[dataviz1000]

There are ~350,000,000 of us. When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that. It doesn't matter considering the ~$117,550 of the national debt I'm responsible for. It palls compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

What boggles my mind is that I make coffee at home because I'm frugal. I guess it is good the government and DoD are seeking cheaper alternatives also.

My favorite interview question: If I gave you a swarm of autonomous drones, what would you do with them?

There is a group in South Florida who stand watch over turtle nests on the beach to ensure the hatchlings make it to the ocean instead of instinctively moving towards the street lamps or the bright hotels. I would use drones to hover over the nests to detect if the turtles hatch so people don't have to stand there.

What would you do?

[5upplied_demand]

> When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that.

I like to think about how providing 4-week paid parental leave would cost $2 billion annually and actually help US families. Meanwhile we have spent over $100 billion on this war.

[joenot443]

My back of napkin figures gave me about $20-40b. I'm curious how you got to the $2 billion number?

[5upplied_demand]

I'm curious about your napkin math, care to share?

I got mine from a paper published by the University of Chicago: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/735565.

[adityashankar]

How do you even estimate that, human productivity is non linear to worktime and often, employees, when given good benefits are likely to be more productive.

also there's the fact of this having a ROI since people generate economic value in the longer run, and hence, more taxes

[milkytron]

Considering the push for reproduction from this admin and his technocrats, I'm curious if they would consider something like this.

[5upplied_demand]

One would think, but the flip-side is that this supports more women in the workforce. Traditional roles of men working and women caring for kids seems like a bigger priority of this admin.

I do think it is a policy point that Democrats should absolutely be hammering them on. This is pro-worker and pro-family at very low cost.

[LadyCailin]

Most of republican’s decisions become much more logically consistent once you realize they just want to control people, primarily women and minorities. It isn’t and has never been about “family values” or “religious freedom” or “small government”. If it was about those things, they would look far more like democrats.

[pornel]

They don't want all Americans to reproduce. Making a law they want still needs a couple of Supreme Court decisions overturned.

[toephu2]

California already more or less provides 8 weeks of paid parental leave (PFL program).

[5upplied_demand]

That is great, unfortunately almost 90% of the country lives in a state other than California.

[fragmede]

88.5%, to be precise.

[magicalhippo]

Here in Norway it's 49 weeks with 100% pay.

Mom gets 3 weeks before birth, both gets 15 weeks each, and 16 weeks can be distributed as parents see fit.

So if mom gets the full 16 weeks, she gets 34 weeks total, and partner gets 15 weeks.

Parents can decide to get 80% pay, in which case they get 61 weeks total.

Some weeks around birth is fixed, apart from that parents can decide how to use it. One could work two days a week and have three days off, for example.

The pay is capped, but many employers will compensate the difference for high earners.

[lazide]

So far….

[kingnothing]

> My favorite interview question: If I gave you a swarm of autonomous drones, what would you do with them?

What signal are you looking for with that question? It feels much more like a thought experiment with friends while having a few pints than something reasonable for a job interview.

[dataviz1000]

It was the initial culture / behavioral interview for a job developing AI for education of children. Considering how these drones are used in the article linked, the question is apropos.

[bcjdjsndon]

I would make them fly around helping people and stuff

[scottyah]

World Peace

[mmooss]

> When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that. It doesn't matter considering the ~$117,550 of the national debt I'm responsible for. It palls compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

(Your share of overall defense spending is ~1,000x higher, of course.)

I wish political leaders would express it that way. And you need to include the time factor: $10/year for 10 years differs from $20 for a one-time event. And somehow figure in capital accumulation (as opposed to e.g., consumables) and depreciation. But there are clear, effective ways to communicate it: 'I propose each American spend an average of $80/year for 50 years on this fighter jet program'. 'This moon mission will cost everyone $5/year for 2 years.'

To nitpick a little, I think your math is off: There are 350 million Americans, but we need to exclude most children, elderly, etc.

