I'm JJ's brother and an investor in Double so I'm a little bit biased but I believe reducing/eliminating AUM fees is a huge net positive for the world. The performance drag over long term that money managers charge is a tax on people's retirement savings. What Vanguard/Bogle did with Index funds was massive, and I think Double can be this generation's Vanguard. Professional and powerful money management tools with rock bottom/no AUM fees is a massive opportunity. Congratulations on the launch JJ and Mark!
I love the idea and vision but I think you are underestimating the benefits of a good name. I can’t pronounce Terusama, couldn’t remember it, and it would be hard to spell if heard. Also it doesn’t suggest what you do at all which is important in a name. A combo of simple words that allude to what you do make the best names IMO. Otherwise anything that can improved such a huge industry sounds like a great market to tackle.
When searching their name the whole results page is related to them. I don't think this would be the case with a combo of simple words. Would love to hear more on the origins of the name though. Congrats on the launch!
Agreed. Fuck Benchmark. Travis makes each partner $1 billion personally and this is how they treat him? They should be blackballed by every great founder out there. I had respect for benchmark but not anymore. They are greedy assholes.
Yes. You can't take a bunch of money from investors and then lie to them and tell them their money's doing great when most of it's actually gone, even if you do later manage to hit it big and pay them back. Imagine the kind of precedent that would set if this weren't considered fraud. "Temporary Ponzi schemes" would spring up everywhere.
Maybe it changes the charges and the sentencing, if there is no indication that the person sought to personally profit or steal from the investors, but lying is lying.
The question about fraud was in the context of the misappropriation of capital from investors for a purpose different from what was initially agreed to, and not as a general catch-all term for posturing or affectation either by politicians or the general populace.
Given human nature, widespread belief in consequentialism as an ethical system would likely result is very bad consequences. So from the position that consequentialism is correct it is probably unethical to advocate as a correct viewpoint.
Only if you're willing to give a pass on that type of behavior based on generated returns. Wall Street has certainly historically been filled to the brim with that approach. The problem, typical even on Wall St., is that fraudulent behavior tends to be derived from the person's character, not a one-off. The odds are very high - in my opinion - that it would happen again. The Wall St. types that cross the line to generate returns, seem to frequently also light the house on fire given enough time.
It seems like newspeak to call people "greedy" for suing someone despite that they (nominally) made a lot of money for those people. It seems like the fund is insisting that its investments follow the law, not indemnify criminal actions, etc. Doing that to an investment that made you money seems the opposite of greedy.
> It seems like the fund is insisting that its investments follow the law
the fund is not the police or courts, though... right? it's not their "job" to ensure the law is asserted upon the land - at least not beyond their own avoidance of wrongdoing.
> not indemnify criminal actions
IANAL, but the state is the plaintiff in criminal cases. this case just seems to be benchmark asking that newly added board seats be removed.
> at least not beyond their own avoidance of wrongdoing
Such as enforcing that people contracted to carry out work on their behalf do so in a manner that conforms to their ethical stands?
A fund policing the habits of an investment is literally the people who own the business policing the actions of their employees -- I think most of us agree that a business has the right to enforce ethical standards on employees.
> not the police or courts
Both of these institutions are primarily complaint driven -- the fund filed a complaint that people they employed violated the rules of their employment and is asking the courts to make it right. (Slight more convoluted, but that's the gist of it.)
> state is the plaintiff in criminal cases
That has nothing to do with indemnifying someone from the financial consequences of their actions -- a third party can offer to pay your penalties.
> seems to be benchmark asking that newly added board seats be removed
Are there no prior cases where board actions to create board seats were reverse because of fraud? I'm skeptical.
But more to the point -- so what? We have well established law that you can revisit agreements made on a fraudulent basis and they're asking the courts to mediate just such a dispute.
I'm actually unsure how you think any of this should work based on your objections, aside from that corporate managers shouldn't be liable, even to the corporate owners, for their actions.
> A fund policing the habits of an investment is literally the people who own the business policing the actions of their employees
this seems to be equivocating on "policing".
> That has nothing to do with indemnifying someone from the financial consequences of their actions
you stated "criminal actions". if kalanick committed a crime, it is the state that pursues this in court. afaik all that is occurring is that benchmark is pursuing a civil case.
