Gabe Newell contributes to Hypermind
I’d like to thank Gabe Newell (President of Valve Software) for very generously agreeing to directly contribute $10,000 to the Hypermind NGDP prediction market. You may recall that Mr. Newell made a similar contribution a few years ago, in our previous effort. Note that some of the recently donated money is still working its way through the bureaucracy, but rest assured it will get there. I hope to be able to announce a much larger prize total in the near future. The goal is to boost trading volume.
In this previous post, I explained how you can also assist the prediction market project by contributing to the Mercatus Center. I believe that this sort of contribution has tax advantages due to the non-profit status of Mercatus. However I recently learned that Mercatus has a policy where researchers don’t publicly thank donors, as research and fundraising are kept separate. Sorry about that misunderstanding. That does not apply to direct donations to Hypermind, but AFAIK those are not tax deductible.
PS. As I get older, things just seem to get more complicated. But I’m working hard to simplify my life. Last month I owned two rental properties. Now I have one. Next month I’ll have zero. Never become a landlord.
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21. June 2017 at 07:00
Shouldn’t it be “Never become a landlord in Massachusetts, where the law is so hostile to landlords (or in California, for that matter)?” Or would you say more generally?
21. June 2017 at 07:02
David, Yes, those two states are among the worst, and happen to be the two I’ve been involved in. I was making the remark out of frustration—I suppose the market compensates the average landlord for frustrations, but I’m not the right personality for the job.
21. June 2017 at 07:15
‘Never become a landlord.’
Add Seattle and environs to your list. The ridiculous pricing of apartments here is ‘chickens coming home to roost’ after decades of anti-landlord politics and legislating.
The left-wing (Kshama Sawant and company) community organizers have managed to make it impossible to find an apartment that a moderate income person can afford. So now there’s a patronage market in ‘affordable housing’ controlled not by landlords, but by political activists who have none of their own money invested in the housing stock. The results being as any self-respecting economist would have predicted (and many did).
21. June 2017 at 17:31
Hi Scott,
Instead of building ground up, why not leverage existing decentralised prediction market infrastructure via various blockchain enabled techs. eg https://augur.net/ or https://gnosis.pm/
Augur seems to have a good concept to solve market liquidity considerations to get things rolling.
21. June 2017 at 22:02
I was a landlord in Los Angeles, and my life became that of a bill collector. Some good experiences, and many bad. I am glad to be out of it.
But owning property in a region with tight zoning is fat city, compared to other forms of investing.
22. June 2017 at 06:36
Thanks,Gabe Newell-san.
My favorite class is medic (Wolfenstein ET).
23. June 2017 at 17:18
Michael, Good idea. Someone should do that.