
"RIP Good Times": Silicon Valley's Cuban Missile Crisis - bdb
http://daltoncaldwell.com/rip-good-times-a-perspective
======
ebiester
The issue isn't that Sequoia was wrong -- in fact, everything they said came
to pass. It wasn't a quick recovery, and people spent less money on technical
acquisitions. That didn't stop people from creating startups.

What the slide deck didn't account for is that there was nowhere for big money
to put their money - everything was in trouble. So, people started to look for
new opportunities, and Silicon Valley suddenly looked mighty attractive as a
place for investment.

On Main Street, there are people who have been out of work for years now. It
really was that bad, is that bad. We just happened to be under one of the few
umbrellas in a storm.

~~~
tatsuke95
You're talking in the past tense, like the situation is over. For all we know,
it's just beginning.

> _"We just happened to be under one of the few umbrellas in a storm."_

It's not different there. It never is.

~~~
ebiester
The first deluge is over. The economy isn't currently in freefall; rather, it
is slowly growing. That doesn't mean the storm system has moved on and
everything is sunny from here on out.

Further, an umbrella (sorry to extend a potentially leaky abstraction here)
doesn't mean that you are immune to the storm. It just means that you deflect
most of the rain around you.

But it's different for IT, much different. I was let go from multiple
contracts, but the time I spent out of work was by choice, and I had two
interviews a week the moment I put my resume out while friends in other
sectors would have killed for even an interview. I was able to choose the job
I wanted once I was willing to move out of my home city.

I don't have a star studded resume either, and I've seen mediocre and worse
developers stay on because replacements couldn't be found.

It's different for IT, and programmers more specifically.

------
dannyr
Dalton: I interviewed for an engineer position at Imeem a week before. I
passed the interview & I was told that the offer letter was just waiting for
your signature. It was delayed because you just had a baby.

Then days later, I saw the "RIP Good Times" presentation & I was told that the
job offer was put on hold indefinitely. Weeks later, I read about the layoffs
& the job was gone for good.

It was a blessing in disguise for me since I realized that I should learn a
new language & framework (Python/Django) aside from .Net. Turned out well for
me since there are more Python jobs than .Net in the area.

~~~
dalton
Yes, that all sounds about right. I am glad you think of it as a blessing.

Incidentally, all of the work I do now is Python/Django. The story of why we
had a massive .NET codebase is a long story.

------
amix
The crisis is far from over and the financial systems are still in a Cuban
Missile Crisis situation. Nothing has really improved since 2008 - other than
the different governments pumping trillions of $ into the different markets. I
think the crash of 2008 is a little taste of what's to come (that's at least
what I am preparing for).

~~~
koide
Would you care sharing what exactly are your preparations? I'm at a loss
figuring what is a good way to prepare. I've moved some cash to the less
troubled economies but, what else?

~~~
roguecoder
Non-cash economies would be my answer. Find business models that don't rely on
consumers having access to money, unless you are providing necessities. Say
said it best: when there's not enough cash available to satisfy desires,
people find ways around it. If you can arrange to be that way, you can still
profit.

As for investments, pick your index, close your eyes to the ups and downs and
pray someone in government realizes that when people are willing to give you a
negative real interest rate you should take their money and do something
productive with it.

~~~
lmm
>Say said it best: when there's not enough cash available to satisfy desires,
people find ways around it. If you can arrange to be that way, you can still
profit.

The only way I'm able to interpret this as practical advice is "invest in the
mafia". Unless you're talking about building up your personal skills - which,
while good advice (if you can do something other people want then you'll never
go hungry, no matter how bad the economy), doesn't really scale.

------
clarky07
So I just looked through the slide deck again, and it seems to me most of what
was in there should be standard advice AT ALL TIMES. Don't spend money on
things you don't need. Watch expenses. Build a profitable company. This should
be the default rather than here's 10 million see how many users you can get
maybe facebook or google will buy you.

------
freshbreakfast
Dalton, I don't know if you remember this, but I used to a major imeem fanboy,
wrote a personal blog (freshbreakfast dot com) to count the ways I loved
imeem, the links for which I spammed to
team/all/dalton/steve/gina/matt@imeem.com.

