer their effect on population growth falls to zero. We have seen this affect in other middle income countries (GDP 8k to 20k per head) but it is harder to tell. The US is culturally and economically homogenous (in a global way) but has 50 different sets of laws of the books. This gives you really good data. You can find similar patterns based on wealth in South Korea, India, and Nigeria, but then you have other issues. Cultures, different time periods when they crossed into middle income. Etc.
To be precise, happiness correlates with money if you earn less than 60k USD. Above 60k it stops being correlated. The theory being that under 60k you have a lot of stress trying to pay your bills. Above 60k then other factors dominate, such as having a good marriage or being envious of your neighbor’s luxury car – things that money can’t directly address. Quality of life is not the exact same thing as happiness. I know people who work long hours because the work is something they enjoy or enjoy expensive hobbies (horses and charitable work.). For them more money does means more happiness.
Also, Why do you say it’s not useful? Society, collectively, says it is. (Now, I work in finance and I do think society overvalues this sector. But I also think society overvalues rappers and undervalues mimes.)
Because population growth is relatively easy to model and has a nice continues slope.
Predicating productivity growth (which is what really matters) is hard. Technological is only one part of productivity and is the hardest to model. It is not a nice curve. It’s lumpy – with huge fits and starts. Billions were spent on computers between 1960 to 1980 with little effect on productivity. In the 1980s the code was crack and massive productivity gains. Few people guess that the internet would have such a large impact on productive so fast. I am still waiting for a fustian generator – only 20 years from now.
Now, like you, I am an optimist on the issue but it’s not like there is an iron law out there. What has me concerned is that the growth in productivity has been dropping in developed countries for the past decade. Maybe it is a measurement problem. Maybe we are in a lull between the great gains brought by IT between 1980-2000. But I am still a little worried.
I read the post, he said he was better at developing then the interviewers, and said eh. I think he missed some points.
It sounds like the job was to develop (applied math) and execute concepts (coding). The general conscious in finance is that it is easier to train somebody in coding then it is to train them in applied math. Hence the physics questions.
And it is common for supervisors to earn less than the people they manage. It is a live off what you killed system. While not a perfect analogy, take a look at sports. Often players will be paid more and can out play their “superior” (coach or general manager). The role is to manage and direct big egos, make sure they don’t blow up the firm, etc.
The OP was about financial engineering, not about HFC. They have different skill sets.
Financial engineering is about creating new structured products. Think swaps, CMOs, etc. The stuff that blew up during the financial crisis. You try to identify logical flaws in existing products that causes a mismatch in price. You then repackage them, squeezing out the inefficient caused by the flaw.
For HFT, how do you think battling bots work? How would you identify flaws in the market and exploited them? There are a lot of things that look like flaws but are just statistical flukes. There are others which work most of the time but when they don’t will blow you up. Gut instinct?
I am currently reading “The (Mis)behavior of Markets” by Mandelbrot (of chaos theory, the Mandelbrot sets). It is a popsci book and I am only 20% of the way through but that might be a place to start.
They are sucking up brilliant people who are strong in modeling – so mathematicians, physicist, engineers, etc. Physicist tend to be good a modeling large complex natural system with math. It’s the right skill set. Heck, I even know a philosophy grad who got hired for big bucks. (Now, he specialized in formal logic, had a minor in math, and was a real renaissance man.)
Personally, the software people (note, I don’t know any developers) that I know that are in the field are lower down in the hierarchy. Great pay but they expect perform ace now.
I am finding Massive Online Open Courses better then Google or the Library. The problem with those 2 is you tend to get a scattering of knowledge. The MOOCs I have taken march you from start to end covering all of the bases.
I have worked with some brilliant self-taught programmers but they always had gaps in their knowledge which resulted in some interesting kludges.
Family income, education, and access to work all dominate the number of children a woman has in her life. Access to contraception is at the bottom.
In the US it has had no statistical effect for the past 50 years. Roe vs. Wade has generated a lot of research. Yes, contraception does lower unintended pregnancies but it has no statistical effect on the number of children a woman has. So what is happening? In short, teenagers are no long have “accidents” but are delaying child rearing until their 20s, 30s.
Yes, my OP was talking strictly about monetized items – but my second post was strictly about non-monetized items. Did you see any flaws there? Or maybe it would help if I flipped the problem.
