Dutch men aren't allowed to have any opinion on this matter since the women football team became European champions last year and the men didn't even qualify for the world championship.

how's your ROI after this wonderful week?

what didn't you like about the porsche panamera?

@Sam26 get the second hand panamera. :D

from your article:

We can fairly conclude that whether or not buying an EV is an environmentally friendly decision depends on where you are in the world, and how sustainable power is there.

Which is basically what I said. Y u replyin' as if u disagreein'? Eh?

grow up.

maybe you can stop insinuating things and jumping to conclusions and get back to the issue on billable hours, which point you missed our misunderstood trying to pin me on someting that's rather obviously besides the point. I'll wait until you're actually interested in a conversation instead of weak attempts at scoring points.

No.

In fact, it's not even clear that electric cars are any better for the environment than gas powered ones. — Hanover

Cradle-to-grave, electric cars are better for the environment in most places in the world depending on the power plant generating the electricity and further improving due to development in battery efficiency.

That is a matter for the employer and the market. The assumption does not have to have a bearing; the performance which is usually better due to experience deserves more pay, as it attracts more competitive pay. Employers have a great interest in keeping more experienced staff in that they tend to improve the performance of others around them. — charleton

Except that the "market" has, like all systems, an impetus in maintaining the status quo and the reality is that most companies "get by" with bad hiring practices and bad management for a variety of reasons.

Are you in the US or UK? Traditional professions tend to keep ossified ideas OR Maybe you are just not that good a lawyer? — charleton

In the Netherlands. What does "being a good lawyer" (whatever that is) have to do with the issue of billable hours?

It's not clear to me what you're looking for in a new car. Is it a real issue that it's just a 2-seater? If not, I like the Honda S2000. Very rigid frame, handles well. I think it has a more sophisticated look than the Camaro ZI1. But that's taste.



Cars have a lot of tax in the Netherlands so it's difficult for me to accurately gauge what would be affordable. If you're looking for something you can move the family in, I'd love the Porsche Panamera. I'd suspect a second hand could fit in your budget in the US.

Meanwhile, I drive a black Skoda Combi...

Here's the Dutch 2 cents from our Central Bureau of Statistics: Gender pay gap: fact or fiction?

If job A pays progressively due to increasing experience, then people who stay in the job longest will end up with more pay. In such a case men might be more likely to achieve higher wages over the long term, but it would have nothing to do with then BEING men.
In such work environments women taking time off for pregnancy and child rearing would automatically be playing catch up for the rest of their career. This is about personal circumstances not sexism. — charleton

This is unfortunately true. You can question whether it's appropriate though. It assumes experience is a good indicator for performance, which it isn't and that managing a household does not instill a person with (management) skills they can apply to a job (which it does) that more than makes up for the "lack of experience" people claim. An untalented hack can have as much experience he wants, he's not going to be a better performer than any other person with potential.

Generally, most hiring policies and systems have an ingrained bias against women as the measurements applied favour men. For example, the sociable female lawyer that takes the time out to educate juniors and paralegals has less billable hours than the "busy" egotistical male lawyer, who thinks he's too good to help others reach their potential. The guy gets the partnership even though the whole department probably ran better thanks to that one woman. If you can't measure it, it is generally discounted. Which, by the way, also promotes billing inflated hours and face time. As a company lawyer myself, I don't hire external lawyers who brag to work more than 50 hours a week. They're not rested, less effective, it indicates bad time management and I worry how they will make time for me.

this thread should've ended after that post.

For the plunge to stop I think the changing of accounting rules had an effect. It surely is one of the factors. — ssu

That had a lot to do with the perception at the top, who apparently don't know the ins-and-outs of accounting rules. The change was unnecessary and the law was window dressing for a problem that didn't exist but in the minds of banking CEOs. I recall some guy from Oxford or Harvard publishing a lot about this and how they were solving something that didn't require a solution. So I agree the change had an effect but for the wrong reasons. It wasn't an actual problem as the FASB repeatedly communicated this themselves. To then have a TED talk suggest how terrible fair value accounting is, is just something I have to discount for the reasons I enumerated above.

