The politics can't really be addressed by software, true. However, much of development is actually process and project management with complicated non-intuitive workflows. I think there's potential for software to help. do something like - for a given municipality, what size building can I build under a specific set of planning assumptions, and what is the process for obtaining the necessary permits and approvals to build that building?
I agree, Nexo/Celsius/Blockfi should not be going around saying they are "riskless". However, blocking out the majority of the general public from high yield investments is not the right move. Wealthy =/= sophisticated. If people want to take risk and get paid high yields in return for creating liquidity in emerging financial ecosystems, let them do it! Don't apply a 1930s frame work to a 21st century technology. I'm much more in favor of what Coinbase is doing - push for a seperate regulatory regime specifically designed to handle digital assets.
For all those who try to compare this to subprime, there's two big differences here. First, decentralized lending is enforced by smart contract -> the banking apps dont take credit risk because they can auto liquidate defaulter's assets and collect a 10-20% liquidation fee for doing so. Second, decentralized lending apps max out at 60% LTV. People are either going to be safe and do 30-40% leverage which protects against 33-50% drops in the value of the collateral, or they are going get liquidated at 60%. There's no too big to fail here.
I've found a combination of keeping a journal, having self-compassion, and having something to prove to be the key to sticking with a self-study regimen.
Journaling helps document progress and provides notes that you can transcribe to a spaced repetition system (i.e. flashcards) for long term retention.
Self-compassion is key for picking yourself up after you feel overwhelmed by a topic and quit for the day, which will happen. You have to not be so hard on yourself and understand that there will be good days and bad so that you can build the long term stamina needed to see the project through.
Having something to prove (i.e. I'm a business guy but I can learn coding too; I know I'm smart enough to score high on the GMAT/LSAT whatever and get into the school of my dreams, etc etc) is often what motivates me the most. It gives you that "why" that you need to keep yourself focused on finishing in the face of so many distractions until the project is done.
Hard to say right now, but it's likely that bonds won't go up again until people believe the rate of new bond issuances will go down.
On another note, the federal funds rate is at zero but bank stocks are cratering anyway, possibly because Trump announced there will be no foreclosures/evictions through April. So landlords and homeowners have no incentive to pay their mortgages for a couple months, which will definitely hurt banks.
This is confusing to me too. The best explanation I've heard is that the market is expecting a future increase in bond supply (gov bond issuance to fund coronavirus mitigation measures), which would drive prices down and yields up. This future price pressure is being priced into bonds today.
Bitcoin crashed as well and gold isn't overperforming either. So rather than having a huge transfer of assets from stocks to bonds/gold/bitcoin like we've seen during past periods of market volatility, I think we are seeing falling prices across all the forementioned asset groups.
The one open question for me is Real Estate (I work for a small commercial real estate developer). REITs are down 20%. My contacts in the Broker community have told me individual property sales transactions have dried up due to an inability to do property showings combined with no interest from buyers or sellers to make big moves until things shake out. RE moves slow so we haven't yet seen how this dynamic will impact sales prices.