[willio58]

>It pales compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

Thinking of country-scale finances in the same way you think about personal finance is wrong in many ways. Take debt for example. As an individual, it's arguably best not to have debt at all. As a country, sovereign debt is the foundation of the world's money supply and fuels continuous economic growth.

Also, though the U.S. has $31 Trillion dollars of debt, $22 Trillion of that belongs to U.S. domestic traders.

If we were to cut our debt down to zero, we'd cripple ourselves with taxes and stifle growth. We'd have zero debt but we'd be sent into a massive economic depression, and that would likely ripple out across the planet.

[HNisCIS]

I see this parroted constantly but it seems to be getting proven wrong by Japan and, frankly, the US

[willio58]

Is there an example in your eyes that proves this wrong?

[apparent]

> There are ~350,000,000 of us. When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that.

Less than half are net income tax payers, IIRC. So if you pay income tax, you're actually on the hook for more $6, on average.

[dataviz1000]

Another way to look at it; I'll be long gone when a child born today will be paying it. Why do you think I'm concerned about a child who I will never meet getting stuck with debt I voted to accrue?

[apparent]

Sounds like Social Security.

[stronglikedan]

> instinctively moving towards the street lamps or the bright hotels.

> I would use drones to hover over the nests to detect if the turtles hatch so people don't have to stand there.

And put brighter lights on the drones to lead them in the right direction!

But if you asked me that in an interview, I would probably question whether I wanted to work there. I don't think random, irrelevant, put-me-on-the-spot questions help anyone on either side of that coin.

[holgerschurig]

Na, there aren't "~350,000,000 of us".

You are just assuming that the whole readership of Hacker News are US-citizens.

I, for example, are from an EU country. So "there are 450,000,000 of us" if I'd had a similar attitude.

[LadyCailin]

Presumably “us” is “population of the US”, not HN readers.

[selimthegrim]

Would have been nice to do that in Lebanon so that woman could still be alive.

[FatherOfCurses]

$3 is still too much and I would rather it go towards paying the debt down.

[jschveibinz]

Side note: The federal government costs about $19 billion per day to operate based on an annual budget of roughly $7 trillion.

So $1 billion is about equal to 4 hour hours of government spending.

[pchristensen]

Operations is about 1/4 of the budget ($1.75T), and half of that is DoD. 60% is payments for entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The remaining 15% is debt service.

[mmooss]

> The federal government costs about $19 billion per day to operate based on an annual budget of roughly $7 trillion.

$7 trillion is not operating expenses. Much goes into assets that are retained decades or more. The Interstate Highway System isn't an operating expense.

[craftkiller]

Every mile of road is an operating expense. Looking at a report from NY state:

> Based on aggregate highway spending reported in 2009, the average statewide cost of maintaining a lane mile was $13,841.

source (pdf): https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/local-government/publications/p...

[telotortium]

> Every mile of road is an operating expense.

Has, not is. Clearly you didn’t take Intro to Object-Oriented Programming in CS.

[craftkiller]

Nah, I use rust so every mile implements OperatingExpense.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Yikes, that is a lot.

[mitthrowaway2]

Those drones are pretty noisy though.

[dataviz1000]

Probably is an issue but sea turtles hearing is adapted to ocean not air and low frequencies. Also, waves and wind blowing likely muffle a lot of noise.

The organizations that do this have mobile apps and collect tons of data. If I'm use ML, I'd start with time series forecasting to see if I can get the window done to a few hours.

[red-iron-pine]

> There are ~350,000,000 of us. When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that. It doesn't matter considering the ~$117,550 of the national debt I'm responsible for. It palls compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

tax billionaires, then

[vicnov]

not a fan of defending billionairs, but is mostly a useless populist slogan*

You can do full Dekulakization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization) on them and it won't change anything in current economic situation.