Anyhow, I ended up becoming employee #2 at Ustream. So I was at that
presentation, doing them a favor running a private live stream for the CEOs
that couldn't make it. Not to sound creepy, but I observed for your reactions
quite a bit at that Seqouia meeting, and I even introduced myself to you after
the presentation. It's true, your mind seemed to be elsewhere, but you were
still very kind.

And if that many full circles aren't enough for ya, today we're both trending
on front page of Hacker News :-). This one's mine:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4080074>

~~~
dalton
Yes, I certainly do remember you. And I do remember you being there that day
as well. I read the hypebot post this morning, didn't notice your name on the
byline :)

~~~
freshbreakfast
:) Thanks man, means a lot coming from you. And great great post, really a
privilege getting to peer into your thought process during a moment we
nominally shared.

------
herdrick
I don't buy it. The world used to let highly interconnected financial
institutions fail and we had sharper, nastier recessions (we called them
'panics') but they were over sooner. I think that, much like the reaction to
the WTC/Pentagon terror attacks was worse than the attacks, the panicky
reaction - bailouts and stimulus - has been much worse than the problem they
tried to fix.

~~~
trevelyan
You should read Alan Blinder about "The Great Moderation" -- recessions since
the late 1970s have been shorter and shallower than their predecessors. And
far shorter and shallower than their counterparts under the gold standard in
the 19th century. Also empirically, the reason the United States is doing
better than Europe is because of the stimulus/bailout. It might be hard to
think of the United States as a success story since it is only a relative one,
but look at the much more dire situation in countries like Britain and Greece
and Spain where governments were forced or choose to embrace austerity.

There is no reason the world cannot produce the same amount of goods as it was
producing in 2007 - there are more rather than less people willing to work and
the cost of borrowing money is very low. The only big outside constraint is
energy costs, which are being offset by some fairly amazing reductions in the
prices of alternative energy, including solar power.

So why the mess? The problem is a classic liquidity trap, a preference of
investors for highly-liquid and safe assets that results in less money being
spent in the private sector. This is visible in the way the borrowing rates of
the Federal Government have fallen despite the best efforts of the Republican
Party to drum up a debt scare the moment it fell from power and stopped
spending the money itself.

Bailing out the banks did somewhat stabilize the banking system and probably
prevented catastrophe. What remains necessary is getting out of the liquidity
trap, which means increasing the amount of spending in the private sector. One
way to do this would be having the government borrow at essentially zero cost
and invest that money in public infrastructure projects which offer a return
on investment. Another approach would be having the Federal Reserve declare an
inflation target of 4% until the economic crisis is over. This would reduce
the expected ROI from parking money in Treasuries and provide a greater
incentive for firms to make private sector investments instead of just parking
cash in the bank.

~~~
herdrick
Yeah, well, I suppose I should admit don't buy the classic liquidity trap
theory either. If you put a dollar into T-bills, you drive the interest rate a
little lower, which causes, say, 70 cents of other investors' money to leave
in disgust. Where do they go? To other assets.

And it's only 70 cents only because the suppliers of new debt, the US
authorities, are sensitive to interest rates too. Investors can, net, only buy
as much debt as the government is issuing, right? So if the Federal
authorities are so worried about a liquidity trap, let them limit their debt
issuance! If they do that, then your dollar put into Treasury securities means
a dollar worth of other investors' leaving. No more liquidity trap. (At least
as far as "highly-liquid and safe assets" == US govt debt. They could find
other safe and liquid harbors, perhaps Japanese govt debt.) But the Feds
aren't doing that, thus, I think that "having the government borrow at
essentially zero cost and invest that money in public infrastructure projects"
would in fact be bad for real wealth and prosperity because that borrowing
brings some more money to T-bills and away from other investments, some of
which would be private investments, for example. Of course if those projects
are needed on their merits, not as make-work, then great, do them.