In order to prevent "the ravages of climate disruption" why is spending billions of public money on nuclear power the best choice of all alternatives?
Nuclear? It’s low risk, but the costs are upfront and the benefits are spread over 30 years. Would adding 3 inches of insulation to everybody’s home be cheaper or more effective? Cheap, benefits start now. Would investing in basic R&D for solar tech be a better choice? Risky, but possibly huge benefits in the future. Would making the wind turbine tax credit in the US permanent be a better choice? Costs nothing, increases capacity, and increases private R&D. Tax credits of electric vehicles? Or build more mass transit? Increase ethanol production? The list goes on.
Some mixture of the above options? Why is nuclear the best, rational choice of all options? Mind you, I don’t need a lot of convincing. I am pro-nuclear – but not as much as the film makers. But still, how would you compare different projects?
This is how I would do it. I would put a price on carbon emissions – i.e. a carbon tax. "The ravages of climate disruption" is now monetized and we can select the set of projects that save the planet the most efficient method. Would this take some political will? Yes, but if we want to save the planet it will take the collective buy in of the entire plant.
This is why nuclear is more risky then it first appears – it has a 30 year payback. There is a low but non-zero chance that a really nifty new technology will come along and make nuclear power obsolete.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up. It’s depreciation expense. Depreciation would either reduce your operating income if you sold the bitcoins the same year you mined them or would increase your cost basis of your bitcoin (thus decreasing your capital gains tax) it you held your bitcoins for more than a year.
Be warned, the IRS makes this stuff complicated fast.
You say you don’t want parasites? That is a pejorative statement. A better statement is that I want the most efficient transaction where the middle man the least money. And that is what HFT does.
Back in the good old days when stocks were traded under a buttonwood tree the spread was 5 to 10%.
Back in the 90s, before HFT, market makers would charge me $.125 to .25 per share – on top of what my broker charges
Now, with HFT, the middle man charges me $.01 to .001 per share. It’s the least parasitic.
France introduced a tax like this and guess what – fewer HFT, larger spreads, more volatility. More parasitic.
That is an excellent counter example. I was thinking about using World War Z (the book) instead of Civil War. WWZ does use characters to draw on into the book. While I still think I am right, now I need to sit down a pick apart why I think War of the Worlds is better than World War Z. Is this the exception that proves the rule? Is it a culturally specific thing for the 19th century?
I don’t think that is the case here. Here is a question – what is the best way to avoid a strong tyrant?
One option is to make centralized government ineffective. That was America’s first choice with the Continental Congress. There are two problems with this. The first is that you have an ineffective government. The second is that people will always be looking for a way around the issue.
The second option – and the one I prefer, is to have a strong effective government with a small well defined domain and with strong independent oversight.
While we have 50 different states this does not mean we have 50 different individuals looking at what is happening – it means there is a hodge-podge of standards – and as any good programmer knows, if there is a hodge-podge of standards they can be hacked.
One state allows illegal immigrants to get driver’s license. Another uses consumer grade laser printers as a cost saving tool. Do any of them care, or know, when the FBI, NSA or the sheriff the county over does a drag on their data? When is it o.k. to pull a driver’s license? When the person is a suspect? What if the suspect is the hot girl next door? (There was a local case on this.)
Which is why I am on the fence about this, but leaning towards it. I like my privacy, but I suspect I would have more privacy if there were one standard and limit agencies to monitor instead of over 50.
You may be thinking about George Bush’s REAL ID act. The US currently has over 50 different standards for photo id. The idea is to get to a single standard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act
I am on the fence with this. If we are going to have a ID card it should be useful. But I do want strong oversight so it won’t be abused.
Well, how would a movie like this work? First A happens, then B. Just sterile facts? Why would I want to see it? One of strengths of movies is the conveyance of emotion.
Take a look at Ken Burn’s The Civil War (o.k., not a movie per say, but one can think of it as a very long one. ) or any other disaster / based on true life events film you like. Lots of facts and you can see what is happening. But the reason why these films work is that you engage with the characters.
I am going to have to disagree with you. I have not seen the movie but I have read quite a few comics.
Grant Morrison’s All-Star superman comes to mind. Stuff by Frank Miller and Matt Wagner comes to mind as well.
