Bavan Amirthalingam

Pricing Actuary working in the P&C insurance industry. Tweets on Personal Finance, Investment, and others. My opinions are my own.

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@_InfoGram_ @grok is this true that Mark Carney and Trump exchanged these words?

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@elonmusk Optimized very well to the test.

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@elonmusk @DavidSacks Remind me, why Grok 4.5 is not an open model?

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@DavidSacks How much stake you have in OpenAI?

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@ItsArunRA @shanaka86 @CathieDWood Yes, he’s the best (financial) engineer, and he is now propping up the valuation for his merged company as high as possible. I’m not taking any side in this bet. It’s best to stay away from this noise and play our own ideas elsewhere.

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@ItsArunRA @shanaka86 @CathieDWood Yeah, these extravagant dreams are given too much importance and hyped up. Who’s going to fund these multi-billion-dollar investments when your core business isn’t growing?

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@igetredpilled @ronmortgageguy So, what you are suggesting as the best type of mortgage and interest rates to go for?

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@Apple When are you going to upgrade your Stocks app?

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@ylecun @publiusbtc So, if you’re suggesting that these economists themselves are unable to forecast the economy’s future, why should Trump or Kamala be any more capable of doing so?

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@VivekGRamaswamy True

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@yacineMTB Lol how did you get this count. I dont think even he knows. He might have more than a few(i dont know) but it’s impossible to get the numbers accurately even if you are Huberman himself.

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@DavidSacks @reidhoffman @RobertKennedyJr @theallinpod Big fan of your pod. Eventhough i am canadian, i value your thinking process and the urgency you talk about recent problems

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@ronmortgageguy AML enables bad actors, who can cause real harm to society. Wells Fargo's scam sounds more like fraud. It's not a fair comparison. Furthermore, I'd actually fine foreign banks more than our own for the same crime too.

[Kashif Pirzada, MD @KashPrime]

Probably the most important article you'll read all year, by @omeraziz12 in the @globeandmail
Canada is in serious trouble, and Aziz hits the nail on the head on the causes:

- Deep incompetence by politicians, who resort to PR management over making decisions. Parliament is deeply dysfunctional, with Question Period a joke, and committee hearings a farce. Trudeau but also the provincial premiers have much to answer for. Many of our leaders come from legacy wealthy backgrounds and have absolutely no idea how difficult they've made life for Canadians.

"What I realized soon thereafter was that this country was witnessing a systemic political failure, a complete inability of politicians to get change done in ways that manifested at the dinner table. An extreme form of PR and image-management had begun to take over delivering on policy in concrete ways − and the entire country was noticing. Nor was this an accident, the unfortunate consequence of polarization or inequality, but the deliberate result of multiple policy failures − as well as failures of will."

"Normally, in a democracy, social ills can be addressed by public officials. But Canada’s own political institutions have been riven by corruption and personal ambition. And now also potentially by foreign influence. Each controversy and scandal leads people away from crucial time and policy attention that could have been spent on fixing the country’s major issues. At the parliamentary level, most members of Parliament are so frightened of speaking for themselves that they are rendered powerless. This defies the very essence of the British parliamentary system, upon which Canada’s system is based, which empowers MPs to speak on behalf of their constituents and represent their true voice in the people’s chamber."

- Inattention to rising crime, especially rampant car thefts, a revolving door criminal justice system, neglect of the opioid crisis. We have the laxest justice system in the Western world. Causing someone's death will get you a 6 month sentence in one prominent example. America had mass incarceration, we have mass leniency.

"At some point, one would think that the deaths of so many innocent and vulnerable people would elicit outrage − yet life goes on as normal. Each life is precious, and when violent criminals get off easy, or without punishment at all, they learn the terrible lesson that this country does not take its own laws seriously, so why should they? When the law loses its power to deter crime, either because of prosecutors not moving forward with cases, or because of a general laissez-faire attitude toward violent crime happening in other neighbourhoods, it is the marginalized who are harmed most."

- Rising housing costs that has made nearly everyone, including me, to paraphrase A Bittersweet Symphony, a slave to massive mortgages until they die, or they are perennial renters.

"For many Canadians, the cost of living has become unaffordable. The average price of a house in the GTA is $1.1-million, and Metro Vancouver is around the same. There are certainly cheaper places to live, but the average cost of a rental in Canada has reached record highs − more than $2,100 a month. According to one major study, Canada needs to build an additional 3.5 million homes by the end of the decade and is currently only building around 200,000 a year."

- Violation of the social contract on immigration.
"In Canada, the social contract for years allowed more immigration to grow the economy, but this came with stringent criteria for who should be admitted. Today, there are more than 900,000 international students in Canada, a 170-per-cent increase over the past decade. Some of these students have been scammed by for-profit colleges. Others have been affiliated with fake schools, using their student visas as loopholes in the immigration system. The social system was unprepared for such an influx, though certain institutions benefited: colleges and universities got more fees; politicians touted rising immigration numbers; the landlord class got an endless supply of perpetual renters. Without any housing available, this has left the country unprepared to deal with multiple, overlapping economic and social crises."

Aziz asks What is the Canadian dream?
"It was a promise − less individualistic and gun-friendly than the American version, but no less ambitious. To me, the dream promised that every person here could have a decent shot at life, one that was better than that of their parents. There was emphasis on community and a strong focus on order and good government. The compact included the payment of higher taxes, and in exchange, the existence of world-class social institutions delivering for ordinary people. The immigration system worked because the same contract existed with immigrants − that they would work hard, play by the rules, become part of Canadian society through legal means, and in return, would become citizens of a highly functioning democracy where a good life was, if not guaranteed, then within reach.

The dream was based on fairness, on merit, on policies that worked. It promised breathable air and the bountiful resources of the second-largest country on Earth. It promised the principle of equality of opportunity, promised safety and peace and responsibility. It promised leaders who put the national and long-term interests of the country above their own partisan needs. The dream now feels like it’s on life support."

Amen

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@DavidSacks Open to interpretation!

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@6ixbuzztv Spending spree madness!

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@skdh Statement (a) implies fossil fuel company scientists are superior to academics, a misleading and simplistic dichotomy.

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@nataninvesting The market is not betting against $BABA, its betting against China and its uncertainties. There are simply other better opportunities out there in the US than $BABA.

[Bavan Amirthalingam @bavanamir]

@MKBHD Internet, please find this tiktok!