I find the use of this statistic really frustrating, if you're say an average westerner with $10,000 of debt and $2,000 savings - your net wealth is -$8,000. If on the other hand you sift through garbage somewhere in Africa and earn 50c per day your net wealth is ~$0. By this metric the garbage site worker is wealthier than the Westerner fresh from university.
Well they are more wealthier till that debt is paid off. However, the metric does not include cash flow. The westerner has a greater cash flow than the person in Africa. However, what happen if that person looses their job? Suddenly, their quality life will probably drop. They might even end homeless unable to pay rent. However, the westerner is probably better off overall.
I think the point is that there are things that aren't captured by looking at wealth alone. Having a college degree, being inserted in a society that ensures peace, safety and well-being, all that has value.
Yes, and (ideally) currency in an economy is a liquid representation of value. A college degree translates (after accounting for inefficiencies) to higher income potential, more efficient spending, etc.
EDIT: typo, "liquid representation of value," not "wealth"
First derivative of wealth would be income or spending. I think it's better to go the other way: consider the integral of cash flows over time (i.e. net present value). It would still be pretty uncertain.
Yes and no. I purposely chose the mathematical notation rather than the more common economical terms to convey a different idea.
If you look at the instantaneous\* derivative, it's not the fact that you owe the federal government $2M for that MD that counts but rather your monthly obligation. Debt doesn't matter, required repayment per unit of time does - so almost like cash-basis accounting.
Finding a $100 on the street or borrowing $100 from a friend are the same in terms of their addition to your instantaneous wealth, it's the fact that one needs to be repaid that detracts from your "actual" wealth, and the repayment period matters. Compare the lifestyle of two neighbors working at the same institution making the same amount of money that each took out $500k mortgages to buy their identical houses, only one took it out for 15 years and the other for 30. On day 1, they both take the same hit to their net worth, but that doesn't change their wealth derivative in and of itself, it's the rate of paying it back that you should be counting.
That explains why one college educated individual can get a loan for $1000 from the bank and at time 0 they are, under this metric, better off than someone that needed to hit up a payday loans place for the same loan but at a higher interest rate. They both "earned" the same amount of money, and may even "spend" it on the same thing at the same rate, but when you take the repayment period into account (let's say 1 year vs 2 weeks, respectively) you can see why the graduate student is measurably better off.
Just like stocks you hold aren't actually contributing to your day-to-day wealth (and as such aren't taxed) but it's when you cash out that you've either made or lost money.
\* let's define an "instant" as a month, just to make things easier.
1. You seem to be implying that there's something wrong with share buybacks but aren't explicitly stating it. I'd be curious to know what your criticism of share buy backs is?
2. Anecdotally, I still think EPS is by far the more widely used metric. EPS numbers can be negative so there's not much use for loss per share numbers, and most public companies have positive earnings.
3. This I agree with, SNAP's lack of voting rights is really concerning and initially SNAP didn't seem to traded at a discount because of that. It's worth noting it's down over 40% from the price it traded on the day it went public, although potentially for other reasons.
I also generally agree that people would be far better off if they educated themselves a little better on what they have their money invested in.
The issue with share buybacks is they are designed to increase the share price rather than provide a cash return to existing investors. To a common stockholder, the two outcomes are basically the same (minus maybe some tax differences). But to a common optionholder, they are vastly different. Optionholders typically can't benefit from dividends, whereas they do benefit from the share price increasing.
This matters because management is often paid in options. So, managements have an incentive to allocate capital to share buybacks to boost their pay packages instead of reinvesting money in the business. If share buybacks were illegal and the only two options were dividends and keeping the capital in the business, managements might behave very differently.
>Tesla's YTD return more than matches the overall market
What is so significant about YTD?
You can arrange the data in any number of ways to tell a story: A Tesla investment since 2014 has lost money (and been diluted). Go back to 2013 and suddenly it's a goldmine.
Tesla having been a "good purchase" depends on what you paid. But I have a feeling that more people are sitting on a cost basis >$250 than <$100, in which case a TSLA investment has been mediocre.
I'm sure you're right about not having quite as much elbow room at google compared to other companies - but saying that I'm not sure strictly enforcing a style guide is great example a developers freedom being quashed.
Anywhere you're working on a codebase that you want to be maintainable having a style guide that is strictly enforced seems like a no brainer. Keeping in my mind google could have any number of developers working on a codebase
I don't object to having a style guide. I object to the extent of it. Some rules of good practice make sense. But having a really extensive style guide shifts code review away from what it should be focusing on -- correctness, clarity, efficiency -- towards punctilious enforcement of minutiae.
1. Gross tertiary enrollment ratio
2. Percentage of working-age population with advanced level of education
3. Annual new science and engineering graduates as a percentage total tertiary graduates
4. Annual new science and engineering graduates as a percentage of the labor force