> Are there no prior cases where board actions to create board seats were reverse because of fraud?
are you referring to criminal or civil wrongdoing?
> I'm actually unsure how you think any of this should work based on your objections
it just seemed to me that you were suggesting private entities pursue criminals and "fight crime", perhaps as some form of vigilantism. ...perhaps like batman?
> if kalanick committed a crime, it is the state that pursues this in court
That's actually not how it works -- there can be both civil and criminal proceedings for a case, and very often criminal proceedings follow a complaint by a victim. The criminal proceedings deals with punishments related to breaking the law; the civil proceedings deal with damages caused to people (or businesses) by the crimes.
Also, indemnification has nothing to do with prosecution versus civil suit -- it's an agreement to pay the damages and fines related to the person's actions.
> suggesting private entities pursue criminals and "fight crime", perhaps as some form of vigilantism
They absolutely should!
By filing complaints and suing for damages that result from the actions of criminals -- which is what the fund is doing here.
A criminal may still be liable for damages via civil suit even if there's a lack of prosecution or an acquittal. People can (and should!) make use of the courts to pursue criminals.
The fund alleges that they were the injured party, because Kalanick lied about and/or didn't disclose facts which were material to their decision.
Besides, it's common practice at that level to inform law enforcement when crimes are suspected. See, for example, Pepsi calling the FBI when they were offered CocaCola's recipe.
Yeah, not if the company gets banned from self driving car tech for 10 years or something. This will likely have an impact on the value of uber on paper or other.
Without the solar ITC and wind PTC most projects wouldn't be feasible. I'm skeptical these will last past a major tax overhaul as planned this year. I don't think your view on oil prices is correct. Even if supply cuts work US shale producers will pick up any slack. And I don't agree with your long term take on electric cars. Gasoline cars are just better for anyone who actually needs their car. Electric is a luxury and not necessarily cheaper at current gas prices.
* Wind does not require any ITC credits to be competitive, solar will require them for another 1-2 years. [1]
* Shale production is not nimble, and OPEC can always profit at lower prices. Saudi Arabia can profit at $12/barrel. Shale is barely profitable at $40/barrel, and needs $50-60/barrel to really be worth the production.
* Gasoline cars are twice as expensive per mile to operate compared to electric cars. EV drivetrains last forever. The internal combustion engine is not long for this world (witness how badly VW had to cheat to pass emissions standards). OPEC participants can't balance their budgets at current market prices, so the price must go up, making EVs even more attractive. [2]
Mind you, I don't really care if you agree with me. We're already on a trajectory; I'm simply describing that trajectory.
Seriously,EV drivetrains last forever? What about battery packs that will be fucking dead after a few years of driving?
Have you ever worked with actual machinery? Electric motors can fail just as well, the windings might break or burn out, the bearings wear out, there is still some gearing in the car as well
Solar and wind is ruinously expensive (just look at german energy prices before and afrer start of their retarded experiment - and remember they pretty much drove out a lot of energy intensive heavy industry to China)
Do you really think its a good thing energy prices go negative because of generators that provide miniscule amounts od total required energy?
Tesla warranties their battery pack and electric motors for 8 years/unlimited miles. Their CTO has stated they expect 10-15 year lifetimes, minimum, from their stationary storage battery packs. Existing Model S data has shown their battery packs only degraded 6% over ~180k miles of use. The drivetrain will last the entire lifetime of the vehicle.
Electric motors are more reliable than internal combustion engines. Full stop.
Wind is cheaper than all other energy sources. Solar is still expensive, but that's what subsidies are for.
Yes, it's absolutely fine for energy prices to go negative when renewables are over producing.
I'll back you up on the electric motors being more reliable than gasoline engines. Gasoline engines by design have all sorts of moving parts where there is sliding friction mediated by partial lubrication[1]. Wear is inescapable.
Simple math gives you an estimate for the max run time of a gasoline engine.
200,000 miles / 30 mph => 6600 hours.
So after 7000 hours of run time a gasoline engine is shot. Industrial electric motors easily achieve run times that are ten times that number as do the power electronics needed to drive them.