Confiscating 100% of all billionaire wealth (~$8.4T) covers - ~1.1 years of federal spending (~$7.4T) - ~4.4 years of deficits (~$1.9T) - ~23% of debt (~$36T):

and pretty much kills US ability to rely on private sector (and I dont think we have a way to rely on public sector)

The sooner we all start focusing on things that actually matter -- like improving democracy, quality of education (btw spending more may not solve it) etc -- the faster we will improve situation.

Cities like NYC pretty much can afford UBI (look at per capita spending on homelessness, public schools etc). Taxing more may not be the answer.

*it should be studied what motivates people to repeat it

[cloverich]

IMO its a useful populist slogan because it solves a different problem: The power that comes with being a billionaire. E.g. its all well and good to focus on fixing democracy instead, but if (some specific) billionaires are focused on deploying their wealth to destroy democracy, then what?

I've generally come around to believe that we need to limit wealth from a purely power / control point of view.

[scottyah]

I think it's a great system of checks and balances- billionaires are only created by dealing with a lot of people and successfully solving a lot of problems. Once they have it, it's work to hold on to the money though. Politicians don't really produce anything measurable to show if they've helped or hurt society, and so they work to devalue the meaning of the dollar.

If you get rid of wealthy people's power, what takes its place other than politicians?

[godwinson__4-8]

Hi again. You are definitely correct on the first point. But the second point shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the economy works. Our economy highly favors capital over income. The only way to make billions and then lose it all is to be a complete degenerate. They will always be wealthy. The amount of money these people lose on a given day as the stock market bobs around demonstrates that once achieved, money in the hands of the wealthy operates on a level the average American really can't fathom. Over time, they will always continue to do well. Deploying capital, once earned, is not hard. If it is work, it must be one of easiest things to do in the world. It's like saying trust fund babies have to work hard. If it was hard to hold onto wealth our society would be an extremely different one. It's in fact so easy that a lot of the economics around startup investing comes from the phenomena that rich people get bored with their own money. Why settle for boglehead style returns when you can yolo millions of dollars into a potential > 10x return. How do you even spend a billion dollars? You really can't. The only way is to put it into things were again, it is far more advantaged than actual income. Yes there is some work involved in vetting and talent etc. But don't buy into all the hype. A lot of it comes down to luck and getting to the point where you have the capital to spread your bets, knowing the economics mean that even if you lose, you will still win. It's the getting there that is hard. Not the staying there.

It's very important to acknowledge this. Because this wealth is retained long after w/e the societal problem addressed that created the wealth is solved. It is an open question how to deal with that problem, which becomes a societal issue in its own right. I however also share your hesitancy to turn over said gains to politicians, who don't seem to solve any problems or produce any solutions. Unfortunately we shouldn't also forget that they are society's elected proxies. Perhaps we can strive for a system were both politicians and billionaires are weakened in furtherance of some notion of the common good. The idea of "reinvestment" need not be either a wholly public or private enterprise. Most successful societies understand the checks and balances lie somewhere in thinking less in terms of a public/private dichotomy and more like a public/private partnership. The United States used to operate more like this, before the Reagan era ushered in a time of pronounced deference to capital [1]. It would really not take much to bring things back into a more reasonable balance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

[danans]

> Confiscating 100% of all billionaire wealth (~$8.4T) covers - ~1.1 years of federal spending (~$7.4T) - ~4.4 years of deficits (~$1.9T) - ~23% of debt (~$36T):

Adding a wealth tax doesn't mean eliminating existing income taxes.

> Cities like NYC pretty much can afford UBI (look at per capita spending on homelessness, public schools etc).

Perhaps , but what about poor states like West Virginia or Alabama. It's not universal if they don't receive benefits also.

[godwinson__4-8]

Just remember those states are already handout states. They take more money in than they give back. They also have some bizarre cultural hatred for the blue states and cities that make this country an economic superpower. The idea NYC shouldn't do its best to take care of its own because people in Alabama aren't getting enough is nonsensical. Imo they already get far more than they deserve.

