The Fed announced these measures on March 23, and they are just now going to start buying these issues.
The Fed is trying to just "replace the wealth destruction that has happened". Keep in mind that even though the equity markets are back up close to pre covid levels, a lot of companies have had to take on Debt to weather the storm. This debt needs to be paid back with interest and in general can be a drag on company earnings.
The fed is also being somewhat judicious and buying shorter term securities (less than 5 years), so in essence they are only creating the money for the term of the bond they buy - they can choose to remove the money from the system when these bonds mature.
I also think that people are confusing the Fed trying to keep businesses solvent by providing short & medium term liquidity with them trying to raise equity prices.
Also the ECB & JCB have been doing this for the last several years with no inflation on the horizon there.
Money Market funds are a good option to store cash that one needs for the immediate term, and there is a wide variety of them. However, one should evaluate each fund and their holdings to understand the risk & liquidity profiles.
Full Disclosure: I'm the founder of InterPrime (yc w19). We provide treasury management services and bring the treasury tools that big companies have been using for decades to Startups, SMBs, Non-profits & Investment Funds. Happy to chat and help anyone with questions on these topics.
This is a fantastic post, thanks for sharing jterenzio. I'm working on building something that does something similar, and would love feedback from folks. If you are interested in chatting, please drop me a note at km at shivala dot com.
You should read this article from 1996 - where Bill Gates is talking about his relationship with Warren Buffet. The quote below is pretty clear in that charity had always been his ultimate goal.
"Warren and I share certain values. We both feel lucky that we were born into an era in which our skills have turned out to be so remunerative. Had we been born at a different time, our skills might not have had much value. Since we don't plan on spending much of what we have accumulated, we can make sure our wealth benefits society. In a sense, we're both working for charity. In any case, our heirs will get only a small portion of what we accumulate, because we both believe that passing on huge wealth to children isn't in their or society's interest. Warren likes to say that he wants to give his children enough money for them to do anything but not enough for them to do nothing. I thought about this before I met Warren, and hearing him articulate it crystallized my feelings."
I guess that's part of the question - why were these products not able to generate the required revenue. Is this the type of product that people are just unwilling to pay money for and one that's not supportable by advertising?
Evernote - seems to be doing fine though - given that they have a product in a similar vein.
By your argument, we should not have public schools then either? Since some taxpayer who is poorer than you is still paying for that? Also you can choose not to use this option; just go-to a private college?
I think that in the majority of cases, with the progressive system of taxation, and need-based aid in institutions, we avoid the scenario where my education is severely subsidized by those taxpayers that are poorer than I; also we pay a percentage of our incomes, so by definition the poorer people pay less and get the same services.
As for exploring options while in high school: I'm all for that, but I think that in most cases that's not possible; given that the level of education provided is quite basic in most cases.
Anyone that things that going to College will make them successful is retarded. College can help you be successful, but it's what one makes of it; In the end a college degree is just a piece of paper; and no piece of paper can make you successful. If we as a society cannot comprehend that, then we are in a sorry state :/
Bringing in Taxpayers into the argument about people getting the opportunity to goto University is not cool. Education should be a choice, that all are allowed to make. It's an investment in the future of the country, and it should definitely not be a "passtime".
A University allows you to explore your interested in a nice structured manner, allowing you to get feedback from respected professionals and though leaders in different fields. It also gives you a chance to try out your hand at different fields, and figure out which ones you are good at, and where you can be successful in the future.
These are what make education important and essential....
However, if you know what you want, then you obviously don't need University to make you successful.
Your in a tough spot, but you should just focus on working on your side project and make a priority; if you can get it generating revenue and/or getting a ton of users you should be able to switch from your current day job to your "side project".
I think that this is a problem that plagues a lot of would be entrepreneurs...and there is no optimal solution.
I'd say just get your family on board with your ambitions; since if you are not able to do that, then it will be extremely hard for you to convince users/investors about the benefits of your product. And once you have your family onboard, and have gotten some success with your side project, you should quit your job....but until then keep your day job.
This article fails to make the distinction between technical product development (where one needs to invent/build new technologies in order to make the product come alive), and just general product development where your not actually overcoming major technical challenges.
The most important thing that I got from this article was the realization that for most people to live an average life where they are not "screwed" they don't need a very high quality education; an average education which provides good value for money will do just fine.
Benioff is a good guy. He is the pioneer of the 1/1/1 philanthropy model and has convinced a bunch of other companies to follow suit with that model (i.e. Google et all) and helped out a lot of people.
Also, to be fair he was one of the first people to come up with the idea of the Cloud for the enterprise, and actually deliver a scalable, reliable system which could replace on-premise software.
Oracle is just playing school yard politics; Larry and Marc are friends and Larry was one of the first investors in Salesforce.