The same is true of your example of "parking cash in the bank". Parking cash
in the bank means making investments. Where does the bank put it? They invest
it. A bank is not a destination for money, it's a conduit.

~~~
trevelyan
I think I agree with you and am not sure where the disagreement is. Save
possibly two points:

(1) Limiting debt issuance would only be expansionary if it didn't imply a
reduction in government spending. And financing growth by expanding the money
supply is a perfectly acceptable Keynesian solution. If this led to inflation
and rising interest rates that would suggest the economy is no longer in a
liquidity trap and the Fed could step in to rein in inflation while the
government could go back to raising money on the bond markets.

(2) I'm under the impression that US banks reduced lending following the 2008
bailout. I seem to remember Andrew Ross Sorkin making this case, but either
way - I don't think the best solution to the present crisis is a 20 year
process of watching the banking sector delever as in Japan! Better to have
controlled failures to wipe out debt and reduce moral hazard while making sure
the economy is primed with the demand to deal with the fallout. How exactly to
do that is a good question.

~~~
herdrick
I mean I think there's no such thing as a liquidity trap, so I believe we
disagree on that at least.

Regarding your point #2, yes I agree. But bailing banks out is exactly what
Japan did. The certainty of regulatory capture by banks makes it better to
just remove the government ability to bail them out. Let them fail. A moderate
approach would be to limit bank mergers - too big to fail is too big.

~~~
trevelyan
Asserting that an economy is in a liquidity trap is equivalent to asserting
that increasing the money supply will not drive up inflation or interest rates
in the short term, but will drive employment and GDP growth.

I don't think it makes sense to argue that this situation is not theoretically
possible since it appears to describe reality quite well. That said, the
policy commitment that comes out of accepting even the possibility that we may
be in a liquidity trap should be uncontroversial regardless of whether you
believe the model is a close approximation of reality or not: push aggregate
demand until there is some evidence it is driving up inflation and interest
rates, at which point the theory says to stop because more of the same won't
do any better.

------
foobooboo
"...the US financial system was literally melting down."

Really? The financial system was becoming a pool of molten goo, possibly
spreading radiation all over its vacinity?

~~~
StevenRayOrr
Even intelligent people that know the meaning of the word will make this
mistake when writing casually. The English language would be much better off
if we removed the word "literally" from it. Or, I suppose, if we all just
decided to accept that "literally" now means "metaphorically".

In which case, please kill me.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
If it's a "mistake", then it's one that has been made for 300 years:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the...](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2005/11/the_word_we_love_to_hate.html)

Relevant excerpt:

'As is often the case, though, such "abuses" have a long and esteemed history
in English. The ground was not especially sticky in Little Women when Louisa
May Alcott wrote that "the land literally flowed with milk and honey," nor was
Tom Sawyer turning somersaults on piles of money when Twain described him as
"literally rolling in wealth," [...more...] Such examples are easily come by,
even in the works of the authors we are often told to emulate.'

Given the caliber of authors that have used "literally" for emphasis, I have a
hard time standing behind the concept that it's even poor style. We can decide
that, moving forward, we'd like to clean up English and use "literally"
differently, but calling it a mistake rather than a offense to modern style is
inaccurate.

REGARDLESS, I thought this was exactly the kind of thread that Hacker News
hated. :|

------
hexis
"I remember getting an email from Sequoia asking for my personal presence (ie
don't send a VP in your place) to some sort vaguely positioned mandatory
meeting."

By what mechanism can an investor in a firm, presumably an investor with less
than 50% equity, make attendance at a meeting mandatory for the CEO of said
firm?

~~~
klodolph
"Mandatory" is a surprisingly vague concept, even when used by people with
real power.

------
ivankirigin
It would be awesome to see an update to each of the graphs in that
presentation. Does anyone know if that exists?

------
SkyMarshal
_> That being said, I am glad that presentation ended up being wrong, just as
I am glad the Cuban Missile Crisis did not turn into a full-blown nuclear
war._

The presentation wasn't wrong it was dead on. It's just that the massive
Federal Reserve intervention and US Government stimulus prevented the worst.

Similar to Y2K - lots of noise was made about it, while thousands of engineers
worked around the clock fixing it, so that when it finally happened it was a
nonevent.

In both cases, people who accuse the warners of crying wolf after the fact
seem oblivious to the scope and nature of the problem and the effort it took
to fix.

Though in the case of the financial crisis, it's not fixed. The trillions of
non-performing debt has simply been shifted from private to sovereign balance
sheets, and the crisis continues.

Some or all of it will default eventually, there's no way around that. It's
only a question of whether it's a managed, orderly, gradual default, or an
acute chain reaction collapse.

------
blacklooksgreat
I don't fault your story or intentions, but this quote:

"That all sounds like bullshit to me. I was there, I looked in the partners'
eyes, they weren't bluffing. They were trying to help us"

Really rings hollow with me. You may have believed you could stare into their
soul to know their being, but these guys eat people like you for breakfast.
You wouldn't see a knife to the back coming, so don't think you could look in
their eyes and know they weren't bluffing.

------
gaius
Interesting, and disturbing, that Sequoia only suggest reducing head count in
the engineering department (slide 47).