[scottyah]

It mostly goes back to when mortgages (then other debts) were handled by local banks by law, then people in NYC changed those laws so all the money was routed to them. It's not like NYC is just purely more productive, it just found a way to ensure all money must go through them, and they take some of it as almost a form of a new tax. Not that this more central form of banking is all bad, but when almost all the "real" work (farming, building, factories, etc) is done outside the city and they have no real say in the matter it leads to resentment.

[godwinson__4-8]

This point is overly generous.

Contingency around wealth occurs in myriad ways. It's not like other blue cities are not wealthy. Obviously the financialization of the economy is quite evident in New York in particular, as it is in places like London or Shanghai or Hong Kong. This was often preceded by times when these cities were also notable as ports and more "real" (to use your phrase) centers of trade. Other blue cities do well for different reasons. The fact is the kind of "real" work you have described has been devalued over a long period of history, and going back to that is not desirable. Even in Roman times, Rome was not were the food was made. If you are a country today, as back then, were the greatest thing you can achieve is "food" and "building" you are considered a weak society. These are things humanity has already solved for centuries ago. Since the dawn of civilization. That's what civilization is. Advances since have always come with some degree of "financialization" or "service economy". If that makes you upset then you can give up the medicine, peace, science, etc that comes with civilization and go back to when "real" work was extremely valued because you had to kill for your food everyday. What could be more "real" than that?

I understand the resentment of poverty to wealth. This is not what I am referring to when it comes to Alabama and New York. The cultural resentment towards NYC in particular from these places is egregious. It's not about wealth, it's about religion, it's about diversity, and it's about demonization.

It's become such a thoughtless exercise on the mainstream right to essentially claim that people in New York City are not "real Americans". That they don't have "American values". To the point where when people like Ted Cruz get openly challenged on this it feels like something of a revelation. The moment Trump turned another such diatribe against Cruz was another strong signal he was going to take over that party.[1] And yet this lazy rhetorical convention has not retired. It is disgraceful. Why do major political candidates in a system with only two parties engage in such transparent attacks on a city of millions of their fellow citizens? Obama made one little "cling to their guns" comment and was forced to prostrate himself in apology. Meanwhile in these "red" states treating New Yorkers or other blue states as almost satanic is par for the course. This is not the resentment of wealth alone.

It would be one thing if it was just empty political rhetoric. But it is not. People in New York do not obsess over people in Alabama. We don't fantasize about sending our national guard into their states, or stealing their elections, or deporting their populations who don't look like us. We don't obsess about crime rates in their cities, which are worse in many red states per capita than our own. We tolerate the fact that most guns used in inner city crime, our so-called "gun free zones" come from guns in poorly regulated red states, as if the southside of Chicago houses weapon manufacturing factories. As far as I can tell the resentment from people in Alabama or Arkansas and the like comes from wanting to return to an age where they could pelt young black girls with hatred and abuse for wanting to go to school and having to suffer the federal government sending troops there to tell them to act like the civilized society they claim to be [2]. If you do not acknowledge a very specific type of hatred has been festering in these places for sometime I would suggest you are not paying enough attention and need to reacquaint yourself with your history. If we didn't have to protect people like the Little Rock Nine the same resentment would not exist. When Southern plantation owners could depend on enslaved labor, the gap between the North and the South was not so vast. Many of the framers understood in the long run this was not sustainable, and that a civil war was likely inevitable if "all men are created equal" was to actually succeed.

Along these lines, something we may wish to consider in the future is returning to a spirit of federalism, that is, a weaker federal government and more autonomous states. That is, provided retrograde states like Alabama or Arkansas do not once again use such a framework as a pretext to perpetuate a system of racial slavery onto their own citizens. Perhaps the average person in Alabama has learned enough that for the time being the best thing for them is to leave them not only more in charge of their own affairs, but far less in charge of our own. Who will they blame for their condition then? If the states somehow replicated a civil war style secession in peace would Alabama suddenly be enriched? Would the price of food suddenly disobey the laws of demand and supply? Is their plan to make no money at all? These are people who don't think tariffs affect prices. Then when their farmers predictably lose money blue states get robbed to pay the subsidy. All while this constant drumbeat of cultural war emanates from these places.