[1] Partial lubrication means you have metal to metal contact. Full lubrication ala a pressure fed journal bearing is a different story. There the bearing surfaces are separated by a film of fluid. These types of bearing can an do last for decades.
Yes, a lifetime of realism is worth more than a few selective quotes.
You want a quote - here's one from the CBC:
"The province will drop the guaranteed rate for small rooftop solar projects from 80.2 cents per kilowatt hour to 54.9 cents, while larger solar installations will get between 34.7 cents and 44.5 cents a kWh."
The Canadian government pays citizens 80 cents a Kw/h to generate solar electricity.
They sell it back to consumers at about 12 cents a Kw/h.
So you tell me with a straight face how they're going to get '80 cents Kw/h' down to '12 cents Kw/h' in 2 years?
Or even 10.
Not going to happen in most of North American for a very long time.
Not exactly how it works. The projects are leveraged off balance sheet with separate, often tax advantageous entities owning the panels in a complicated lease buyback structure. 'Losing money is a good thing' is not true if you understand time value of money and debt leveraging. I haven't done much research but Solar City is probably hurting now because Nevada renagged on gridnbuyback provisions and lots of other states are eliminating residential incentives and subsidies for solar.
Also although they were the first to do some of the complicated financing stuff, rooftop solar installation has turned into a very low margin business with lots of competition in most markets. It's not really groundbreaking stuff they are doing.
I read Atlas Shrugged cover to cover (and suffered). How did they deal with that speech in the movie that came out for it? I sure hope they cut it short ...
The eagerness of a different (but overlapping) libertarian cabal to court favor with the notoriously corrupt (and murderous) regime in Honduras to build their own version of paradise on the northern coast of that country (at the expense of the local Garífuna community) is also quite telling.
Her legacy would seem to cut both ways, we might say.
Except for the small detail that these guys' project swiftly disintegrated due to personality conflicts, zoning issues, and possible fraud before it ever started, and the most damage it did was that a couple of contractors didn't get paid. Meanwhile, Chavismo has immiserated millions of people and imposed a corrupt authoritarian government on a whole nation. So the parallels aren't really very close at all.
If you want a larger-scale example, the wholesale transformation of life in the U.S., Britain and much of the rest of the world since the early 1980s -- not strictly Randian, but definitely Rand-inspired -- hasn't exactly gone swimmingly well, either:
Of course radical libertarianism and authoritarian socialism, while both pipe dreams, are basically apples and oranges to one another, and can't be compared side by side.
But the point about the smaller-scale fiascos in Chile and Honduras is that it shows how farcical (and corrupt) that ideology can be whenever people do try to incarnate it in its purest form, out there in the real, actual world. This coming from people who claim to know vastly better about reinventing the world from the ground up.
If you really want to count up the number of corpses created by "radical libertarianism" and authoritarian socialism, we can just go right ahead and do that. I don't think you'll like the result, though.
Of course "libertarianism" as such -- being even more farcical than nearly any version of socialism -- has never gotten a real toehold anywhere for any length of time, making the comparison moot. That's why I prefer to stick with comparisons of large-scale, real-life ideological systems ("by their deeds shall ye know them"). That is, not the platonic ideals that people (pretend to) believe in; but the actual, real-world systems they compromise for as its "best viable" approximation.
Which is where the body counts, ecological toll and general misery -- domestic and exported -- of the two allegedly opposite systems tend to even out to a far greater degree.
It doesn't matter how you to try to spin it. The vast scale of the horrors inflicted on humanity because of authoritarian socialism is well known and won't just go away.
I never denied them, so I don't know what you're driving at.
I just don't think that being "horrified" at the excesses of only one extreme on the ideological spectrum -- whilst remaining indifferent (or willfully oblivious) to the skeletons in one's own ideological basement -- makes for a particularly useful or instructive view of the world.
The problem is that there are no real horrors of say libertarianism compared to the 100 million or so that were slaughtered, starved to death, enslaved, whatever..in the name of socialism.
At some point in time you have to deal with the reality that there isn't equivocation. I know some people have hard times dealing with it, and thus always pull the trick of "but look over here at this". It just doesn't work, but people don't seem to understand that it doesn't work.