Banks are quite different: car manufacturers can compete with a lot things, banks with just the interest rate. This makes banking all about scale. — ssu

Not necessarily but that's the most easily comparable feature. For instance, I selected the ability to do high prepayments on my mortgage - up to 20% of the loan without a penalty fee. Most mortgages have 10% at most. I can also change banks if I sell my house (e.g. pay off the entire loan and get a new one with a new house with a different bank). That has become standard but when I closed my mortgage it wasn't. So if you're interested and have time to make the comparisons, there are good reasons to ignore interest to a point (those two options cost me 20 bps).

And anyway, I still believe this is going to a classic bubble with cryptocurrencies. — ssu

Probably.

But I also grew up in an area with a large percentage of Trump supporters and I can tell you that not all of them are the caricatured racists and xenophobes they're often portrayed as. In fact, I'm sure many won't believe this but I know many Mexican-American Trump supporters, and most of them are proud of their heritage. Now of course there's likely a large percentage of his base who do harbor deep-seated prejudices--and I've not met a single black Trump supporter yet--but it's a bit more complex than some people think and that others would like you to believe. — Erik

I definitely agree, which is why establishing whether Trump is racist or not isn't going to solve anything. First of all, not everyone agrees but even then; what are you going to do about it?

I think there were a myriad of reasons for people to vote for Trump. As long as it wasn't Hillary played a big role. Beliefs in economic models. Gay rights, legalisation of drugs and other social progressive issues people were against. Fear of the economy and the Other. I suspect a lot of people voted for him despite expecting him to be a problematic candidate and some voted for him despite their belief/suspicion he was a racist. It can't be but a minority who voted for him that did so specifically for his bigotry and mysogyny. I'd personally just suspect more people to be up in arms about it but that's just projection from the political system I'm used to in the Netherlands.

Hillary would go up in my estimation actually.

Do you think the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations should ask for their Ellis Island Medal back? It was for services to black inner-city youth after all. — tom

NECO, started by Fugazy in outraged response to the liberty medals awarded to mostly non-white naturalised Americans (no Italians, Poles or Irish!). Fugazy, that guy who was Trump's real estate broker in 1986. And that medal that predominantly goes to white americans of European descent. I'm sorry. What was your point again?

Or do you think he is a racist because he has reduced black unemployment to record lows, and already restored black median income to levels before Obama reduced it by $1000pa? — tom

Sigh. Not only are those things unrelated but one man can't "fix" the economy to begin with.

Oh, and that's Rosa Parks in the picture, by the way. — tom

Oh, on a side note too Hitler saved his former Jewish commander Ernest Hess. Was he a humanitarian too?

I think these 8 pages reflect for starters different thresholds for what constitutes racism. To me it's quite clear in the context of everything else Trump has said and done that he's a xenophobe/racist/bigot. Remember his comments about an Indiana born judge being partial due to him being Mexican (e.g. ancestry leads to an inherent conflict of interest)? "Text-book racism", according to Paul Ryan, who I don't accord particular authority but just cite because he's as Republican as they get. Then there is his role in the birther movement. The weird absence of Jews in his Holocaus remembrance statement. He's funded ads that associate Native Americans with drug use and crime. The Pocahontas thing during the ceremony for the native american war veterans received under a picture of Andrew Jackson. Not renouncing David Duke. Defending white-supremacists in Charlotsville. Complaining about NFL players that kneel during the anthem. Pardoning Arpaio.

That's on top of my head and all recent. I'm sure if you start digging into his history you'll find more. It's fine if some people will still deny it, that just means we don't see eye-to-eye on this ethical issue.

Also, my original comment (now on page 3 or 4) was done in the shoutbox and was intended to give a few US citizens a moment of reflection to see how it feels to have your country called a shit hole. In reality I think the US has one of the shittiest implementations of a democratic system making it particularly suspectible to influence from special interests, a total disregard of political losers (even if in all likelihood your two neighbours voted Democrats) bordering on party dictatorship. Whatever political disagreements you might have, you're still having to live together and work together. The fact political leadership is incapable of bridging differences is not a very good example for the rest of society.

