hamadj · HackerTrans

This article misses a very prominent issue in Canadian housing, and more so, in the condo market - the use (read: abuse) of assignment clauses. Not only were investors buying preconstruction condos to rent out, they were also effectively buying a futures-contract on condos with the ability to sell the condo prior to completion. Often times, realtors themselves would hoard preconstruction condos and assign them to their own clients at a large profit...depending on the structure of the deposits required, seeing 50-100% return on capital was not uncommon and they did not need to qualify for a mortgage. This structure was doomed to fail; you often see now that many investors are unable to close (really, they never intended to close).

hamadj

3 anni fadiscuss

Treasury bonds are not irresponsible. What is irresponsible is to not hedge your interest rate risk in the form of interest rate swaps. Most other conventional banks do exactly that; they have a portfolio of held-to-maturity (HTM) securities that they hedge with interest rate swaps to avoid bearing that risk. In the financial sector, you only leave unhedged the investments you are _actually_ betting on; if you are to say that they were betting on 10y bonds (until maturity) holding the same value as the day they bought them, without any form of risk management, I would consider that irresponsible.

hamadj

5 anni fadiscuss

> How many injections do you personally need to feel comfortable? Seven million people is way more than any clinical trial for any drug you've ever taken, and I guarantee you any of them is more likely to kill you.

Again, the point is, when we observe adverse effect in the out-of-trial phase, it has hard to pin-point cause and effect. It is not a guarantee that the 7 million necessarily represent a random sample so proceeding with caution is warranted. We know, for example, vaccines have been distributed by age, and chances are, the 7 million is bias towards the older demographic.

> Every single year 150 people die from taking Tylenol in the US in the normal course of treatment -- and 500 die of acute liver failure due to acetaminophen overdose. 25,000 hospital admissions. 50,000 ER visits. If we pretend that 350,000,000 people take Tylenol each year, that makes Tylenol 50% more likely to kill you than this vaccine.

Again, the point isn't that {insert_your_favourite_drug} is 10x more likely to kill you - the point is, when we do not understand why something is happening, it is better to pause and detect whether there is a more fundamental issue. For example, suppose that every single injection that caused an adverse reaction was produced at the same facility and as part of the same batch - we would definitely be better off in investigating the root cause than to leave it be. Until we fully understand what mechanism is causing this adverse effect and how to best counteract it, in my opinion, a pause is warranted.

hamadj

5 anni fadiscuss

I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. The (1/7 million) is the current, unconditional and empirically observed adverse effect of the vaccine - this is a somewhat noisy measure of the true prevalence of this issue. It is okay to be cautious and there are legitimate concerns, and quite frankly, I trust the FDA have good reason to pause this if Moderna/Pfizer are readily available anywy. In countries where there are not alternative vaccines available, the risk calculations change, and as such, you might be better off taking J&J or AZ. In any case, to your earlier point of why they stopped it: they didn't stop it because (7/7 million), they stopped it because it was not observed in the trials and now they have to recalculate the risks for various age-groups and inform people, accordingly. If these events were observed in the trials and the prevalence was the same (in trial, and out of trial) then it would not be a cause for concern.

Edit: got the wrong agency, it was FDA, not CDC

hamadj

7 anni fadiscuss

The sample of people is really small (n = 19), so I would definitely take this with a grain of salt. I’ve personally found fasting to be an incredibly effective method of weight reduction, however I was fasting for upwards of 20 hours a day. If you view the world from a basic calories in vs. Calories out lens, what is the best way to reduce calories in... just don’t eat. I find it a lot easier to not have the option to eat than to have the option to eat but having to eat less. I would be interested to see how the rest of the HN community sees fasting

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