Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Too much money and too few places to invest it

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 104 posts

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#11

Post by cstrat »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #7

> "How we got here: The Fed's quantitative easing program pushed the cost of borrowing money to next to nothing for nearly a decade, allowing companies to splurge on debt for mergers and acquisitions and to boost revenue." Put another way, the Fed made the rich richer, and the lack of significant "trickle down" has created a socio-political Charlie Foxtrot; of which the Fed is not accountable for.

I can't see how the continued erosion of the middle-class is not going to have huge impacts on the livelihood of everyone else.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#12

Post by CryptoPunk »

Waterluvian wrote: post #4
fastball wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pay your workers more you have less money for investment opportunities...

Your workers buy your cars.

Companies then have to build cars to provide to your workers, instead of building you a factory. We have a limited amount of capital. There's an economic opportunity cost from higher wages and more consumer spending.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#13

Post by NTDF9 »

fastball wrote: post #3
astazangasta wrote: post #2

Ironically the best thing they can do to create new investment opportunities is pay their workers more, but they never will because they are too short sighted.

If you pay your workers more you have less money for investment opportunities...

> If you pay your workers more you have less money for investment opportunities...

Why are workers not an investment? Are your workers only encouraged to hit nails with hammer or can you think of ways to incentivizee them to innovate and do better than competition?

Oh wait, you must be a short-sighted employer.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#14

Post by dev_dull »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #7

> "How we got here: The Fed's quantitative easing program pushed the cost of borrowing money to next to nothing for nearly a decade, allowing companies to splurge on debt for mergers and acquisitions and to boost revenue." Put another way, the Fed made the rich richer, and the lack of significant "trickle down" has created a socio-political Charlie Foxtrot; of which the Fed is not accountable for.

It’s trickled down but in narrow bands. For example, starting salaries in the Bay Area are up big in the last decade, partly because of an influx of easy money into tech growth tech companies.

However, much of that goes directly into the pockets of land owners.

Ultimately the winners in QE are those that own the finite resources.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#15

Post by maxxxxx »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #12
Waterluvian wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your workers buy your cars.

Companies then have to build cars to provide to your workers, instead of building you a factory. We have a limited amount of capital. There's an economic opportunity cost from higher wages and more consumer spending.

What kind of messed up thinking is this? More consumer spending has an opportunity cost? What’s a capitalist supposed to do if nobody can afford their stuff?

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#16

Post by rhizome »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #7

> "How we got here: The Fed's quantitative easing program pushed the cost of borrowing money to next to nothing for nearly a decade, allowing companies to splurge on debt for mergers and acquisitions and to boost revenue." Put another way, the Fed made the rich richer, and the lack of significant "trickle down" has created a socio-political Charlie Foxtrot; of which the Fed is not accountable for.

I thought ZIRP was the culprit, with QE being a response to the 2008 crashes that stacked up on it.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#17

Post by rhizome »

fastball wrote: post #3
astazangasta wrote: post #2

Ironically the best thing they can do to create new investment opportunities is pay their workers more, but they never will because they are too short sighted.

If you pay your workers more you have less money for investment opportunities...

If you pay your workers more they can start new companies to invest in.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#18

Post by jakelazaroff »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #12
Waterluvian wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your workers buy your cars.

Companies then have to build cars to provide to your workers, instead of building you a factory. We have a limited amount of capital. There's an economic opportunity cost from higher wages and more consumer spending.

> Companies then have to build cars to provide to your workers,

So having more customers is… bad?

> instead of building you a factory.

Where do you think cars get built?

> We have a limited amount of capital.

Not really. The entire point of the article is that the available capital exceeds the available investment opportunities.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#19

Post by dev_dull »

cstrat wrote: post #11
chiefalchemist wrote: post #7

> "How we got here: The Fed's quantitative easing program pushed the cost of borrowing money to next to nothing for nearly a decade, allowing companies to splurge on debt for mergers and acquisitions and to boost revenue." Put another way, the Fed made the rich richer, and the lack of significant "trickle down" has created a socio-political Charlie Foxtrot; of which the Fed is not accountable for.

I can't see how the continued erosion of the middle-class is not going to have huge impacts on the livelihood of everyone else.

Precisely why I’m a big fan of tariffs and America-first foreign policy.

We need a way to restore manufacturing industry to the US, the loss of which played a large role in the erosion of the middle class. Protecting manufacturing and factory jobs used to be a selling point for Democrats but things have been a little turned upside down lately.

Re: Too much money and too few places to invest it

#20

Post by chris5745 »

skywhopper wrote: post #8
fastball wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pay your workers more you have less money for investment opportunities...

This is a reason why increasing the minimum wage or providing health coverage for low-wage workers is a great way to improve everyone's situation. Sure, Walmart has to pay their workers more, but every low-wage worker who works for someone other than Walmart suddenly has a lot more money to spend... at Walmart. On net, companies like Walmart will benefit far more than they lose. But they aren't willing to unilaterall…

I imagine raising the cost of labor in the U.S. would only encourage more outsourcing.

Maybe entrenched parties with lots of cash need special incentives to spur investment. I don’t know what those would be, but if all this cash is not being used to invest in public projects or new ventures, we may be witnessing the beginning of a huge socioeconomic shift.

Remember war bonds? We need road bonds. Bridge bonds. Something.

Post reply on HN