~~~
anigbrowl
I read that to include cuts to general and administrative expenses, as well as
underperforming marketing and business development. I think engineering was at
the top because it's the core asset, while products and other functions are
less and less unique to a given firm.

------
tlogan
VCs are similar to all other investors: they buy when it is high they sell
when it is low.

BTW, whoever invested in or started social gaming and iOS companies during
that time is golden now...

------
confluence
In reference to Sequoia _possibly_ crying wolf.

In statistics there are 2 types of errors that one can make.

A Type 1 error is when you aggressively reject the status quo for change, even
if the status quo was just fine (crying wolf!). A Type 2 error is aggressive
rejection of change for the status quo, even though the status quo isn't right
any longer (not crying wolf!).

There is no way to escape these errors, and depending on evidence, you'll sway
one way or another (these errors always exist and are complementary in
nature). The financial crisis looked like it _could_ blow up the world (there
might be a wolf in the flock!). Assuming status quo - that nothing is
happening (no wolf) - you might not prepare for it (a wolf), and if the world
blew up you'd lose everything (wolf eats you!). Assuming change (hello wolf!),
you prepare and adapt for the crisis where you have to lose a bit
(growth/funding/employees sadly), but if it all goes down - you are prepared
(wolf meet gun!).

This is an example of the precautionary principle at work, and based on my
understanding, Sequoia did an outstanding job. The Federal Reserve also did a
great job (during the crisis). I have no opinion about the lax rates in the
lead up to the bubble - but I presume that was highly detrimental to our
collective financial health! :D

Sequoia are the best in the business, they've been around the block a couple
of times, and all they care about is making sure their companies survive. _RIP
Good Times was prudent._

Better to cry wolf, than to not do so, and be eaten while you sleep.

When the cost/benefit balance changes, assume catastrophe, minimise chances of
a Type 2 error (bias yourself towards change - a Type 1 error), and plan for
the worst thing that you can possibly imagine - think of it like paying for
insurance against storm damage if the data shows a few too many clouds over
the Atlantic.

 _A false positive error, commonly called a "false alarm" is a result that
indicates a given condition has been fulfilled, when it actually has not been
fulfilled. In the case of "crying wolf" - the condition tested for was "is
there a wolf near the herd?", the actual result was that there had not been a
wolf near the herd. The shepherd wrongly indicated there was one, by calling
"Wolf, wolf!"._

 _In terms of folk tales, an investigator may be "crying wolf" without a wolf
in sight (raising a false alarm) (H0: no wolf)._

 _A false positive (with null hypothesis of health) in medicine causes
unnecessary worry or treatment, while a false negative gives the patient the
dangerous illusion of good health and the patient might not get an available
treatment._ [1]

The future is very uncertain. Act accordingly.

Or as our ancestors would say:

 _If you hear any type of rustling in the bushes; always assume that it's a
tiger trying to kill you. Temporary fear/worry is a good deal better than a
permanent and painful death._

[1] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors>

[2] - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle>

------
adventureful
The cold war continues (going with the missile crisis line), and it is thus
the Fed is preparing for QE3.

I agree strongly with another comment: Sequoia was right, and then some.

Nothing actually got better, it's just that people think it did. A moment of
respite from the turmoil is all the last two or three years represents. That
moment of respite cost between $8 and $15 trillion depending on what you're
counting (total deficits + Fed bailouts).

In fact, things are far worse today than they were at the height of the
crisis, as we've loaded up on $6 or so trillion more in public debt we can
never pay back. We've added about $400 to $500 billion more in student loan
debt, and a few million college graduates are sitting on the sidelines without
jobs and experience, and we've got millions more living on food stamps without
jobs.

