Yes. Everything is fine until it wasn't, and it was clear to those paying attention that things were out of whack for a little while prior to the big implosion.
Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
141–150 of 226 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#142>There are people on HN who weren't alive in 2008. Are there that many under-15s here? As someone who lived through the S&L crisis of the Middle Ages, the current agitation doesn't even rise to that level; so far there hasn't been an indication of widespread outright fraud perpetrated by bank execs. This seems more like a less favorable (i.e. less free money from the Fed) environment exposing a few banks with very po…
> S&L crisis of the Middle Ages
1986 is not the Middle Ages. This one fraction suggests to me I'm responding to a hallucinating bot.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#143I've talked to a number of bankers over the last week and most of them don't seem to think so. The counter-argument to crisis is that most banks structured their investments differently (soundly) vs. how some banks (e.g. Silicon Valley Bank) structured theirs. There will be some more shakeout of banks with bad investments but not a broader crisis. Of course, take that how you will, but certainly doesn't feel like 200…
Most bankers probably didn't think Lehman Brothers would fail a week before it did. Not exactly ironclad.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand how residential housing isn't a big bubble. That has to have second order effects yet to be fully felt. I guess maybe it could look like even more inflation? If inflation goes up enough and wages mostly keep up, housing could become relatively reasonably priced again.
> I don't understand how residential housing isn't a big bubble. It’s not inherently a bubble because it’s driven by demand far outstripping supply. It may prove to be bubble-like if: A) Some significant % of homeowners see salaries reduced enough they can’t keep up on payments. B) We suddenly start building massive amounts of additional housing units so a larger % of the population can own/rent a home and the price…
I'm hoping we go all-in on option B.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN can't think past price goes up/down and see that a lot of crypto is a valuable resource that you can use as collateral and borrow against it without having to go to a bank and beg for permission.
You still need permission from the person/company on the other side to use crypto as collateral.
And there have been a lot of painful lessons lately as to why that's a bad idea.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#146No, I remember 2007-2008 pretty clearly. That felt much more precarious. Right now it seems pretty clear that if your bank fails you're going to get your money. That's not to say that this isn't the start of some kind of a financial crisis. But it could be very different from 2008. In this case I think the risk is more towards high inflation - for example, if enough banks were to fail (hypothetically - I doubt this w…
2008 crushed the Icelandic bank system. I don't think any one is in that kind of trouble right now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_fi...
Iceland has like 300k people; it's a rounding error with regards to European population. It's like trusting Rhode Island as a barometer for the US, it just doesn't follow.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately we are stuck living in the present where the bonds are worthless and not the future.
"slightly less valuable than expected" is not "worthless"! The hyperbole bubble is getting exhausting. People really want to talk a crisis into existence. Are they bored?
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#148The emperor has no clothes. How many crises do we have to go through before we admit the fed and banks either have no idea what they are doing or they know exactly what they're doing and it's malevolent? The number of people here defending the system and saying this isn't inflation is mind boggling. Where do you think the money comes from when the government rescues banks? No matter how you slice it, the taxpayer pay…
> How many crises do we have to go through before we admit the fed and banks either have no idea what they are doing or they know exactly what they're doing and it's malevolent?
False dichotomy. The Fed can have good intentions, and a good-but-not-perfect idea what they're doing, and things can be working out, not perfectly, but better than they would in the absence of the Fed.
Is there any evidence for that? Yeah, look at the world before the Fed. Look at the "Panic/Depression of 18xx". There's several to choose from. They're 2008-or-worse events, over and over and over.
The economy is a really complicated system, with lots of humans (and their emotions!) as part of the system. It's really hard to tune it perfectly. That doesn't mean that the Fed is either malicious or incompetent.
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone in charge are already extremely wealthy. They have zero skin in the game. J. Powell, 50MM. Yellen, 20MM. There is no ability for them to empathize with a regular taxpayer. Whatever happens their lifestyle will not be impacted one bit. You have to ask: what drives someone in this position. And this is a question that only the 200k ultra high net individuals (30mm+) in the world can answer. I think people stop…
All good points. Let's remove the power to control money from these people.
Great idea! As someone who spent time volunteering for Bernie Sanders campaign, I'll wait here while you go do that: Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: Do you think this is the start of the new financial crisis?
#150Yes, it feels like it felt just before the 2008 crisis - I was looking into banks financial statements and it was pretty incredible feeling - like wow it can’t be that bad ! Markets didn’t start to tank yet, so you don’t know if you’re crazy or not. Same here - there are bubble signs everywhere (SPACs, startup valuations, joke money called Dogecoin with market cap of 10B$ !), banks are sitting at >600B$ of unrealized…
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