Top all-time · #5631
Byrne Hobart
Personal blog · byrnehobart.medium.comeconomicsbusinesswriting
Byrne Hobart's personal blog at byrnehobart.medium.com covers economics, business and writing. Since 2021, 14 different Hacker News readers have linked it 16 times, most often “The 30-Year Mortgage Is an Intrinsically Toxic Product – By Byrne Hobart”. The last post was in 2021, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Byrne Hobart's Medium essays on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, mortgage markets, stealth regulation of storage, and workplace tools like Slack. Commenters cite them as support for their own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The 30-Year Mortgage Is an Intrinsically Toxic Product – By Byrne Hobart6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2022-01-14
- The Social Network Was the Most Important Movie of All Time2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-11
What Hacker News says?
I just spent 20 minutes trying to find an article by Bryne Hobart vaguely in this area [0], but for personal messaging. The idea being if you control the storage (or deletion) you can avoid casual or speculative regulatory interest in your chat logs. (apologies it's on medium, I couldn't find it anywhere else) [0] https://byrnehobart.medium.com/the-stealth-regulatory-arbitr...
Comment linking /the-stealth-regulatory-arbitrage-unicorn-d2ca706c95ab
on “All my servers have an 8 GB empty file on disk”Submitted Writing is networking for introverts as a story · 335 points
HN discussionFeel free to add an extra percentage point for a 10Y/30Y swap. One interesting hypothesis is that the focus on fixed-rate 30Y mortgages is fundamentally destabilizing for the US and world economy, because the stability and optionality of 30Y mortgages is paid for by added volatility of the 10Y debt market through those same swaps. Per this theory, US 30Y fixed-rate mortgages are effectively subsidized by the rest of…
Comment linking /the-30-year-mortgage-is-an-intrinsically-toxic-product-200c901746a
on “Rocket Mortgage to trim 8% of workforce as home-loan market shrinks”Submitted Reasoning from First Principles: The Dumbest Thing Smart People Do (2019) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt's inevitable, as the 30-year mortgage is an intrinsically toxic product: https://byrnehobart.medium.com/the-30-year-mortgage-is-an-in...
Comment linking /the-30-year-mortgage-is-an-intrinsically-toxic-product-200c901746a
on “A global house-price slump is coming?”Submitted The Social Network Was the Most Important Movie of All Time as a story · 3 points
HN discussionPatrick also links a good newsletter at the end that goes into the "who are the losers" question a bit: https://byrnehobart.medium.com/the-30-year-mortgage-is-an-in...
Comment linking /the-30-year-mortgage-is-an-intrinsically-toxic-product-200c901746a
on “Mortgages are a manufactured product”Submitted The Social Network Was the Most Important Movie of All Time (2018) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe US and Denmark are the two well known jurisdictions with fixed rates for the loan term (typically 30 years in the US). Refinancing happens when rates go down. Yes, this does mean lenders take a lot of interest rate risk. The whole US government mortgage securitization and insurance infrastructure exists to help transfer this risk to people who want it. More in this classic Byrne Hobart essay: https://byrnehobart…
Comment linking /the-30-year-mortgage-is-an-intrinsically-toxic-product-200c901746a
on “Middle class homebuyers taking $7k mortgages planning to later refinance down”Submitted The Pirahã Are Off by One (2020) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion>So, paradoxically, the low-effort nature of Slack has actually created barriers to communication in this case. (I have no idea how common this is, but I suspect, at very big companies, there are similar dynamics.) I always think of this quote[0] from the great Byrne Hobart[1]: >Slack is a bit like Adderall. Ask someone about it the week after they start using it, and they can’t praise it enough. Talk to them six mo…
Comment linking /works-war-on-slack-97ef94264d9c
on “Humans Hold the Key to Collaboration No Matter How Good the Software Tools”Submitted The 30-Year Mortgage Is an Intrinsically Toxic Product – By Byrne Hobart as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Europa Universalis 4: Great Game, Zero Stars as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The 30-Year Mortgage Is an Intrinsically Toxic Product (2018) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Coins as Tangible History as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Writing: Good Career Move, Terrible Career as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
