21–30 of 164 posts
Think about the market opportunity for companies that achieve a winner-take-all success on a global scale, it's hard to underestimate.
> "A coming collapse in investment returns"
Honest question: How is is possible to lend any weight to predictions like these when, even when it comes to the lower profits of the last few years, predictions have always been based on the recent past and wrong? There's any number of "black swan"-type events that could prove this to be incorrect.
I wouldn't put a lot of faith in such predictions either, but there are a few reasons to believe that exceptionally good returns might not be repeatable. One is simply regression to the mean. Others are high global levels of debt and a significant wave of globalization having just run its course. But I think productivity growth and our ability to redistribute the fruits of that productivity growth are the big unknown…
On the other hand, vastly improved AI capabilities could mean that future prediction systems are more reliable.
At some point in the future, all further predictions may become roughly accurate. Maybe these AI sytems are clever enough in make only predictions which are self-fulfilling prophecies. In other words, that they are able to calculate their own influence to the world into their predictions, which is especially important for economic predictions made by influential institutes.
Honest question: How is is possible to lend any weight to predictions like these when, even when it comes to the lower profits of the last few years, predictions have always been based on the recent past and wrong? There's any number of "black swan"-type events that could prove this to be incorrect.
I wouldn't put a lot of faith in such predictions either, but there are a few reasons to believe that exceptionally good returns might not be repeatable. One is simply regression to the mean. Others are high global levels of debt and a significant wave of globalization having just run its course. But I think productivity growth and our ability to redistribute the fruits of that productivity growth are the big unknown…
So if emerging markets are going to outcompete western companies then... invest in emerging markets?
The me generation was aptly named, generation X ate the table scraps, and now we millennials are being left with the bill. Edit: I suppose the question now is, what can we do about it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gen X was standing on the same rug as you guys when it got pulled out. Take a look around next time you're in WalMart or McDonalds. All those 40ish looking people that look weirdly out of place in their uniform shirt? Yeah, that's us since the boomers nuked domestic manufacturing and construction wages made a run for the bottom. Don't even get me started on retirement. sigh
Well, I didn't say that Gen X got nothing at all. We all got hurt in some way by the GFC. Of course to generalise about an entire generation people is egregiously pointless. At the same time, simply due to the luck of timing, it feels as though Gen X had more of a chance to do something about it. However, they did not and in fact they had much more of an opportunity to take advantage of the selfish and short-sighted…
You consider statistics to be pointless? What do you propose instead?
> "A coming collapse in investment returns" And yet McKinley are writing research about it, rather than liquidating the company to take short positions, which should tell you something about the pinch of salt required.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is a very defeatist and ultimately useless world view. Every generation is mad at the generation before it about something, and argues the previous generation could have solved the problems but now the current generation is left with the problems. Your statement above about millennials being left with the bill, meanwhile gen x feels the baby boomers did them in like another comment here states, the baby boomers…
The amount of debt that the baby boomers will leave behind is a very objective thing. This is the biggest accumulation of debt in peace time in the history of mankind (and objectively the parents indebting their children to buy a shiny new TV, a behaviour that would be universally unacceptable if it wasn't state wide).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds more like a consequence of global business cycles and growth being "absorbed" by newer economies.
Definitely. Just part of globalization. It helps far more people than it hurts, but for those in developed countries, you don't really see the people it is helping because they're across the planet. I'd say it's nice for developed countries to help out like that - but we all know the real winners are the businessmen behind your politicians bankrolling this stuff.