> I just don't think that being "horrified" at the excesses of only one extreme on the ideological spectrum -- whilst remaining indifferent (or willfully oblivious) to the skeletons in one's own ideological basement -- makes for a particularly useful or instructive view of the world.
But the opposite, shrugging one's shoulders in the face of the explicit, obvious failure of a mode of governance and saying "well, who are we to judge really, these other guys did something bad once too," has its own faults. Namely, if we can't point at how Chavismo has played out so disastrously in Venezuela without getting uselessly entangled in whataboutery, what rhetorical tools do we have left to use the next time a charismatic socialist with an authoritarian streak starts getting close to political power in a democracy?
(Any comparison with the current political situation in a large nation whose name rhymes with "Bunited Bates of Bamerica" is, of course, left as an exercise for the reader.)
Ya, I'm a libertarian, and I find myself flinching a bit while reading Atlas Shrugged.
What's even funnier, though, is seeing real life unfold in front of my eyes that matches it, almost so perfectly that you'd think the politicians were following it as a script!
Im a libertarian as well and I dislike Rand quite a bit. I think its horrible that Objectivism is seen as the only philosopical backbone of libertarian society. While in reality I base everythng on Burke, Hume, Smith, Hayek and many others. These are complete different and hole incompadible with Objectivism.
Not to say that she did not have some good observations on some of the things she was against. Her modern followers by and inlarge horrible idiots that I don't want to be associated with.
I just finished it. While a little over-the-top at times to get points across, it addresses well the much-maligned "hyperproductive" of society.
It was staggering how perfectly the first third matches our current socioeconomic conditions, with the only difference in trajectory being the story having the productive rich bail out of society specifically to crash the "looters"' plans.
'Storing solar power underground' - what if it's in a pressurized and compressed form that's easily transported and has a high mass to energy ratio? Brilliant!
I think you're describing methane, the primary component of natural gas. Methane production from electricity is ~60% efficient, according to a 6.3MW plant that Audi and SolarFuel cobuilt in Germany. And then converting methane into electricity or movement will only be ~50% efficient, for total roundtrip efficiency of 30%. That may make sense for electrical storage if the price swings from low to high are 3x or more.
Well I think thebmax is joking about how all fossil fuels are effectively dense, underground storage of solar energy. ;)
(But your information on methane is interesting. I somehow didn't realize it was the biggest component in natural gas; I guess I had assumed it was a more complex hydrocarbon and not considered it further.)
That was what I was getting at ;). I had an old boss who used to call hydrocarbons 'Mother Nature's Battery'. Its almost a miracle when you think of it. Millions of years of solar energy stored in solid, liquid, and gas forms, available for the ingenuity of man to extract and use to power the marvels of the modern world.
For all the hate that hydrocarbons get they are probably the main reason most of us aren't still living a very primitive existence.
These cost comparisons don't take into account reliability. Power is almost useless if it's not reliable. A large part of your monthly bill goes towards reliablility and transport of power, not just the power itself.
A 100% wind or solar grid would require an equal amount of backup gas or coal power in order to provide reliability which essentially doubles these cost estimates. Even now most wind and solar is considered a novelty to most grid operators because you can't take it into account for long term planning. In some cases (like Denmark or Quebec) there exists ample alternatives available for when the wind stops blowing but most jurisdictions don't have this.
Considering how smart people in Silicon Valley are the level of ignorance around renewable energy and the'why don't we all use solar panels' mindset is crazy.
the obvious solution is batteries, which improve all sources of power generation including traditional ones by serving as support during peak times. in principle you only need <average energy used per house> stored per house during night time, which may be a much lower bar than it sounds. if the utilities serve a role later it may just be them acting as high-volume energy storage facilities, but even that might not really be necessary if individuals can make money by investing in extra batteries.
i think once solar crosses a certain cultural/economic threshold it will just take over everything. it's just way, way too good. there's no other power source that even compares to the potential it already has.
what's interesting is not whether it's going to take over everything, but what kind of economy/world you will have when electricity is orders of magnitude cheaper than it currently is.
Batteries aren't the only solution here. Any kind of efficient energy storage will work. For example LightSail Energy has been working on compressed air storage for several years now.
