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The Battle of GameStop

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Re: The Battle of GameStop

#471

Post by sershe »

pr0zac wrote: post #407
throwaway894345 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point about degrees wasn’t that some are more or less rigorous (although I haven’t heard of many rigorous women’s studies or art history programs), but rather that they aren’t going to pay well on the other side. I’m very skeptical of the claim that these programs are comprised mostly of the independently wealthy. > Majority of students go for practically sounding degrees - like various business related degrees. T…

Was interested also so I looked it up. Source: https://educationdata.org/number-of-college-graduates For bachelors degrees: 432,077 STEM 386,201 business 244,909 healthcare 44,262 liberal arts 82,621 education So business is approx 9 times more popular than all of liberal arts combined with the vast majority of the rest being made up of degrees that would seem to be things that make money. Looking at the pie graph br…

How does it compare to the demand for these degree holders? On the pie chart, engineering is 6% and social sciences is 8%. Engineering is barely bigger than communications, or than performing arts... and frankly I wonder what %%ge of business degrees are actually useful. The other stat merges all degrees together, but the entire STEM and healthcare is less than a third of all degrees. Add up all the useless degrees together (I, personally, would make it a value judgment too, but for this discussion useless can just mean "not cost effective"), and you can easily explain why so many people have trouble with student loans.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#472

Post by glazyrin »

gruez wrote: post #381
ollifi wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/wsb is kind of insanity, but I’ve come to think that maybe young person can YOLO a bit against the odds somewhere in life. If something returns poorly on average, but has high payouts at the top it might just work out. Your life won’t be the average case but single sample. Lottery is too improbable but some other things ”no rational person would do” can be ok. Main thing is to get over with it soon and protect the…

>If something returns poorly on average, but has high payouts at the top it might just work out. Your life won’t be the average case but single sample. This almost certainly results in a worse average outcome, because of diminishing returns on income. Winning a 10M jackpot won't bring you 10,000 times the happiness compared to finding $1000 on the ground.

I think this is a truism which doesn't always apply.

Suppose that there are 1,000 basement-dwelling redditors (okay, it's a caricature). Each has their basic needs taken care of, but not much money, and not much scope to improve their lot in life. What little money they have doesn't get invested, but spent frivolously.

Suppose 1,000 such people could all put in $500 and give it to a randomly selected one of them. That person wins a life-changing amount of money. They suddenly have their prospects upgraded - they can travel, buy a house, live in some comfort, pursue a dream career. Couldn't it arguably be rational for all 1,000 to participate in that game? Doesn't it make sense that the utility curve is convex, not concave - that $500,000 is more than 1,000 times better than $500, when compared to $0?

After all, suppose that $500 was a year's spare income. Even saving for most of a lifetime would only yield $20-30,000, nothing like enough for many of the opportunities that half a million would make possible. And a lump sum at age 65 could be much less useful than one at age 25. Losing the $500 might barely make a difference to one's quality of life.

Now suppose that to participate in this lottery, they have to pay 10% of the money to Wall Street, or high frequency market makers, or whoever. Couldn't it still be a rational choice for each of the 1,000 to participate?

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#473

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

glazyrin wrote: post #466
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baby boomers didn't have to spend hours in extra curricular activities in HS plus getting 5.0 QPAs to maybe get accepted into a good college so they can have a semi decent chance at a good living. My dad was able to go to a steel mill and make huge amounts of money plus overtime and insanely good benefits. Housing was extremely affordable. Very low debt from trade school. Women wanted to have kids and settle earlier.…

None of these really make much sense. Sex is free and not that time-consuming. You can work hard at college and still find time for sex. You can be in debt and have sex with other people in debt without incurring further debt. Women getting married and having children later should mean more opportunities for casual sex, not fewer. Boomers have not forced younger people to find hookups on tinder. The argument about co…

Your entire comment is a strawman.

Either way, your first comment is false. Sex is not free. I can't go outside and instantly have sex. I need a partner who is willing - which is, again, not free.

> Women getting married and having children later should mean more opportunities for casual sex, not fewer.

You're conflating "should" with "What is." You think it "should" mean more opportunities - but you haven't given any evidence that it actually should, and society shows that there is less sex. So this is false.

> Boomers have not forced younger people to find hookups on tinder. The argument about competition makes no sense. Everyone can't be outcompeted.

