I saw this thread on Reddit What do you think the hardest major is? A few observations: 1. I think this calls into question the popular notion that college is dumbed-down or coddling students, contrary to Jonathan Haidt, Bari Weiss and others that college is like daycare. I am pretty sure organic chemistry is harder… Continue reading The college experience, how bad is it?

I forgot to include this my post yesterday, but Elon Musk dumped his Bitcoin holdings: Elon Musk’s Tesla sells most of its Bitcoin holdings (Technically, Tesla sold it, not Elon, but he authorized it.) This comes after he promised not to sell: And claiming Tesla has ‘diamond hands’, meaning not selling: Billionaires will only look… Continue reading Elon Musk’s Bitcoin Betrayal

This is going viral today: Three Charged In First Ever Cryptocurrency Insider Trading Tipping Scheme This comes a day after I published my post yesterday about financial crime. The timing could not have been better. From the indictment: On at least 14 occasions beginning at least in June 2021 and continuing through April 2022, ISHAN… Continue reading The Daily View 7/22/2022: Coinbase Insider Trading and Tesla

I saw this article going viral: US Doesn’t Care About Financial Crimes There are some common myths that I dispel in an earlier article, but I will expound on: -That financial crimes that affect the poor or ‘average people’ are ignored -That the rich are privileged and can get away with crime -That crimes which… Continue reading Doe the US Not Care About Financial Crimes? Likely not

I saw this Noah Smith article A Time of Troubles: The U.S. has fundamental strengths, but politics puts us at a difficult juncture But despite these strengths, the U.S. is in trouble, because of politics. It would be foolish not to acknowledge this. The recent string of Supreme Court decisions that is upending the political-economic… Continue reading The stakes are low for US politics, and America’s rivals are weak and apathetic

Over and again, all of these people who are held up by the media as geniuses or experts keep being wrong, whether it’s about Covid (specifically, the ‘health experts’ vastly overestimating the efficacy of masks and vaccines at stopping the spread of Covid), investing (such as Cathie Wood, who was hyped by the media in… Continue reading Fixing the Expertise Misallocation Problem

There are many well-worn arguments trotted out by the media and pundits against genetic determinism, or that IQ or talent does not matter compared to ‘grit’. They tend to have gaping holes. “The correlation between IQ and job performance is low, around .20-.30, thus IQ is not that important.” Taleb cites this common statistic in… Continue reading Refuting common arguments against IQ and talent

The Elon vs. Twitter saga shows that the price to fight social network censorship is very high. The price: tens of billions of dollars, or at least in his case, $44 billion. I too was optimistic that the deal would materialize, and by mid April Elon alluded multiple times on his Twitter timeline that the… Continue reading Elon Musk Puts a Price Tag on Fighting Social Media Censorship

I am somewhat skeptical that academia is as liberal as it’s commonly purported to be. Capitalism is much more inclusive compared to the insularity of academia. This possibly makes capitalism more liberal than academia, which is more like a priesthood, if liberalism is defined as openness and inclusivity. Business is about making one’s product accessible… Continue reading Why capitalism and business is possibly more liberal than academia

Who are the elite? What are elite-level jobs and college degrees? I think the key criteria are: -Visibility and influence on policy and or discourse -High pay, but also playing an important role at large, highly-visible companies, with opportunities for promotion -Connections, networking So being a doctor or a specialist, despite the good pay, is… Continue reading Who are the elite, and why elite overproduction is not a problem