There is another interesting class of power storage called "pumped-storage hydroelectricity" [1] - for example - there is one in use in Missouri that actually burst in 2005 [2]. Li-ion batteries have a round-trip efficiency of 80-90% - pumped-storage has ~70-80%.
I'm all for innovation in storage and think there might be a breakthrough at some point. But this goes to the heart of it. Right now a fully renewable grid that matches what we currently have is not financially viable. Not saying it won't become so at some point but it's a high hurdle. All things considered having close to 100% reliable electricity in every home in America for less than ~$100/month is hard to compete with.
That totally makes sense -- although renewable energy and energy storage have been making huge strides recently, let's assume that no further improvements will happen.
Not questioning whether innovation can and will occur. Question is whether the innovations to be developed can compete with what is the present reality which is ~10cents/kWh price that we currently pay for power.
All things considered that is pretty cheap and even a minor improvement on price won't change the sunk costs of current infrastructure. The service of getting electricity is pretty cheap around the country and any replacement will have to be substantially cheaper. 'Better' doesn't count for much here because its just electricity and without government mandates people generally don't really care where it comes from.
Idealists like to say that we 'should' be getting power from somewhere else or in a different way. These idealists tend to ignore the market reality that our current situation isn't that bad for almost everyone.
This is the big problem that a lot of these discussions tend to ignore. Not only does our market tend to always pick the cheapest options, the real challenge is the developing world that is going to massively increase their power needs in the next few decades. This well have significant benefits for the world in general if we can pull it off. Unfortunately, given the economic realities of these areas that means coal unless we can provide a cheaper option. Unless some breakthrough happens with storage, that means nuclear.
> Idealists
It's easy to be an idealist when your lifestyle already benefits from massive amounts of cheap energy. As Hans Rosling[1] puts it,
When I lecture to environmentally concerned students, they tell me "No! Everybody
in the world cannot have cars and washing machines!" ... Then I ask my students,
"over the last two years, how many of you doesn't use a car," and some of them
proudly raise their hands and say, "I don't use a car". Then I put the really tough
question, "how many of you hand wash your jeans and your bedsheets, and no-one
raises their hand. Even the hardcore in the green movement use washing machines.
[...]
Until they have the same energy consumption per-person, they shouldn't give advice
to others on what to do and what not to do.
I don't disagree with your fundamental premise, but "would require an equal amount of backup power" sounds like hyperbole. I haven't read any proposal for "100% replacement" that doesn't take into account energy storage solutions.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to question those solutions, but an equal amount of traditional power generation as backup seems excessive.
Case in point is a very cloudy day with no wind. Depending on where it is demand could be very high if it's cold out and heaters are running full blast. You will essentially need a full load supply to come from somewhere or you'll get rolling blackouts. Some regions can compensate with importing or hydro but otherwise you would have to power up the coal and gas. Batteries could maybe work in the future but again this would drastically increase the cost.
Scaling down power generation when demand is low is not something nuclear is good at. Battery or energy storage systems that could store excess power from the grid would help any sort of power generation technique become more efficient and reliable.
There is a lot of hand waiving and fudging the numbers when it comes to the cost of nuclear. One-off proprietary designs, using proprietary fuel systems, using proprietary operational methodologies is not cost effective. Economies of scale are not in nuclear's favor, and even "at scale" you're looking at billions of dollars worth of investment before the first watt is produced. The need for large-scale waste transportation, storage and reprocessing is not a solved problem. The Nuclear Solves Everything™ thought process requires a lot of head-in-the-sand thinking.
As a species, we have been generating electricity by nuclear fission for 60 years, and in the process, have produced hundreds of thousands of tons of extraordinarily toxic waste. In all that time, no one has found a final resting place for it. Only one serious DGR has even begun construction— and that's Onkalo (Finland), set to begin receiving waste in 2020, should things go to plan.
All that spent fuel is just sitting on the surface at hundreds of sites worldwide, in pools, dependent on a power supply and ongoing maintenance to the pumps which circulate cooling waters. If those pumps malfunction, or the power supply ceases, the water will boil off, and the wastes will be released into the biosphere. If the US electrical grid ever fails, fossil fuels will have to be trucked to these sites, forever. As long as the grid never fails in the next, oh, few ten to hundred thousand years, we should be all good. How confident are we in the political and economic stability of the US, for millennia to come?
