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GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

stephendiehl.com

101–110 of 197 posts

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#101
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP said Bitcoin is like the lottery. It’s on him to explain that. The lottery has not returned value to almost every person who bought a ticket in the past decade, Bitcoin has. It’s a false and inept analogy.

I think the overwhelming majority of people who bought Bitcoin have paper gains only, not realised value.

Hardly what you'd call a "failure".

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#102
post #97

"Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short." I find it funny how first-worlders are horrified by the idea that they might have to live in mild discomfort. Maybe try looking at how most of the world that isn't the US and Western Europe lives before saying people's lives will be "nasty, brutish and short" because they won't be wo…

Is this sarcasm?

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#103
post #52
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.

The major reason my small ruralish home town has a brain/talent/youth drain is the lack of high quality jobs. I'm pushing to move to my partners small ruralish town now that we can work remote but her fear is the lack of like minded friends.

It's sad because it is much more enjoyable and realistic to live, raise a family, and buy a home in these types of areas as compared to a city.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could already own land, houses, cattle, ownership shares in companies that produce useful goods other humans want, all things the government doesn't control. If the concern is the government could potentially seize control of those things, sure, but a sufficiently malicious government can seize control of you and no amount of magic numbers on a USB stick is going to stop them.

I predict his reply will be that your property rights to land, cattle, homes, and common equity are protected by governments.

Ding ding ding!

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#105
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…

> If someone wants to smoke weed all day and do nothing, that sucks. But if they're high achieving and want to relax _after_ killing it, who are we to tell them no?

Why does it suck? If people want to self-medicate, why judge them? A society where everyone must be “high achieving” sounds like a dystopia. We’re practically already post-scarcity on a lot of goods and automation is going to further eliminate the need for workers.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#106
post #38

> 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. This completely ignores the fact that the stock was shorted over 100% of float, and people knew it was going to squeeze so they bought in hoping to ride the wave. And that did in fact happen…

Strong agree. This is a lazy polemic. Take, for instance, this one amazing part: > Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Andersen Horrowitz those guys are making transaction fees "Andersen Horrowitz"? Does the author have any idea who he is criticizing or what industry they're in? > Failing microcap stock GME is not a microcap stock, and it was not a microcap stock, even before this entire saga > I make no pretense that I don’t de…

>> I make no pretense that I don’t despise the bitcoin philosophy

> Erroneous double negative here, does he even proofread his own work?

Do you? The double negative stands.

He has previously written extensively on his dislike of Bitcoin. Far from lazily.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#107

> 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…

South Korea at least is a pretty special case. They were one of the poorest countries in the world as recently as the 70s, so there's no real sense of "older generations had it better" to get outraged about.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#108

> 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…

You need the right policies in place to direct resources accordingly; Freedom Dividend/UBI, Democracy Dollars, Journalist Dollars, Ranked Choice Voting or similar, etc.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#109
post #97

"Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short." I find it funny how first-worlders are horrified by the idea that they might have to live in mild discomfort. Maybe try looking at how most of the world that isn't the US and Western Europe lives before saying people's lives will be "nasty, brutish and short" because they won't be wo…

Is this sarcasm?

No, not really. More of a statement on how out of touch with reality it seems first world inhabitants are, to the point where they think not having a guaranteed well-paying job or not being as rich as their parents is comparable to the kind of life Hobbes was thinking of when he coined that idiom.

Re: GameStop, Bitcoin and the Commoditization of Populist Rage

#110
post #97

"Let’s state the uncomfortable truth. The future for many Americans is bleak and their lives are going to be nasty, brutish and short." I find it funny how first-worlders are horrified by the idea that they might have to live in mild discomfort. Maybe try looking at how most of the world that isn't the US and Western Europe lives before saying people's lives will be "nasty, brutish and short" because they won't be wo…

I have a somewhat modified view, in that articles like this (and ones regarding income inequality) need to be specific in exactly what they mean by comments like "nasty, brutish, and short", or inequal wealth distribution.

Do they mean decreases in life expectancy? Student debt? Homeownership? Disease prevalence? Violent crime?

It's continually stated as an axiom, but poor writing such as that really weakens their argument.

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