Trump is a racist. This was already clear during the election. That's also the reason why these remarks aren't going to change anything. In general we can suspect people defending trump to be racists too in their attempts to try to paint on some pc-veneer through denial or obfuscation or they'll deflect by saying "well, I voted for him cause of his economics". The reality is the US is either a) a pretty Fucking racist country or b) entirely partisan. Either way a shithole country.

Rule #7, rule #8 shall be typed with your pinkie, on a phone, with autocorrect disabled and no use of backspace.

I'm obviously getting desensitivised as I shrugged and thought "Trump being Trump".

This is the first time in my life feeling ashamed for being an American. What Trump said today was something only authoritarian dictators do. Shit like this does not fly in any type of democracy. — Posty McPostface

What was it this time?

I haven't just repeated the accusation, I explained it, and I don't consider virtue signalling to be a wholly bad thing so my intention is not to insult you (which is more than can be said for your intimation that I'm a passive aggressive misfit with some kind of fixation). — Pseudonym

I don't think it's appropriate to claim this (or explain it) when it's clear from my post I have tried to elucidate why time and again. To dismiss what I've written as mere virtue signalling to me is an indication you didn't read my posts or are being uncharitable. As to the "pseudo fixation", I'm not sure why that's interpreted as an insult as it was a quip due to the fact you used "pseudo" rather often. The stuff you pulled from those studies did read as a passive aggressive nice guy excuse but at no point did I say you were one and think you simply took that reply as personal. In fact, I disclosed I was one of those nice guys in the past. Perspectives change. I'm happy to apologise for whatever offence you took from it and I'll dial back the misfiring joking.

More generally, I don't accept that studies have established women fall for bastards (if anything, some male traits might but the trait does not have to correlate with sexual harrassment or abuse). And to the extent sociobiology and evolution play a role in sexual behaviour, they need to be relegated to the back when current actions by women quite clearly communicate that certain sexual behaviour is no longer accepted. Explanations are not justifications and therefore have no place in this ethical discussion.

How do you know men know how to behave? — Pseudonym

In light of recent reporting, I don't understand why this is a serious question to you. Open a newspaper, watch a little video on consent for kids and you'll get the general idea. Are there grey areas? Of course. I have arabic friends. One girl slided a bit more into Islam at some point and didn't want to shake hands or kiss any more. So that was a gray area the first time she decided she didn't want to do that any more for about 1 second when I leaned in and she said: "I'm sorry, I've decided I'm not going to kiss men on the cheek any more unless I'm in a relationship with them". What I then do is respect her decision. Simple.

How have you arrived at the set of bahaviours you consider appropriate? — Pseudonym

Through empathy. I imagine whether I'm ever confronted with the type of unwanted behaviour women are complaining about. I conclude it doesn't happen, so there's an inequality there. Then I take at face value it is unwanted because they say so. From there I develop a reasonable idea of what I consider appropriate.

How have you justified imposing that set of behaviours on other people? — Pseudonym

Do we agree women should not acquiesce to sexual behaviour they consider unwanted? Social norms have made it difficult for women to communicate or report unwanted sexual behaviour and they should be free to do so; e.g. it needs to be taken seriously and without fear of reprisal.

EDIT: so the justification follows from agreeing to that first question.

Because you appear to be strongly defending a position popularly defined as a moral good without actually having an answer to the difficult moral issues it encompasses. That's basically the definition of virtue signalling. If you had actually answered any of my questions about the extent of physical contact that is to be self-regulated I might have re-considered my assessment, but as it you've continued to ignore any of the difficult questions in favour of waiving you're 'sensitive nice-guy' flag, so I'm quite happy to stand by my assessment. — Pseudonym

Repeating the accussation of virtue signalling just means this conversation is over. I don't accept it and you're crossing a line.

