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How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

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Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#81

Post by tsherr »

ghaff wrote: post #64
throwaway_USD wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You mean to pay for teachers This is going to be a very interesting and telling litmus test for the future of the Country in the next few months. If public schools go the route of remote teaching, which I think they will...then I don't see much choice but for State, County and local governments to go to war against the Teachers Unions and lay waste to upwards of 75% of the teacher workforce. Lets ballpark about 3M t…

Why do you think remote teaching takes markedly fewer people?

It should take one really good "lecturer" and then a bunch of TAs. The TAs would be lower paid off course. Would it be fewer overall all? Maybe not, but salaries would change.

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#82

Post by scruple »

thieving_magpie wrote: post #37
throwaway_USD wrote: post #3

Easy Congress put on bandannas and robbed the tax payers of about $18,000 each. Congress then turned around and gave taxpayers $1,200 each, of their own money, that total amount can be doubled that to account for the temporary unemployment benefits increase. The rest of the taxpayer money went to the FED so they will guarantee the prices of shit stock...the market can't lower because as many rich CEOs and investors c…

I'd really like to read more about how tax payers are paying $18,000 each but all I can find as a source is some twitter comment and a reddit thread where the claim is disputed. Do you have something more substantial I could read? At first glance it seems extremely exaggerated so I'd like to get my head around it.

I liked Robert Brenner's take on this situation, personally [0].

[0]: https://newleftreview.org/issues/II123/articles/robert-brenn...

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#83

Post by ac29 »

GrinningFool wrote: post #70
throwaway_USD wrote: post #3

Easy Congress put on bandannas and robbed the tax payers of about $18,000 each. Congress then turned around and gave taxpayers $1,200 each, of their own money, that total amount can be doubled that to account for the temporary unemployment benefits increase. The rest of the taxpayer money went to the FED so they will guarantee the prices of shit stock...the market can't lower because as many rich CEOs and investors c…

> Easy Congress put on bandannas and robbed the tax payers of about $18,000 each. I think you're under the mistaken impression that the debt incurred by the aid packages will somehow get repaid.

The US doesn't have a history of defaulting on its sovereign debt, and I haven't heard any serious claims that that is going to change anytime soon. In fact, its a great time for the government to take on debt, since even very long term debt costs less than inflation - 30 year debt is 1.4%, and 10 year debt is https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#84

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

gazelleeatslion wrote: post #18
CalRobert wrote: post #5

Where else are you gonna put your money? Stable governments are paying ~0 or negative interest. I'm actually asking, right now I'm just paying off debt but would be curious what people think. If I didn't have the debt I'd probably buy equities (index fund, etc.) like everoyne else.

Bitcoin. But seriously I do agree — despite it being loved by PF/FIRE crowd — parking all your assets in Index funds with no other competitive option is terrifying.

Bitcoin is 100% speculative. It has no utility. You can't build with it. The fees make using it as fiat prohibitively expensive.

I agree that it will likely go up. I'm actually in the process of testing software I made to predict and exploit its movement. But since it's just speculative, it will also eventually go down hard like it did in 2018.

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#85

Post by gazelleeatslion »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #84
gazelleeatslion wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin. But seriously I do agree — despite it being loved by PF/FIRE crowd — parking all your assets in Index funds with no other competitive option is terrifying.

Bitcoin is 100% speculative. It has no utility. You can't build with it. The fees make using it as fiat prohibitively expensive. I agree that it will likely go up. I'm actually in the process of testing software I made to predict and exploit its movement. But since it's just speculative, it will also eventually go down hard like it did in 2018.

Was being sarcastic. ETF = risk-adverse and Bitcoin = exact opposite. Whole point was there is no competitive option to an ETF (and that is obviously not bitcoin)

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#86

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

gazelleeatslion wrote: post #85
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is 100% speculative. It has no utility. You can't build with it. The fees make using it as fiat prohibitively expensive. I agree that it will likely go up. I'm actually in the process of testing software I made to predict and exploit its movement. But since it's just speculative, it will also eventually go down hard like it did in 2018.

Was being sarcastic. ETF = risk-adverse and Bitcoin = exact opposite. Whole point was there is no competitive option to an ETF (and that is obviously not bitcoin)

Ah, thank you. Sarcasm is hard to read in text. I've seen a lot of people use "/s" to signify sarcasm, but I don't know how universally recognized it is.

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#87

Post by GrinningFool »

ac29 wrote: post #83
GrinningFool wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Easy Congress put on bandannas and robbed the tax payers of about $18,000 each. I think you're under the mistaken impression that the debt incurred by the aid packages will somehow get repaid.

The US doesn't have a history of defaulting on its sovereign debt, and I haven't heard any serious claims that that is going to change anytime soon. In fact, its a great time for the government to take on debt, since even very long term debt costs less than inflation - 30 year debt is 1.4%, and 10 year debt is https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/i...

Historically the US debt balance has gone up for longer and by higher amounts than it goes down. I don't see how this pattern leads to a zero balance in the future?

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#88

Post by snowwrestler »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #17
CalRobert wrote: post #5

Where else are you gonna put your money? Stable governments are paying ~0 or negative interest. I'm actually asking, right now I'm just paying off debt but would be curious what people think. If I didn't have the debt I'd probably buy equities (index fund, etc.) like everoyne else.

After years of squirreling away my cash like someone who spent their entire 20's working minimum wage jobs or in school I finally bought into some index funds. I too don't know what to do with my money - you can't save it (even in less crazy times it's eaten up by inflation), you can't buy bonds right now, so I said to hell with it, I'm not going to time the market, I'm just going to buy in to funds that try to match…

In the long run, time in market (how long you've been investing) is more important than timing the market.

This is in part because it is so hard to time the market, and in part because some stocks pay dividends, which you can compound by reinvesting them. Those count as part of your returns too.

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#89

Post by 0xffff2 »

GhostVII wrote: post #43
the-dude wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIDS never got a vaccine, SARS and MERS neither.

There are several COVID vaccines in stage 3 trials, I think it is safe to say that we will have a vaccine being rolled out by mid 2021 at the very latest.

Are you an immunologist? I'm not, but it's my layman's understanding that most candidates are likely to make it to stage 3, and that most will fail in stage 3. As far as I can tell, the number of candidates in stage 3 trials is not a strong indicator of the likelihood of a successful vaccine being developed.

Re: How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

#90

Post by GhostVII »

0xffff2 wrote: post #89
GhostVII wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several COVID vaccines in stage 3 trials, I think it is safe to say that we will have a vaccine being rolled out by mid 2021 at the very latest.

Are you an immunologist? I'm not, but it's my layman's understanding that most candidates are likely to make it to stage 3, and that most will fail in stage 3. As far as I can tell, the number of candidates in stage 3 trials is not a strong indicator of the likelihood of a successful vaccine being developed.

No but Dr. Fauci, along with other scientists working on the vaccine (ex. Dr. Sarah Gilbert), have repeatedly said we will likely get a vaccine by 2021, and have millions of doses rolling out by mid 2021.
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