onfocus

"Companies issue stock to fund projects, stocks go up because investors think companies have good projects to fund, companies use their stock price to recruit employees and pay for mergers and make decisions about what projects to pursue in the real world. I don’t know, I feel like a moron typing all of this. But I just have to type it! Think of how GameStop’s board must feel! The market is telling them something, but it is hard to hear what it’s saying through its maniacal laughter."

Fascinated by this story of market manipulation not by the usual suspects.

Update: Now small investors can’t buy GameStop stock. Free market?

"The study concluded that 'lifting [eviction] moratoriums amounted to an estimated 433,700 excess cases and 10,700 excess deaths' between March 13 and September 3. The infections and fatalities occurred across '27 states that lifted eviction moratoriums' during the study period."

This is what our entire national conversation should be right now. Where is congress?

“It took us ten years — between 2009 and 2019 — to create 22 million jobs. And we’ve lost 30 million jobs in two months.”

This is a tough read but it sure seems like we can expect a long, rough road ahead.

"We ran these surveys and asked people what they want to do. Twenty percent of our existing employees said that they were extremely or very interested in working remotely full time. And another 20 percent on top of that said that they were somewhat interested. So I think what’s basically going to happen is that, because it’s going to take a while to get everyone back into the office, you have like 40 percent of employees already who were fairly willing to work remotely."

I always thought it was strange that these big silicon valley companies who make online tools were against remote work. Circumstances are forcing their adjustment but this could be lasting.

Interesting visualization of the disparity between the ultra-rich and others. This might indicate a problem with the system?

"The University of Washington said it would move to online classes for its 50,000 students. With colleges nationwide about to empty for spring break, students fear they might not be coming back."

They’re planning to open their campus again March 30th.

A note from our dystopian present where software ate everything and humans are API endpoints rather than driving the system:

"A future that plans on everything going right so no one has to think about what happens when things go wrong. Because computers don’t make mistakes. An automated future where no one actually knows how things work. A future where people are so far removed from the process that they stand around powerless, unable to take the reigns."

Not a big deal for watching movies but this could be tragic applied to more critical areas of our lives. It's good to watch out for this and push back on it.

I’m on board with this plan. Take a look if you haven’t seen it yet. I’m even more on board with the widespread online mocking of this type of reaction to it: Elizabeth Warren's plan to cancel student loan debt would be a slap in the face to all those who struggled to pay off their loans. My favorite response from @petridishes: "this plan to stop slapping people in the face is a slap in the face to all those who were slapped in the face."

“We understand prices. But in a community, many of these transactions are not priced. You may do more favors than you get. You may not even get greater status as a result of something you do.”

This Freakonomics Radio interview with economist Raghuram Rajan is fantastic. He talks about the value of communities and the difficulty economists have quantifying their value. Local communities are also one of the primary ways we find meaning in our personal lives. There's a lot to think about there.