Is it not immensely immoral to be generating power this way, and handing the problem to our distant descendants to deal with? How are they supposed to pay these costs, when we were apparently unable to, despite enjoying the front end benefits of cheap power? Can you imagine if instead of building pyramids in the desert, the ancient Egyptians had left behind a monster that required ongoing babysitting even today, to prevent unleashing catastrophe on the planet?
The more radioactive something is, the shorter the half-life. High-level nuclear waste from spent fuel rods has three components:
- U-238: less radioactive than uranium ore, makes up most of the waste. Only a problem because of all the other stuff that's mixed in with it.
- Transuranics, mainly plutonium: radioactive for millennia. About 3% of the waste.
- Fission products: the broken-up atoms. The most troublesome are radioactive for decades. About 1% of the waste. Since they have fairly short half-lives, they're the most radioactive.
So it's the fission products which make lots of decay heat and have to be kept cool, but that heat production goes away fairly quickly. It's the transuranics that have to be stored for millennia, but they don't need cooling; since they have long half-lives they don't generate much heat.
However, the U-238 and transuranics could be used as a fuel in more advanced reactors, either fast reactors or molten salt reactors. So actually we only need to store that waste until the more advanced reactors become available.
In the article Thiel advocates pursuing new reactor types, including those that can eliminate long-term waste. If we do that, we'll end up with less long-term waste than we have right now.
They control the reaction within the reactor, and in newer reactors can be used to regulate load. France & Germany do have a load following system in place for their nuclear reactors. It's not a simple matter of turning off a reactor, as this is a large maintenance task. Various mechanisms and regulations have been developed to handle load following for a Nuclear plant. There are still negatives to doing this, such as reduced efficiency, additional operator training, and additional wear on control, fuel and the plant. Positives likely outweigh the negatives, but the reactor must be designed to do load following and regulations need to be in place to ensure it is done safely. It is another thing to consider when talking about the cost of nuclear.
I don't think you framed it correctly. What matters is always matching the consumption curve.
Due to high capital costs, that's really expensive to do with nuclear plants (that's why people talk about baseload, i.e. constant output). So you'd have to solve the same problem in an all-nuclear world - maybe the magnitude would be different, but's essentially the same problem.
You could even say that the 'why don't we all use nuclear power plants' is a bit crazy. :)
That's why I think nuclear and solar are a good combination: nuclear baseload and solar for extra daytime demand. It won't match consumption perfectly, but it'll do better than either technology alone.
A large enough HVDC grid would almost totally eliminate the need for backup power. There's always wind or sun somewhere and HVDC transmission losses are <5% per 1,000mi. It's possible to build a grid where pumped and battery storage alone can smoothen out any fluctuations.
Great idea, RICO investigate everyone who doesn't toe the party line! How do these people believe this a good idea? If their science is good it should stand against all falsification arguments without the need for government protection.
Both of the above are true. China is getting more aggressive about control of the oceans near, and not so near, China. China has a territorial dispute with Japan over the islands south of Kyushu and northeast of Taiwan. China is also claiming some islands further south, in the South China Sea, but that disagreement is with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
China's military parade last week was very anti-Japan. Of course, Japan did invade China during WWII. That's not being forgotten by the current leaders of China. China made a big point of their land-based anti-ship missiles, which were featured prominently in the parade.
i wonder if there is any significance they chose september 18th to re-militarize overseas action, being thats the date japan invaded china in 1931.
all else aside on the territorial disputes, i feel abe and his associates continually look past their genocides and atrocities in WWII, continually going to war memorials and celebrations of these same japanese that attacked US and committed the acts during WWII.
so china leaders definitely have a reason to hold a grudge and not forget.
The biggest annoyance to the Japanese at the moment is the number of Chinese tourists overrunning everywhere.
It's easy to read the newspapers about the govts of the world rattling their sabres at one another; what the people actually feel is often quite different.
Japan's military is disadvantaged by a lack of personnel with combat experience. The change permits japanese soldiers to participate as an equal partner with its allies, and to remedy its experience defecit.
