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There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

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Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#71

Post by real-dino »

GME is actually quite a solid gamble, and could lead to what people are referring to as the MOASS.

https://iamnotafinancialadvisor.com/DD/GME/og/GMEv14.pdf

It hasn't alreadys been like this, but everything has been turned into overdrive. Where people were talking about 10% returns on investments, people are getting 1000% returns on investment.

There is some bubble going on at the moment with the repo-market, hyper inflatation and what is being coined 'the everything short', but it's all too crazy to talk about seriously. Money has always been valuable, but will becoming a millionaire in a years time be the same as it is now? It's literally a field in a database, and a sheet of paper from the future could get you there! The stock market and crypto is so similar to gambling too it really pushes those triggers in the brain.

Buy and HOLD does run counter to this though, but still, we are all still dreaming of benefiting from the chaos.

I've been full on GME for a while now, and back in January, the shorts did not cover. Not even by a long shot.

Ask me anything about GME and I will try to answer, but it does feel like some kind of echo chamber at the moment, even though I am participating, but then again everything is so crazy at the moment regardless, it might just be true.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#72

Post by whateveracct »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #69
diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

Did Visa create no value in society with plastic payment cards? If crypto is valueless, payment processors are valueless too. It's unfortunate that Visa gets a 2% tax on the economy, but the convenience of plastic or a public/private keypair unlocks more economic growth compared to a world with only paper cash.

Visa has a more compelling and proven value proposition than crypto

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#73

Post by ac29 »

jp555 wrote: post #4

Zero mention of the recent unprecedented fiat currency printing we've seen, nor the fact that every time since the Tang Dynasty when we have done this, it has led to very troubling times 12-18 months later. Everyone is gambling even if they dont know Crypto exists.

The US printed and spent tons of money during World War 2, and the postwar period was one of, if not the largest economic expansions in its modern history.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#74

Post by wcfields »

newsclues wrote: post #20
jfengel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, no, I haven't. My groceries are the same. My electric bill is stable. The watch I'm replacing today is the same price today as ten years ago when I got its predecessor. I don't know if it's because I buy different things from you, or if I live in a different place from you, or what. But my andecdote is that no, I'm not paying more for stuff than a year ago.

Odd that some people don’t notice things like this... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation Do you actually track spending or just don’t notice?

I just saw this in real-time this past month with cat food.

A 24pk of Rx Renal cat food went from 5.8oz to 5.1oz[1]. I buy two packs at a time and what used to cost $113.76 is now $114.72 Effectively they're charging me an extra buck to keep 33.6oz (5.7 old-cans / 6.5 new-cans) of cat food from me.

[1] https://www.chewy.com/royal-canin-veterinary-diet-renal/dp/2...

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#75

Post by thinkingkong »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #69
diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

Did Visa create no value in society with plastic payment cards? If crypto is valueless, payment processors are valueless too. It's unfortunate that Visa gets a 2% tax on the economy, but the convenience of plastic or a public/private keypair unlocks more economic growth compared to a world with only paper cash.

Yes. If you read up on the history of the credit card industry they solved the incredibly huge problem of small businesses extending loans to individuals.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#76

Post by Mizza »

diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

> as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world.

I guess this is the thing that people are having a hard time coming to terms with - we no longer live in the real world.

All of these surveillance-advertising tech giants, all of these financial instruments, all of these media-induced bad feelings and ideological trends, everything that defines our contemporary era - none if it is real.

If it all simply stopped, wiped out from a solar flare - for most of us here, nothing "real" would change. We'd all sit for a moment looking at dead black rectangles, then we'd have to go and find something else to do. My bet is that we'd all be happier for it.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#77

Post by jasode »

XorNot wrote: post #66
Mattasher wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your last statement, but I think you are mixing cause and effect. Crypto is exploding because our system is already corroded. Starting with the creation of the Fed, and tracing through endless money printing and complex financial instruments which let well-connected companies and politicians create paper wealth out of nothing, we've decoupled money from value. Savings pay no interest, manual labor doesn'…

Crypto is exploding because people are looking to get rich via speculation, that's it. There's a wealth of uninformed investors and they're all hearing stories about crypto millionaires and how much it went up and FOMO narratives about it. People haven't been transacting in crypto basically at all - it's not even a blip in the popular discussion about it, except as a flimsy justification for why its value is not tuli…

>Crypto is exploding because people are looking to get rich via speculation, that's it.

No, that isn't just it. Like other assets, there can be multiple narratives that explain cryptocurrencies rising prices.

Yes, pure speculation is one of them. But another reason for some is deliberately shifting wealth from an asset ($USD, euro, bolivar, etc) they believe is deteriorating.

E.g. a multi-billionaire like Ray Dalio is already rich. He's the one saying "cash is trash" because he like many others see the M2 money supply growing very rapidly which erodes future purchasing power. (The "cash is trash" also means not holding US Treasury government bonds because of inflation.)

Yes, the Fed + US Govt can have all sorts of rationale to justify $2 trillion stimulus checks and printing billions to buy corporate bonds (Home Depot bonds), bail out banks, etc ... but economic actors can also counteract the money supply expansion by taking steps to retain future purchasing power. E.g. Shift wealth into real estate, tech stocks, gold, bitcoin, etc.

That fact that nobody uses bitcoin to pay for Starbucks coffee is irrelevant to the wealth holders looking for alternatives away from $USD liquid assets as long term holdings.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#78

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it.

When brokers did it it was OK, when algorithms did it in milliseconds (when common people can only operate with delays of hours and days, and with deterrent fees) it was OK, but now that there are platforms that allow more or less anyone to speculate, we start publishing moralistic pieces in the media and calling it "gambling"?

Yeah, I'm sure people are going to listen... next time they want to promote values based on work and effort, maybe they should try not to create a system where workers are punished and gamblers are rewarded.

PS: I don't even speculate myself, at most I buy and hold, but I'm disgusted by the level of hypocrisy of those who suddenly started saying that speculating was bad when common people started doing it. It almost makes me want to speculate just to do the opposite of what they say.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#79

Post by c22 »

i_haz_rabies wrote: post #47
diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

What skills can you guarantee (or at least say with high confidence) will be valuable in 20 years? I can't really think of any except maybe "soft skills" and whatever skills allow you to build a large network.

Welding?

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#80

Post by vsareto »

i_haz_rabies wrote: post #47
diamondhandle wrote: post #26

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary…

What skills can you guarantee (or at least say with high confidence) will be valuable in 20 years? I can't really think of any except maybe "soft skills" and whatever skills allow you to build a large network.

Skills around software and IT - not just developers. There might be a lot of churn within that industry, but if you can solve problems in those industries industry with any tools, you're going to be valuable. It might take longer to find a job depending on the current times and your own retraining speed, but it will be there in some form. Nothing is likely going to make all software and IT workers obsolete like automation does to factory workers.

My evidence is that we still have a lot of legacy and technical debt around, and it's likely to still be there in 20 years, so even if you don't work on the cutting edge (which may now have stratospheric requirements for entry like a PhD and Github projects and 8 rounds of interviews), you can still take legacy work.

Security and defense (physical and IT/software) will also likely be around forever.

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