The argument makes perfect sense if you would get over your need to protect boomers, which is an odd strawman.

People don't want to settle. Now that they see they have potential access to more attractive mates, they are less likely to settle for someone less attractive and in turn others are less likely to settle for them. The benefits of having a partner just aren't there anymore, and the younger generations are far more risk averse (not just with sex: “It’s part of an overall trend toward less risky behavior since 1990, including not only sex but alcohol use, risky driving, and criminal activity,” Dr. Arnett told Healthline.") than the lead fueled baby boomers.

Young people can't consent until 18. While boomers aren't forcing anyone to use tinder, society has impressed these things upon youth. It's unfair to say that children and adolescents have free agency. They don't.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#474

Post by kbenson »

glazyrin wrote: post #472
gruez wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If something returns poorly on average, but has high payouts at the top it might just work out. Your life won’t be the average case but single sample. This almost certainly results in a worse average outcome, because of diminishing returns on income. Winning a 10M jackpot won't bring you 10,000 times the happiness compared to finding $1000 on the ground.

I think this is a truism which doesn't always apply. Suppose that there are 1,000 basement-dwelling redditors (okay, it's a caricature). Each has their basic needs taken care of, but not much money, and not much scope to improve their lot in life. What little money they have doesn't get invested, but spent frivolously. Suppose 1,000 such people could all put in $500 and give it to a randomly selected one of them. Tha…

This is just the flip side of why people support progressive taxes. If you believe that a flat tax is unfair because the people at the lower end of the spectrum have much less free money that isn't taken up by base needs, then it follows that different amounts of money affect people in different circumstances differently.

To the person with 10 million dollars, doubling their wealth is nice for them but likely won't result in a major change in lifestyle and what they could or couldn't do before. Maybe they go from a large house to a larger house. For the person that makes 30 thousand a year, doubling it makes a huge difference in how they live. The disposable income amount doesn't double, it's likely many many times higher, because it was such a relatively small portion before.

The same thing applies to one-time payments. It would make sense in your example even if the payout was much less (like $10k) but still affected the group similarly (i.e. if they had less disposable income). That amount of money is a huge to people that have little disposable income.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#475

Post by glazyrin »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #473
glazyrin wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these really make much sense. Sex is free and not that time-consuming. You can work hard at college and still find time for sex. You can be in debt and have sex with other people in debt without incurring further debt. Women getting married and having children later should mean more opportunities for casual sex, not fewer. Boomers have not forced younger people to find hookups on tinder. The argument about co…

Your entire comment is a strawman. Either way, your first comment is false. Sex is not free. I can't go outside and instantly have sex. I need a partner who is willing - which is, again, not free. > Women getting married and having children later should mean more opportunities for casual sex, not fewer. You're conflating "should" with "What is." You think it "should" mean more opportunities - but you haven't given an…

This is the comment you're replying to:

> why blame older people for your generation having less sex?

If you think it is the responsibility of older people that younger people aren't having as much sex, then why?

If not, then what are you challenging? I didn't say that there was more sex going on, not that student debt was great, not that Tinder was awesome.

Your whole argument seems to be 'there is less sex available because fewer people want to have sex'. This is, of course, a somewhat one-sided view of the situation. It does not contradict my suggestion that younger people are choosing to have less sex. Nor does it disprove the theory that the availability of alternatives to in-person sex has made it less attractive.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#476

Post by mbg721 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #374
glazyrin wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of these points hit home - but why blame older people for your generation having less sex? Baby boomers didn't make casual sex illegal, nor have they bought up all the sex. Until covid, if young people wanted to have sex with each other they were perfectly free to. Isn't it simply that masturbation and pornography have become relatively more attractive propositions than they were in the past?

Baby boomers didn't have to spend hours in extra curricular activities in HS plus getting 5.0 QPAs to maybe get accepted into a good college so they can have a semi decent chance at a good living. My dad was able to go to a steel mill and make huge amounts of money plus overtime and insanely good benefits. Housing was extremely affordable. Very low debt from trade school. Women wanted to have kids and settle earlier.…

A degree from a state school in something reasonably marketable will still provide a decently comfy lifestyle in most of the US, and there are still plenty of single women who aren't spending all their time looking for someone a little bit snazzier on Tinder. Sure, it might not be quite as easy now, but I think the benefits of baby-boomerdom are a little exaggerated.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#477

Post by ALittleLight »

goodmattg wrote: post #356
ALittleLight wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only regulators would get rid of useless parasites and criminals like high frequency traders.