I've watched this and it really isn't informative. His explanation of mark-to-market is a bit of a misrepresentation. He doesn't really offer a solution or talk about the alternative and it tends towards a single cause fallacy, while at the same time he already highlights several issues that are co-causes. When talking about these sort of things, I think we should be talking about contributing factors and not causes.

First, excess cash is a contributing factor and QE and low interest rates created this. I've personally (as was the president of the Dutch central bank) been an opponent of QE. I'm also an opponent of price stability monetary policy (it doesn't reduce crises as it claimed it would) so interest rate driven policies all reek to me.

Second, modern corporate capitalism, especially in the US, is all about short term gain and after the repeal of the glass-steagall act they started pursuing short term profits with money that should've stayed off limits (e.g. deposits). Simply put, you shouldn't gamble with other people's savings. In a way, this created a larger pool of cash as well - contributing factor.

Third, complexity. Bankers didn't know what they were buying and selling any more. Once you don't understand the underlying economics of the product any more, the product is unhinged from the real economy and it becomes a pure supply-demand equillibrium based on sentiment.

Fourth, the alternative seems to be historical cost accounting. But permanent changes in market value of assets need to be accounted for with historical cost accounting as well (impairments and write downs for instance). So it doesn't really avoid the problem, it just realises a bit slower. So mark-to-market is faster but I do not think it's realistic to think 2008 would've enfolded very differently if we were doing historical cost accounting. (On a side note; I'm personally a proponent of mark-to-market modelling as it's relatively easy to check the veracity of accounts and their development and the relative performance of a particular company compared to others).

Fifth, in 2008 only about 31% of bank assets were marked-to-market and these were assets held for trading. Assets held to maturity are a second category and are accounted for at historical cost and not marked-to-market. Most loans and many bonds are and were held to maturity. The third category has assets available for sale and they are marked-to-market as well but with an important difference. Any unrealised profits or losses are accounted for in the OCI account (other comprehensive income) and unrealised losses do not reduce the bank's income or regulatory capital requirements (exemption for held-for-sale-loans but that's a small percentage).

Sixth, illiquid assets need not be marked-to-market, that's only for FASB level 1 liquidity. Level 3 is mark-to-model. FASB released guidance in 2008 on this and stressed that companies did not have to use prices from forced or distressed sales to value illiquid assets.

In other words, I think Brian Wesbury doesn't really know what he's talking about and is probably a banking shill.

Today, stock prices represent buybacks funded by cheap interest rates driven by massive QE by the world's central banks. — fishfry

This is true up to a point and less true for stocks than bonds. Investors look for yield, even at inflated stock prices due to QE. company value and expected earnings is still used to calculate yield.

You read my comments and accused me of virtue signalling because...? That doesn't make sense. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt thinking you hadn't read my comments but apparently you felt the need to gratuitously insult me. Classy!

Do you really think that men just spontaneously made up this kind of behaviour; that men, desperate to attract women, in their desperation somehow came up with a set of behavioural strategies that actually all women secretly hated but didn't tell anyone until Jack Dorsey was kind enough to invent Twitter. — Pseudonym

This is so incredibly silly I don't even understand why you even write it. It's about power and men oppressed women where they could. It never was a negotiated relationship. The fact women didn't openly complain was not tacit approval. The insinuation they liked it is inappropriate. Men didn't invent these behaviours to attract women, they invented them because it pleased themselves and women were property.

Men should know better and I've reiterated why before. Talk to five adult women and 2 of them have been sexually assaulted. 4 of them have been sexually harassed. But yeah, they love that shit. :-}

Personally, I'd rather live in a world where kindness and what I consider gentlemen like behaviour was seen as a virtue both in a friend and in a sexual partner, but we do not live in such a world and that's because men seem to like being bastards and because women seem inordinately attracted to bastards. — Pseudonym

Whatever is that based upon? Movies? You realise what this sounds like right? The passive aggressive self described nice guy who thinks he finishes last because girls don't value the right things. Brings back memories of when I was younger. >:O good times.