The only thing separating our system from absolute implosion is the global
reserve currency that we're currently massively abusing at our leisure. If
mortgage rates had to rise to their natural rates (absent Fed manipulation
holding down both long term and short term rates), housing would quickly
plunge another 1/3, and that alone would rupture the entire financial system
and bring it to its knees.

The truth is, we look a lot like the imploding EU zone across the Federal and
State levels. Except we've got the dollar, for now.

~~~
photon137
_cost between $8 and $15 trillion depending on what you're counting (total
deficits + Fed bailouts)_

I always cringe when somebody calls the Fed's actions _bailouts_. These are
asset purchases by the Fed versus injecting cash into the monetary system. The
Fed will have to unwind these at some point in the future. But essentially,
what the Fed has done is that it has made a market for securities nobody was
willing to make a market for.

Net "bailout" performed by the Fed: zero. Actually that's wrong - the Fed
added around $78 billion worth of profit via its open market operations to the
Treasury last year (it's obliged to do so after deducting servicing
costs/salaries etc.)

Pray, what are the "natural" mortgage rates you're talking about - ie you mean
rates absent Fed intervention (via Operation Twist)? There _wouldn't_ be a
mortgage rates market in existence if the Fed were not there to make one!

And no, you're not imploding like the EU. Their banks are woefully
undercapitalized and can't lend to the corporate sector. Plus, they have one
monetary policy and 17 different fiscal policies - that simply doesn't work!

Your banks and your corporate sector are flush with money. It's your consumers
who are broke. Even then, they aren't broke - they are just not making long-
term investments(ie purchasing durable goods) as credit has dried up and there
is no good quality collateral left in the market against which people are
willing to lend. Homes used to be the collateral earlier on - but that's no
longer the case.

That's what the Fed is trying to do - lower mortgage rates (ie assume credit
risk on your behalf - it can do so because it can print money - inflation is
not a risk in this economy) to enable credit to flow in the economy so that
the consumer can start becoming active again.

Deleveraging is painful - but it's not the end of the world as you've
portrayed it.

Edit: fixed typos

~~~
adventureful
The Fed's actions were extreme bailouts. They've been busy bailing out almost
everybody: home owners, Wall Street, Europe, the Treasury, the states.

Net bailouts performed by the Fed: trillions

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-
un...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-
to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html)

They gave banks and others at least $7.7 trillion and there is zero proof that
it was paid back. Citi had at least a $1 trillion blackhole on their balance
sheet, and there is no possibility they were able to fill it. Bank of America
was in the same situation, and their profits could never fill that. The Fed
took over trillions in toxic waste mortgages to bail out the banks, and most
of those 'assets' still sit on the Fed's balance sheet.

I'm sure the money supply continuing to skyrocket means the Fed isn't bailing
anybody out. Surely those trillions aren't going toward bailouts for the
government, Wall St, big banks, or the housing market.

<http://www.shadowstats.com/charts/monetary-base-money-supply>

The Fed is currently bailing out the US Government by buying 95% of all long
term govt paper. The US Treasury has been bailing out California among other
states, by using the Fed money. The US Government is completely insolvent
without the Fed bailouts, it would have to slash 1/3 of all spending just to
correct the imbalances in the system if the Fed stopped the QE programs.

The Fed is bailing out home owners, investors, realtors 24/7 using trillions
in QE to push rates lower to prop up the housing market.

The Fed is pushing risk into equities and out of paper by driving rates down,
which is providing a bailout to big institutional investors by keeping the
stock market artificially high.

It's a bailout bonanza.

Natural mortgage rates would be the mortgage rates you'd get when you remove
all Federal Reserve manipulation of short and long term rates. That is, when
they stop all QE / monetization programs that are designed to specifically
hold rates down, thus we have sub 4% 30 year mortgage rates.

It would be something closer to a historical norm, 6% to 8% would be a lot
closer to normal based on the last 50 years, than 4%, for example. But if you
know anything about any of this, you already know that.

~~~
photon137
Bernanke had to do a lecture series (as part of a PR-initiative, I assume -
but he's an academician as well) explaining the Fed's actions to those who may
not be that well-versed with macroeconomics or how the FOMC works. You should
read this before making any "bailout" claims:

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/files/bernanke-
lect...](http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/files/bernanke-lecture-
four-20120329.pdf)

Edit: The lecture series in full for those who might be interested:
<http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/lectures/about.htm>

It made very insightful viewing/reading even for us who are involved in the
financial markets.