Imo we don't need to bend over backwards to indulge their resentment. We have suffered these types of people long enough. We already have debates within NYC about wealth and poverty. We don't need to add the ingredients that come from places like Alabama or West Virginia. Hillbilly Elegy style takes would be a little more palatable if people like JD Vance didn't come in and transparently serve the Epstein criminal class and call Americans who don't want their neighbors rounded up like dogs "domestic terrorists". I'll take John Brown over JD Vance any day of the week.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM6qRl3dSME [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Rock_Nine

[danans]

> The idea NYC shouldn't do its best to take care of its own because people in Alabama aren't getting enough is nonsensical. Imo they already get far more than they deserve.

Absent a federal wealth redistribution, yes NYC must do its best for it's residents. I'm not disagreeing with that. A federal wealth tax, however, would tax Alabama billionaires as much as it would tax NYC billionaires.

[godwinson__4-8]

Good point. It is a good thing as you point out to remember that even so called "poor states" also suffer from pretty severe wealth inequality, in some cases perhaps more stark than one would find in the blue cities, if only because the floor can appear far wider and lower.

[Noaidi]

Now you know why there is war. We have war because the U.S. is failing. Just look at the reversal of the 10 and 30 y bonds over the last 20 years. All the free money that was given to the oligarchs killed our economy.

[xienze]

In this particular case I think it's just because Trump can't resist doing every single thing Israel wants.

[red-iron-pine]

its because they have him on tape having sex with children

[Noaidi]

But what about Graham Platner?

/s

[budsniffer952]

Sexual assault allegations and literal Nazi symbolism tattooed on his body. Those things are acceptable now? These were the exact things that Democrats went after Hegseth for (who, for the record, is also a doofus like Platner).

The left's hypocrisy knows no bounds.

[khriss]

You can guess where the bar is when the guy in the white house was literally convicted of sexual assault in a court of law, and he still won the republican nomination.

Now compare that against a credible accusation being enough to derail a senate hopeful in a must win seat for the Democrats. Sorry, I don't see the hypocrisy. Actually, I do see it, just not on the side you insist it's on.

[amanaplanacanal]

I'm willing to put up with a lot to put the brakes on Trump. But since I'm not in Maine, it's not up to me.

[dawnerd]

And they’re still on cnbc daily saying rates need to go down to save the us. There’s a guy on right now saying rates need to be lower to save the ai bubble.

[Noaidi]

Yes, save the asset holders, damn the peasants. even Trump said he wants to see housing prices go higher.

These people do not care about you. You need to hate them more.

[budsniffer952]

Do you think the common person benefits from high interest rates? Pray tell, how?

[amanaplanacanal]

It helps keep inflation under control, for one thing. For another, it helps prevent billionaires from wasting even more money on boondoggles.

[scottyah]

> prevent billionaires from wasting even more money on boondoggles

This is what you want though? If everyone stops "wasting even more money on boondoggles" there is no innovation, and no jobs if nobody is making more boondoggles.

[budsniffer952]

10y rates are almost exactly where they were 20 years ago, and about 10% lower than they were 20 years before that.

So...what are you talking about?

[lazide]

You mean just before ‘08?

[budsniffer952]

I mean 20 years ago, just like the original comment said. What is confusing? The last 20 years of interest rates are unremarkable, and certainly don't indicate the US is failing.

[lazide]

wow.

just before the major financial crisis, and QE?

the last 20 years of interest rates absolutely are remarkable, and reflect massive (and historically unprecedented) intervention from the central bank.

because of the near collapse of the US financial system, almost exactly 20 years ago.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Or we can go even further with the fun thought exercise, by spreading the cost even more: Even $100,000,000,000,000,000 doesn't matter if you evenly distribute it across each atom in the usa.