dtcwee: The Value of Nothing

 ... not a human guarantee. When someone sanctimoniously claims something is a "Human Right", they often mean that they should get it for free. So what does it mean that housing is a human right?

TLDR: Call the Tax Office ☎

What are the odds my will gets challenged? My dad's making a big deal now that he's done his will, telling us kids that we had better accept what we're given (though giving zero details about the actual split). Why? 

Will better-paid teachers lead to smarter students? Finland is often hailed as an educator's utopia, where teacher prestige and commensurate salary correspond with students' high academic rankings among peers worldwide. Furthermore, there is some evidence in the US linking a school district's teacher pay with its students' performance on standardised tests .

How do you fund a nation? British PM Clement Attlee said, If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly.

Did a lack of trust in governments exacerbate COVID-19 deaths? 'Hogwash', is my first response.

Generative AI uses energy and pumps out CO2 yes, but so do humans.

ChatGPT generates code. 😎 It's buggy. 😭 What do you do?

The cost of kids vs residential care. It used to be that children were a retirement strategy. You'd gently pass away in your mortgage-free bed surrounded by loved ones. Old folks' homes were for lonely deviants who failed at family formation. Let's compare ...

I used to agree with the mainstream view that an aging population was deflationary. The logic: old people don't buy new stuff. Real world examples: Japan, Singapore, Germany, etc. If inflation did pop its head up, governments would reflexively smash it with higher interest rates, never mind the resultant unemployment. Why? Well, the US did it in the 1970s. Since then, much of the neo-liberal project has been to transfer power from workers to consumers. Voters were happy with that trade-off then, so they probably would be again. The numbers stack up politically. Inflation affects everyone. Unemployment only affects workers. I don't work. I'm team higher unemployment. Anticipating a future of stable or falling prices, I relaxed going into the COVID pandemic.

Why not? Calculators sure changed mine. A lifetime ago, in a safe but stifling job, I found an online mortgage calculator that visualised the power of extra repayments. Having just borrowed to buy a home, it opened my eyes. I was hooked. Learning that early escape from debt was possible made it my obsession. I checked that calculator after every stymied project and pointless restructuring. So, like, twice a day. With few opportunities to flex my skills in my IT role, I wrote other calculators to rationalise and strategise my approach to life.

Borrowing to invest in an asset will not simply multiply your returns. It is more accurate to say that leverage multiplies the difference between the returns on the asset and the cost of borrowing. This post was originally published on 18-Dec-2016. I have since made an interactive leveraged returns calculator . Short Form Calculation Return on Equity = Interest Rate Differential x Debt to Equity Multiple + Asset's Return For example: 8:1 Debt to Equity at 4% debt interest with an asset return of 5%: 1 x 8/1 + 5 = 13% Visualisation looks a little something like this: ROE Alpha (Y-axis) by Return-Borrowing Differential (Z-axis) by Borrowing (X-axis)

 Tang dynasty rap.

This is it, boys. The big one. The freaking widowmaker of Chinese poetry. It's got patriotism. It's got isolation. It's chock full of allegory. Every line has multiple meanings. But everyone tries to interpret it because everyone knows it and, like debating Confucian texts, it's a mark of intelligence.  And I'm a sucker for proving I'm smart. Now I'm going to try and make it rhyme. With the help of a robot.

Genshin Impact Life Lessons 6 If the world of Genshin Impact is so good, why don't you just go and live there? Good question, but first, a digression for context. My spouse commented that video games are subversive by allowing people to become powerful alluring characters. Me, a superhuman anime waifu? Novel, but fleeting. Even with jiggle physics.

Genshin Impact Life Lessons 5 Part of Genshin Impact's approach to its artificial scarcity is to bombard you with varied rewards so that, much like real life, there is always another way to progress. However, with that abundance comes complexity. The game's transparency only goes so far in helping you navigate it. Where else can you turn for help? Who else can you turn to for help? A lot of what makes the Genshin Impact experience great comes from outside the game.

Genshin Impact Life Lessons 4  At some point in Genshin Impact, as in real life, you will face running out of stuff.  What has that taught me about approaching that scarcity, and can I apply it to everyday life? Many Ways to Play

少小离家老大回， 乡音无改鬓毛衰。 儿童相见不相识， 笑问客从何处来。 I can make it rhyme, but should I? Is wanting to do so colonialist or appropriative?

Genshin Impact Life Lessons 3 The drive to play on is supported by the constant accrual of rewards, plus the assurance - not mere promise - of future rewards. "Pfft." You may say. "How can one trust claims of certainty in a game genre explicitly run on chance?" Trust through Transparency 

Genshin Impact Life Lessons 2 Genshin Impact satisfies my craving to micro-manage. Even offline, planning my next moves in the game world displaces anxiety about what may happen in the real world. It exhausts my rumination like a mental chew toy, after which I have little urge to fret further. Nevertheless, should I be worried that I so easily place a trivial computer game before more mundane matters? A better question to ask may be, ' Why do I?' I have a theory:  Always Be Compensated

中岁颇好道，晚家南山陲。 兴来每独往，胜事空自知。 行到水穷处，坐看云起时。 偶然值林叟，谈笑无还期。 We're going to see if AI can make more readable.

Genshin Impact Life Lessons 1. Genshin Impact is more than a gorgeous open-world fantasy game with deep lore and a stirring soundtrack. In a half-year or so of play, it has taught me... Fight Worry with Worry

Australia's Productivity Commission estimates that the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964, aged 56 - 74 in 2020) will pass $3.5 trillion dollars in wealth to their heirs by 2050. The distribution will not be even.

Inflation in Australia may be driven by corporate profiteers, but not who you think.