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GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

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Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#61

Post by hintymad »

BrianOnHN wrote: post #51
seibelj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have enough money you can move to a good public school district or pay for private school. If you are poor you must accept the monopoly school in your district - that is the rule. I myself enjoy having choices for myself and my children but that is a consequence of money. This is why I support school vouchers - let parents determine how to spend their money, and let schools compete for students.

Vouchers only tilt things in favor of private schools. The problem (US) is we've been steadily decreasing the relative cap on public school spending. If the spending wasn't so little, you'd probably be a lot more adamant about that voucher.

It's not just about money. The US spends way more on K12 than other countries per capita, yet I'm not sure if the spending really pays off. Let's take maths for example, how much do I really need to spend to be good at maths? Well, I need a good teacher, I need a few good books, I need lots of well designed problem sets. Do they really need a lot more investment than other countries? I doubt it.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#62

Post by [deleted] »

seibelj wrote: post #20
ABeeSea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest society wide actualized impacts of crypto have been: 1) Ransomware 2) Electricity usage 3) International reserve currency for bad actors such as North Korea, terrorist cells, and drug cartels. I don’t see any of these three as a positive; certainly not the greatest financial innovation of all time. I also don’t see other use cases having the size of these three. (Ignoring speculative investment as a use c…

I see the major benefit of bitcoin being that no government can stop it or seize it from me if properly stored. USD was used for crime well before bitcoin. The benefit of reducing the power of government and empowering individuals is vastly worth whatever electricity it costs. After all, if people want to use electricity to stream pornography, I don’t care. They are paying for it - and so are bitcoin enthusiasts.

[deleted]

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#63

Post by sudosysgen »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #48
sudosysgen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If more kids get into STEM, then eventually STEM salaries will regress to the norm. It's a non solution. Systematically, the average American will and must confront quite the bleak future.

Surely there must be some value in a more educated and capable population in and of itself?

Salaries are not determined by the value employees create on the downside. They are determined on the minimum by the minimum your employer can get away with paying you, which is a function of scarcity.

On the maximum, they are determined by value, in that your employer will never pay you more than the value you create (otherwise, why hire you?)

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#64

Post by nazgulnarsil »

yongjik wrote: post #52
1-6 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the Sampo generation wiki, 53.5% state that there's no money to save. Although I'm not an expert on these matters, what happened to packing your bags and moving out of Seoul or Gyeonggi-do to save some money? I think the motivation may not be there for some or social pressures keep people where they are in life. In Korea, you can easily raise kids if you're outside of Seoul/Gyeonggi. The teacher to student ratio i…

Not enough jobs. People do settle in smaller cities if there are jobs - the city of Ulsan has higher GDP per capita than Seoul, thanks to Hyundai Motors and other big plants, but it's not exactly easy to get one of these jobs. In the end, most people flock to the greater Seoul area because that's where most jobs are.

if your savings rate is lower then it isn't exactly a good job, though you may enjoy the amenities while you are there...though not if you are working too hard to have time for them.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#65

Post by nostrademons »

Clewza313 wrote: post #14

> Everyday I see a world where many in my generation have simply given up all hope for opportunity of a family, a house, a stable career and forced to confront an uncertain future in a world that is slowly boiling itself to death. South Korea and Japan are 10-20 years ahead of the same curve here. However, the result has been resignation and stagnation, not revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampo_generation h…

There's a pretty big difference between East Asian cultures and contemporary American culture, though. The former tend to be shame-based cultures: "I can't succeed, and this is because I am personally a failure." The latter tends to be an anger-based culture: "I can't succeed, and this is because the government / corporations / landlords / George Soros fucked me over."

Elsewhere in the world, this same generation also represents itself as ISIS and revolutionaries in Syria, cartels and gangs in Mexico & central America, and pirates in Somalia. As a developed nation, demographic realities reached America after they reached those countries. We'll see what form it takes here.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#66

Post by BrianOnHN »

hintymad wrote: post #61
BrianOnHN wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vouchers only tilt things in favor of private schools. The problem (US) is we've been steadily decreasing the relative cap on public school spending. If the spending wasn't so little, you'd probably be a lot more adamant about that voucher.

It's not just about money. The US spends way more on K12 than other countries per capita, yet I'm not sure if the spending really pays off. Let's take maths for example, how much do I really need to spend to be good at maths? Well, I need a good teacher, I need a few good books, I need lots of well designed problem sets. Do they really need a lot more investment than other countries? I doubt it.

> Let's take maths for example, how much do I really need to spend to be good at maths?

Where are you from?