I can't tell if this is in jest... if you're actually interested, the role of HFT in markets is hotly debated. The HFT side argues that they improve markets by providing liquidity - and that's true to an extant, spreads have narrowed drastically over time. And yes, there is the opposite side arguing they are purely "parasites", and exchanges like LTSE have been built specifically to counter HFT (Flash Boys, etc.) Per…

The comment I'm replying to uses the word frontrunning to describe their activity. Frontrunning is a crime. Hardly a loose use of the word to describe the perpetrators of crime as criminals.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#478

Post by glazyrin »

kbenson wrote: post #474
glazyrin wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a truism which doesn't always apply. Suppose that there are 1,000 basement-dwelling redditors (okay, it's a caricature). Each has their basic needs taken care of, but not much money, and not much scope to improve their lot in life. What little money they have doesn't get invested, but spent frivolously. Suppose 1,000 such people could all put in $500 and give it to a randomly selected one of them. Tha…

This is just the flip side of why people support progressive taxes. If you believe that a flat tax is unfair because the people at the lower end of the spectrum have much less free money that isn't taken up by base needs, then it follows that different amounts of money affect people in different circumstances differently. To the person with 10 million dollars, doubling their wealth is nice for them but likely won't r…

I completely agree, with the precision that there can be huge difference between two people with a similar amount of money, if one has most of their needs take care of (ie 'broke' but not 'poor') and the other will suffer severe consequences of they run out of money.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#479

Post by ALittleLight »

thebean11 wrote: post #425
ALittleLight wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tagline for WSB is "It's like if you gave 4chan a Bloomberg terminal." Personally, I'm buying in the money puts expiring in 2023. No way Gamestop is doing better now, or has a better future now, than it did five or ten years, yet their stock's at an all time high? These hijinks may continue for some time, but I doubt it'll last years, price will settle and I'll hopefully make a modest profit.

Those puts have got to be expensive right? Even /r/wsb switched to shares because premiums were so high.

Yes. I suppose time will tell if it was a good bet or not.

Re: The Battle of GameStop

#480

Post by gruez »

glazyrin wrote: post #472
gruez wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If something returns poorly on average, but has high payouts at the top it might just work out. Your life won’t be the average case but single sample. This almost certainly results in a worse average outcome, because of diminishing returns on income. Winning a 10M jackpot won't bring you 10,000 times the happiness compared to finding $1000 on the ground.

I think this is a truism which doesn't always apply. Suppose that there are 1,000 basement-dwelling redditors (okay, it's a caricature). Each has their basic needs taken care of, but not much money, and not much scope to improve their lot in life. What little money they have doesn't get invested, but spent frivolously. Suppose 1,000 such people could all put in $500 and give it to a randomly selected one of them. Tha…

>What little money they have doesn't get invested, but spent frivolously.

The implication you're making here is that these people wouldn't mind losing $500/year, because it's otherwise being spent "frivolously". I don't think this is true because if you're spending it on something, you're getting joy out of it, otherwise you wouldn't be spending money on it in the first place. For reference, $500 can buy you a game console or several games, which can provide you with tens or hundreds of hours of entertainment.

If it's really the case that the $500/year is being spent frivolously (ie. being spent on things that don't bring joy), then the correct course of action would be some sort of intervention that forces them to save, so they receive a large enough lump sum that can be used productively. We sort of see this happen with tax refunds, where people are basically forced to save throughout most of the year, the IRS gives it back at the end of the year, and they spurge the refund on a big purchase.

>Doesn't it make sense that the utility curve is convex, not concave - that $500,000 is more than 1,000 times better than $500, when compared to $0?

What makes you think that? I think it's generally accepted that money has a diminishing returns on happiness. I guess if you go to the extremes there's some ranges where it doesn't apply (eg. it's hard to do anything fun with a $5 bill), but there's also nothing preventing you from saving up the money.

>After all, suppose that $500 was a year's spare income. Even saving for most of a lifetime would only yield $20-30,000, nothing like enough for many of the opportunities that half a million would make possible.

You're off by a factor of 2. Factoring in a 6% inflation adjusted return, you end up with a return of $77,380 if you do this for 40 years.

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