~~~
carsongross
Appeals to authority... check.

Courtiers reply... check.

Dismissive passive aggressive attitude... check.

Good job, you hit 'em all.

[http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrend...](http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm)

Good luck unwinding that, kids. And that's just what they are telling us.

~~~
photon137
The various Feds' open market operations and reverse repo operations
inject/sterilize billions of dollars every day from the markets. $3 trillion
may seem like a big amount on the balance sheet to unwind - but that kind of
liquidity can be soaked out of the system pretty easily (if done carefully)
once the economy gets going and the Fed is able to raise rates (ie secondary
credit markets begin to function well enough - e.g. the traditional GSE-
sponsored lending/commercial-paper lending etc).

Edit: I am trying to make a valid clarification in this thread. Your sarcasm
is unwarranted.

~~~
carsongross
_shrug_

Again, that's only what they are telling us about. Pulling a couple trillion
out of the economy is going to absolutely taco it (that's thousands of those
billions you mention) since we are effectively an infinitely leveraged
fractional reserve system now, even ignoring derivatives.

I'd be more sympathetic to your pat-us-on-the-head attitude if the mainline
economists had been right about anything for the past decade. There's a whole
slew of economists who actually got the debt crisis _correct_ and might be
worth looking into, starting with Steve Keen.

The federal reserve has been hiding it's destruction of the average person's
purchasing power behind academic rhetoric and obfuscation for over 100 years
now, with the aid and abetment of the economic mainstream and the financial
world. Don't assume that because we don't agree with you we don't understand
what you are saying. We just don't believe it.

~~~
jfarmer
As a neutral third party who has no strong opinion about this issue and
limited background, photon137 is making the much stronger (and informative)
case.

Not sure if your goal is to have an impact on people like me WRT this issue,
but if so, you're probably having the opposite impact you intend to.

~~~
temphn
Strongly disagree. photon137 is just copy-pasting the conventional wisdom into
a comments thread and calling it a grand insight. Yet the deference afforded
these "experts" is vastly disproportionate to the rate at which economics
produces testable hypotheses. There is no such thing as a "right-wing" and a
"left-wing" Nobelist in physics, but there is in economics. You quote Krugman,
we quote Hayek, you quote Stiglitz, we quote Friedman, and so it goes.

Which is why this plot is so important:

[http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/www.intellectualtak...](http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/sites/www.intellectualtakeout.org/files/bernteinromerupdated.jpg)

If Bernanke and Obama actually knew what they were doing, there would be a
close correspondence between theory and reality. There isn't. It's very rare
that these folks actually make concrete predictions that are tested in the
future. So let's make some predictions. You and photon137 can make some, and
then we will make some.

~~~
jfarmer
You strongly disagree that photon137 sounds more reasoned and compelling to
me?

You're welcome to disagree, but I'll be happy to tell you flat out you're
wrong.

My point was about the impact of their respective statements, not the content.

~~~
temphn
Fantastic. All I care about is the content. In any case, your comment was no
simple personal testimonial, but an attempt to tell carsongross that the
"crowd was against him". This is just the conventional wisdom attack again.

That is not the case anymore. The crowd is not against him.

It's too bad that pg has hidden upvote totals, as the bien pensants who
support the bailout policies of Bush, Bernanke[1], and Obama would realize
that millions of informed people now oppose them. To be an informed person, it
is no longer sufficient to parrot what is read in the New York Times or the
Wall Street Journal.

[1] Ben Bernanke, Bush appointee.

~~~
jfarmer
My comment wasn't an attempt to tell carsongross the crowd was against him. It
was an attempt to tell carsongross that the way he's phrasing his arguments
will make people think he's a crank.

I'm telling him what he can do to _convince people like me_ of his arguments,
assuming that's his goal. If not, well, mea culpa.

You're falling into the same trap. "bien pensants?" Really, help me understand
or sod off. Compare this response to photo317's polite, civil, and reasoned
reply.