Things cost more in the US. Look how much we spend on the military. The fact we can and should spend more on edu isn't even debatable.

What needs to be debated is how do we stop the squanderers?

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#67

Post by elihu »

> And so we see Gamestop story fall out of that. In a nutshell a bunch of retail investors (possibly with help from institutional insiders) decided to pump a small cap stock far beyond what the valuation of the company should be. The whole setup requires a significant number of people to buy and hold the asset at a price that makes no sense economically. And in doing so they have locked each other in a game of musical chairs in which they collectively have to pour more and more money into this unsustainable scheme in order to maintain the bubble.

I think this completely misses the point. This isn't just a plain pump-and-dump scheme. Before /r/wallstreetbets got involved, the price of GameStop was being artificially held low by over-zealous shorts. So some investors figured out the shorts were in an untenable position and called their bluff. The extreme high prices are as far as I can tell just part of the process of the stock price returning to a regular equilibrium, whatever that is. Blaming WSB for a valuation that wasn't based in reality is a bit silly when it wasn't based in reality to begin with. Without the shorts, the stock couldn't have spiked as high as it did.

And in the end, GameStop will survive a bit longer (or even thrive, if it can figure out a successful model), and the people it employs will continue to have jobs.

I stopped reading the article when it turned into a rant against Bitcoin. I mean fine, you can criticize Bitcoin if you want but there's more to it than just people investing in currency speculation. If you don't think Bitcoin has any legitimate uses you're just not paying attention.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#68

Post by mrslave »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #41
mrslave wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMO The real issue is a crap education system which gives neither opportunity, nor good advice The nihilism of YOLO has little to do with schooling. A broken education system is well after the fact of the economic and social reality constituting their environment. The young today have impossible economic hurdles: unaffordable shoebox apartments, high student debt, no incentive to save, no good jobs for modest tasks…

> no incentive to save I highly disagree with this. The S&P 500 has returned 400% since the crash in a mere 12 yrs. If doubling your money every 6 years does not sound excellent to you, the it's a financial education that is lacking, not real opportunity. > in-person communities are fractured by many different spoken languages I actually have found this really enjoyable, to have lots of opportunity to speak/learn Spa…

> The S&P 500 has returned 400% since the crash in a mere 12 yrs. If doubling your money every 6 years does not sound excellent to you, the it's a financial education that is lacking, not real opportunity.

This is rich in hindsight bias and selective reasoning. Picking returns since the minimum is intellectually dishonest. Also the inflation fueling this is also fueling the economic disillusionment of the YOLO Gamestop "investor."

The greater problem I have with your comments is you are focused only on potential high achievers, and seem to have little sympathy for the common man. We don't only need a nation of high achievers with the good education you advocate. We need a nation where the average (really median) person has a future to look forward to, and can achieve at least a modicum of accomplishment and self-respect, if not wealth and prosperity too. YOLO investors as per Gamestop are not the people you are discussing. They are very average people who have very little to look forward to.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#69

Post by mc32 »

Clewza313 wrote: post #14

> Everyday I see a world where many in my generation have simply given up all hope for opportunity of a family, a house, a stable career and forced to confront an uncertain future in a world that is slowly boiling itself to death. South Korea and Japan are 10-20 years ahead of the same curve here. However, the result has been resignation and stagnation, not revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampo_generation h…

I think comfort is something that affects people.

People in poor countries, the Philippines for example, have fewer opportunities, less ability to save, yet somehow form families, raise kids and look to a better tomorrow.

In rich countries people feel like they’re missing something if they’re not keeping up with the Joneses.

In the Philippines not many people are ashamed of second hand clothing. In Korea that’s just not something people would do.

It’s not pride but it’s also not the best way to deal with reality.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#70

Post by solosoyokaze »

cataphract wrote: post #45
solosoyokaze wrote: post #12

This could have an interesting point but it's lost in its anti-Bitcoin rhetoric. Bitcoin is like the lottery? It's up thousands of percent over the years. Many, many people have made real money and/or are sitting on massive gains. Regardless of if you think Bitcoin has actual utility (I think it does in spades), labeling it a "failure" means your argument is instantly ignored by every person who's up on their investm…

What the author says is: > [Bitcoin is] a naked speculative bubble based on a technology that doesn’t scale can’t and [won't] replace any existing financial service So that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, and provides no financial service of value. I don't think it's fully true, because Bitcoin facilitates underground transactions and is a practical asset in countries with high inflation and currency restrictions, but the…

Well one way to look at it is Bitcoin is up against USD because USD is suffering massive inflation. Thus, BTC is doing its job.
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