I think the broader issue is that Meta has been evil for pretty much all of history so you can’t rationalize remaining employed there as simply a factor of the current job market (ofc this primarily applies to more tenured Meta employees)
This is awesome. I’ve been interested in something like this for some time as I’ve been working on slowly indexing my mtg collection and selling cards I don’t want/need. Will be checking it out this weekend!
It's still super rough (doesn't support foil-toggling yet, still some issues with double-sided cards, crashing on some iPhones), but overall the rough structure is there -- it can create lists and export as CSV.
If you have feedback or feature requests for your needs, please leave them on Github and I'll get to them as soon as I can. I'd love to hear more user feedback!
Plus, the money he borrows is not taxable. If he sold stock he would have to pay taxes before he could spend the income. Sure, he now owes money to someone, but he can refinance those loans again and again, and live tax-free the rest of his life while we, poor working stiffs, pay the taxes that built the airport where he parks the private jet he bought with the money he borrowed.
People seem to get the weird idea that borrowing against their stock holdings is some special thing rich people get to do with products that the rest of us don't have access to. It's not. Margin loans are widely available to the tune of ff+1%ish or lower, and if your brokerage's publicly offered rates are probably a ripoff, they're almost certainly negotiable. The bar for access to "institutional" rates is basically 100k, the regulatory requirement for portfolio margin.
Yes, there are specialized products catered to billionaires. But those aren't getting them better rates than someone with a $200k portfolio (Zuck is not conventionally a less risky borrower than the Options Clearing Corporation!). They exist to work around the fact that some borrowers can't just casually liquidate their stock on the open market, let alone at face value. By all accounts these products are more expensive than retail.
Mostly this is an expensive (but maybe still less expensive than taxes, depending on the rate environment—it's more of a no-brainer in ZIRPland) way to diversify out of a single-stock portfolio without selling by adding leverage. At Zuck's age, it's still very unlikely to make sense to borrow instead of sell to spend. He's been known to pay real taxes in the past, they just look small relative to his imputed wealth growth because rich people don't spend a lot relative to their wealth growth because they, quite by definition, have a lot of wealth.
I think people take issue with the taxes loophole. They have GAINED from the VALUE of their stocks, but they don't pay taxes on that. It should be law if you realize value from stocks you pay capital gains on those stocks. So if a loan is collateralized by $1,000,000 worth of stock value taxes should be paid on $1,000,000.
The trouble is that a bank is not lending against the nominal value of the stock as collateral. That number is almost entirely fictional. Taxation of capital gains at time of sale is less a loophole than a reflection of the difficulty of assigning a fair price to assets that are not perfectly liquid.
Also, you'd totally gut retail home equity lending as collateral damage, with disastrous social policy consequences.
I’ve never seen it explained as to how it’s different in kind from a home equity loan - you still need income from something to pay the loan back (and if you say you pay it from the loan proceeds you’re just donating to a bank with extra steps).
It's very simple: if the terms are satisfactory and against an agreed upon collateral (e.g. shares) banks will give you a loan that does not require periodic payments. The interest on the loan does accumulate of course, and is just added to the principal that the borrower owes. The bank is happy as long as the value of the collateral is higher than the current outstanding loan. If the loan is in danger of going "under water" the bank can either liquidate the collateral to pay itself, or the borrower can renegotiate the loan and deposit additional shares.
It's similar to a reverse mortgage. Say Fred and Wilma own a house worth $4MM with no mortgage on it. With a reverse mortgage a bank will lend them $2MM. Fred and Wilma make no payments and continue to live in their house, spending the $2MM while the interest on that loan just increases the amount they owe the bank. After both Fred and Wilma have passed away the house is sold and the proceeds are used to pay back the outstanding loan. If there's still money left over, it goes to their heirs. If the sale comes up short, the bank loses money, which is why these reverse mortgages are typically less than 50% of the value of the house and they typically have higher interest rates than conventional mortgages. From Fred and Wilma's point of view, they can use the value of their house now, while continuing to live in it. They essentially spend their children's inheritance.
Something interesting about Apple distribution that i learned recently is that apples are harvested and then stored in atmospheric controlled rooms which causes ripening to stop. This allows apples to be stored for months after harvest and before distribution, which gives us year-around access to apples
This is a false blanket statement. Portland has very short (walkable) blocks, many one way streets, and it is true that most often than not cars actively stop for pedestrians to cross the street
No it isn't. There's little evidence this drug works beyond some small studies done in Cuba by the people who developed the drug. The sum total of medical tourism to Cuba is quite small, no more than about 10k people per year. This is large due to their healthcare system lacking basic supplies like gauze and aspirin. Belly of the Beast isn't a real news outlet, its propaganda.
What is "a lot" of tourism is arbitrary but Cuba is obviously one of the most commonly talked about medical tourist destinations. Despite being strangled by the longest running US embargo (66 years) they managed to make a remarkable and free healthcare system. According to the World Bank and WHO they have the most doctors per capita of any country. Anyone that's worked in international crises is well aware of Cuba's army of doctors that they send to help out in disasters
> but Cuba is obviously one of the most commonly talked about medical tourist destinations.
No it isn't, and not by a long shot. The vast majority of medical tourists to Cuba are from the Caribbean, virtually no one else goes there for medical care. If you have money to travel for healthcare there are tons of better options, and most countries with national systems have VASTY superior facilities.
> Despite being strangled by the longest running US embargo
The US embargo which I don't support doesn't cover medical or agricultural goods. The Cubans received free oil and equipment from the USSR then Venezuela, and still couldn't manage to maintain any infrastructure. They can trade with any companies that aren't US based, and do. Their largest trade partners are Spain, and for agricultural goods the US. However the country is so badly managed and corrupt that they've turned all of that free oil, industrial equipment, and expertise into abject failure.
> remarkable and free healthcare system.
It's actually dog shit, and their own government admits that its plagued by shortages[1][2]. I personally have known several people who go there to perform free eye surgeries and have to bring their own equipment because the Cuban system doesn't have any.
> Anyone that's worked in international crises is well aware of Cuba's army of doctor
The UN has called this slave labor[3] on several occasions, and many people I've talked to who have worked with MSF and otehr international medical aid orgs all say the Cuban doctors are so poorly trained as to be dangerous to patients. The lack of materials in Cuba means they never get hands on experience with vital techniques.
Surprised to see anyone mentioning this here, NeuralCIM has been talked about for years behind the iron curtain. They also developed their own COVID vaccine and send hundreds of thousands of doctors to countries in the global south but even rich nations when they need help dealing with natural disasters. The US is viciously targeting them doing incredible harm nobody ever talks about.
The small Coke Zero cans make it tough to have just one. I typically will have 2 small cans with a meal which feels roughly equivalent to one regular sized can
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