No one's confused about grabbing someone's groin. What's being argued is exactly what level of contact requires consent as you'd know full well if you'd actually taken the ethical debate seriously rather than posturing with virtue signalling. — Pseudonym

Oh well done, this time it's an ad hominem at me. Once you've read the entire thread and my previous comments on the matter we can continue.

Mmm consent is sooo pseudo-ethical. — StreetlightX

Considering his name he probably has a pseudo fixation.

Fascinating pile of pseudo-ethical crap in both those videos (it almost makes me wonder if YouTube might not be the best source for serious ethical debate, but hey, who am I to judge) — Pseudonym

What's this? An ad hominem attack on a video? Hoe does that even begin to work?

So what behaviour do men strive for without a universal code? Who gets to decide? — Pseudonym

I grab you in the groin. Who decides whether that's OK? You or me?

I've also had a few gay guys hit on me, and try and talk me into something I had no interest in doing. — Marchesk

I had a dude insisting on giving me hand massages. After I told him I was straight, he replied: that's what they all say the first time. It makes for a funny story but fact is he ruined that party for me by stalking me the rest of the night. Another time someone grabbed me in my balls from behind.

2 stories in 39 years. My wife has a zillion.

And?

You've just provided a description of the attitude towards social contact held by one section of society. It definitely hasn't always been that way, not everyone agrees even now and I can be pretty certain it won't continue to be that way forever. So how does that have any bearing on my argument that there is no universal code? — Pseudonym

Demanding a universal code before making the effort to self-regulate is obvious nonsense.

Of course not. To do so presumes that there is some universally known code of appropriate behaviour that men are simply wilfully ignoring when they make unsolicited advances and initiate unwanted contact. — Pseudonym

and then:

ugly feature — ssu

Why?

Actually, owning shares is very different. — ssu

You're correct, which is why I said from "a trading perspective" as it seemed that was what Michael was talking about.

I wake up every morning and kiss my wife because the alarm goes off and hope I can get through my shower before my daughter wakes up.

Each morning I dress her and we talk about the day before and what's she's going to do today. That's my first bright point of the day. We have breakfast and then she waves goodbye when I leave the backyard. This week she doesn't want me to go to work which is both the sweetest thing in the world and heartbreaking. When thinking about dying I don't want her to feel the pain of missing me so I've decided to live forever.

Before coming home I'm already happy with the expectation of seeing my wife and daughter. I usually put her to bed as well; brushing teeth is a struggle but then we go through the day again and what she'll do tomorrow. Finally, I read her a story and spend some quality time with my wife.

If my daughter and wife were the only thing going for me it would be enough.

So I can't count it as profit, but I can count it towards my wealth? That's just splitting hairs. I was worth £X before I bought, I'm now worth £X + £Y. — Michael

Companies are expected to mark-to-market any financial instruments they hold. You can only do that if the market is sufficiently liquid, otherwise you'd mark-to-model. You have an unrealised profit. Once you sell, it becomes realised profit.

It's an important difference because if I want to value a company, I'm not interested in the cost price of financial instruments (e.g. what the company paid for it) so it's important to take into account the actual market value. At the same time, it is also clear that unrealised profit is "locked up"; it can't be paid out as dividends or used to invest or buy something else.

What's not so appropriate is to confuse the stolen kiss, the proposal in the form of a hand on the knee, or a wolf whistle with rape and sexual assault. — Bitter Crank

If you'd assume that it isn't confused and people can tell the difference then what do you think #metoo is about?

What I meant is that if owning X amount of some cryptocurrency which can be sold for £100 doesn't count as having £100, then surely owning X amount of some company's shares (or even something like land) which can be sold for £100 doesn't count as having £100. I can't use either to pay my rent or buy food (which I assume is the sort of thing ssu was referring to). — Michael

Yes, I meant to agree with that with my first sentence.

Actually, upon reflection, that's me thinking as an outstanding model citizen. Bitcoin price could be reflecting, next to the speculation, supply & demand and herd mentality, the size of the black market economy.