Is Superman a challenge to write? Yes. Is he a Boy Scout? Yes – but that is not who he inherently is. Most of the Supermen comics that I have liked contains that struggle or illustrates that choice, that he could be something very different.
I also think the point about character development is a bit off. How much character development can one do with a 75 year icon who is still in his 30s. Batman, Captain America, etc. just don’t do character development. Not to say that you can’t have complex characters but there is some limit to the superhero genre.
We could solve that issue by moving to coal.
IIRC Slashdot had an article talking about doing something like that today.
If was for busses that would be charged at bus stops. Bus stops are a lot closer, are know in advance, and are for a decent length of time. There were using normally batteries and not suppercap and induction to charge, but you need to start somewhere.
You don’t need to go anywhere on the periodic table. Automobile parts (such as the hood of a car) have been made from carbon fiber that serves as ultracapacitors. The problem is manufacturing them economically.
Just wait until they go into partnership with SAAB, either the aerospace or car company. Those Swedes.
I will agree with you that batteries (or better yet, ultracapacitors) are the more likely solution, but they have gaps.
Cars work. Busses that travel along prearranged routs work either by battery swapping or fast charges at bus stops.
Trucks don’t work, or at least not as well. I different solution is going to be needed. If this is the solution for trucks (which I am not sure of) then would think it would be a simple add on for cars. Batteries for short trips, power from the road when on the highway. They would not be incompatible, but there would be some tradeoff for the extra weight..
Sadly probably no. Piezoelectric works because of an elastic spring when pressure is applied. Increasing the elastic spring of a road increases rolling resistance, which decreases the efficiency of the car, resulting in a net energy loss.
If one assumes that this is the solution for electric cars, then a logical extension is that everybody will adopt it. Intercity truck hauling is the low hanging fruit so that is where you start. Then it cascades down to everybody. In 20 years half the cars driving would use the technology.
Initially costs would have to be subsidized by the taxpayers, but as usage grows then subsides would disappear with costs being recouped by charging for the electricity.
It’s a long shot but there could be huge wins. That is how I would evaluate it.
Volvo, the truck company (The one we are talking about), spun off Volvo, the car company, a long time ago.
You kind of hit on the head what I was trying to say. There is a difference in having the technology and knowing how to use it. The 1980s was when GUIs, network computers, and the internet – just to name the few were combined effectively. All of these technologies existed before but it was how they were combined that unleashed the massive productivity gains.
Well, no. Let me see if I can state my argument better.
The studies that I have seen show that access to contraceptives is less effective in reducing population growth then increasing family income, increasing woman’s education, or increasing woman’s access to work.
IIRC, having access to contraception knocks off about .5 kids. Getting a girl to a 8th grade education knocks of 1 to 2. Having access (does not have to be employed, just needs access) knocks off another 1 to 2 kids. If a woman is told that their purpose in life is to have kids, they are not educated to know their choices, and they are confined to their home why would they want to limit the number of children?
In the US it’s effect is statistically zero – it is used by woman to determine when they give birth, not on the number of children. I suspect that as countries get richer their effect on population growth falls to zero. We have seen this affect in other middle income countries (GDP 8k to 20k per head) but it is harder to tell. The US is culturally and economically homogenous (in a global way) but has 50 different sets of laws of the books. This gives you really good data. You can find similar patterns based on wealth in South Korea, India, and Nigeria, but then you have other issues. Cultures, different time periods when they crossed into middle income. Etc.
To be precise, happiness correlates with money if you earn less than 60k USD. Above 60k it stops being correlated. The theory being that under 60k you have a lot of stress trying to pay your bills. Above 60k then other factors dominate, such as having a good marriage or being envious of your neighbor’s luxury car – things that money can’t directly address. Quality of life is not the exact same thing as happiness. I know people who work long hours because the work is something they enjoy or enjoy expensive hobbies (horses and charitable work.). For them more money does means more happiness.
Also, Why do you say it’s not useful? Society, collectively, says it is. (Now, I work in finance and I do think society overvalues this sector. But I also think society overvalues rappers and undervalues mimes.)
Because population growth is relatively easy to model and has a nice continues slope.
Predicating productivity growth (which is what really matters) is hard. Technological is only one part of productivity and is the hardest to model. It is not a nice curve. It’s lumpy – with huge fits and starts. Billions were spent on computers between 1960 to 1980 with little effect on productivity. In the 1980s the code was crack and massive productivity gains. Few people guess that the internet would have such a large impact on productive so fast. I am still waiting for a fustian generator – only 20 years from now.
Now, like you, I am an optimist on the issue but it’s not like there is an iron law out there. What has me concerned is that the growth in productivity has been dropping in developed countries for the past decade. Maybe it is a measurement problem. Maybe we are in a lull between the great gains brought by IT between 1980-2000. But I am still a little worried.
I read the post, he said he was better at developing then the interviewers, and said eh. I think he missed some points.
It sounds like the job was to develop (applied math) and execute concepts (coding). The general conscious in finance is that it is easier to train somebody in coding then it is to train them in applied math. Hence the physics questions.
And it is common for supervisors to earn less than the people they manage. It is a live off what you killed system. While not a perfect analogy, take a look at sports. Often players will be paid more and can out play their “superior” (coach or general manager). The role is to manage and direct big egos, make sure they don’t blow up the firm, etc.
The OP was about financial engineering, not about HFC. They have different skill sets.
Financial engineering is about creating new structured products. Think swaps, CMOs, etc. The stuff that blew up during the financial crisis. You try to identify logical flaws in existing products that causes a mismatch in price. You then repackage them, squeezing out the inefficient caused by the flaw.
For HFT, how do you think battling bots work? How would you identify flaws in the market and exploited them? There are a lot of things that look like flaws but are just statistical flukes. There are others which work most of the time but when they don’t will blow you up. Gut instinct?
I am currently reading “The (Mis)behavior of Markets” by Mandelbrot (of chaos theory, the Mandelbrot sets). It is a popsci book and I am only 20% of the way through but that might be a place to start.
They are sucking up brilliant people who are strong in modeling – so mathematicians, physicist, engineers, etc. Physicist tend to be good a modeling large complex natural system with math. It’s the right skill set. Heck, I even know a philosophy grad who got hired for big bucks. (Now, he specialized in formal logic, had a minor in math, and was a real renaissance man.)
Personally, the software people (note, I don’t know any developers) that I know that are in the field are lower down in the hierarchy. Great pay but they expect perform ace now.
I am finding Massive Online Open Courses better then Google or the Library. The problem with those 2 is you tend to get a scattering of knowledge. The MOOCs I have taken march you from start to end covering all of the bases.
I have worked with some brilliant self-taught programmers but they always had gaps in their knowledge which resulted in some interesting kludges.
No, I am factoring in unintended pregnancy.
Family income, education, and access to work all dominate the number of children a woman has in her life. Access to contraception is at the bottom.
In the US it has had no statistical effect for the past 50 years. Roe vs. Wade has generated a lot of research. Yes, contraception does lower unintended pregnancies but it has no statistical effect on the number of children a woman has. So what is happening? In short, teenagers are no long have “accidents” but are delaying child rearing until their 20s, 30s.
Yes, my OP was talking strictly about monetized items – but my second post was strictly about non-monetized items. Did you see any flaws there? Or maybe it would help if I flipped the problem.
In order to prevent "the ravages of climate disruption" why is spending billions of public money on nuclear power the best choice of all alternatives?
Nuclear? It’s low risk, but the costs are upfront and the benefits are spread over 30 years.
Would adding 3 inches of insulation to everybody’s home be cheaper or more effective? Cheap, benefits start now.
Would investing in basic R&D for solar tech be a better choice? Risky, but possibly huge benefits in the future.
Would making the wind turbine tax credit in the US permanent be a better choice? Costs nothing, increases capacity, and increases private R&D.
Tax credits of electric vehicles? Or build more mass transit? Increase ethanol production?
The list goes on.
Some mixture of the above options? Why is nuclear the best, rational choice of all options? Mind you, I don’t need a lot of convincing. I am pro-nuclear – but not as much as the film makers. But still, how would you compare different projects?
This is how I would do it. I would put a price on carbon emissions – i.e. a carbon tax. "The ravages of climate disruption" is now monetized and we can select the set of projects that save the planet the most efficient method. Would this take some political will? Yes, but if we want to save the planet it will take the collective buy in of the entire plant.
This is why nuclear is more risky then it first appears – it has a 30 year payback. There is a low but non-zero chance that a really nifty new technology will come along and make nuclear power obsolete.