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There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

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Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#131

Post by Ekaros »

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.

2% is entirely up to local regulation. EU has capped it to 0.2% or 0.3%. Which I would guess that cash doesn't do too much better.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#132

Post by nickthemagicman »

hpoe wrote: post #110
ac29 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see this argument come up a lot, I'd like to point out 2 points. 1) Wealth wasn't created during WW2, almost all of the increased production went to things like bombs and tanks and bullets, these things don't provide a real increase in quality of life this is one of the main points in 1984, people need to be kept busy, but Quality of Life can't increase. 2) The postwar boom was largely a result of everyone except A…

This is a great point. Not to mention the world owed the US a bunch of money due to the Lend Lease Act.

https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/october-23/#:~:tex....

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#133

Post by jfengel »

newsclues wrote: post #61
jfengel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A gallon of milk is still a gallon of milk. A pound of carrots is still a pound of carrots. It sounds as if your basket of goods is different from mine. Most of the examples on that Wikipedia page are sugary foods, which I just don't buy a lot of.

I used to buy 3lbs of carrots, but now the bags are 2lbs but cost the same.

Here, two pounds of carrots are $1.79, just as they have been for as long as I can remember. I don't have a spreadsheet, but I know what carrots cost. They certainly haven't shot up by 50%.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#134

Post by [deleted] »

TRcontrarian wrote: post #15

Is it better to live in a world where the future is unknown, and the best we can do is guess where value will be, or one where the future is known, and the prices of all investments are stable and already priced at their exact values? In which world is optimism and class mobility possible?

[deleted]

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#135

Post by Ekaros »

mytherin wrote: post #119
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2% of the world's wealth is tied up in crypto (and it's growing quickly). If it does implode, that'll make The Great Financial Crisis look like blip. At this point, I can't imagine financial regulators doing anything to stop it.

What will actually happen if the crypto coins collapse in price? What tangible effects will there be? Very few people's salaries are paid in crypto, crypto isn't backing people's mortgages, and outside of the rare (and newsworthy) cases, people are not investing extreme amounts of money into crypto that they cannot possibly afford to lose. I have a hard time imagining what actual tangible disasters will happen if cry…

Is there even any significant amount of debt backed by crypto? As otherwise it is just money that some have spend and others have gained... Ofc, there are some energy producers that will be hit and some manufacturers. But I wouldn't be too worried about later, they should be able to pivot to other chips in current market.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#136

Post by dehrmann »

LargeWu wrote: post #103
whatgoodisaroad wrote: post #68

Weird how finance suddenly becomes "gambling" when a bunch of regular people join the table.

If you think about the difference between "investing" and "speculating" (ie. gambling), the latter involves no actual value creation, just transfer of assets based on outcomes the speculating party has no influence over. Crypto, meme stocks, penny stocks...just pure speculation. To be fair, hedge funds and HFT are also mostly speculation, just a more sophisticated version.

HFT is usually arbitrage, almost the opposite of speculation.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#137

Post by wallacoloo »

LargeWu wrote: post #103
whatgoodisaroad wrote: post #68

Weird how finance suddenly becomes "gambling" when a bunch of regular people join the table.

If you think about the difference between "investing" and "speculating" (ie. gambling), the latter involves no actual value creation, just transfer of assets based on outcomes the speculating party has no influence over. Crypto, meme stocks, penny stocks...just pure speculation. To be fair, hedge funds and HFT are also mostly speculation, just a more sophisticated version.

Do I create value when I loan another person some asset? What about when I act as a currency exchange, and offer at any moment in time to take either side of any trade along with a 0.3% fee?

These are two things I do on Ethereum right now which have analogs in the traditional finance system. Seems to me it matters little whether the activity is done in a traditional space or in cryptoland: they either both create value or neither creates value.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#138

Post by paulpauper »

rchaud wrote: post #59
roenxi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add to that the collapse in wage growth and the conspicuous difference in the rate of improvement in Asia vs in America. The World Bank says [0] the US GDP per capita has more than doubled since 1996. In real terms. Computers have been a big boost, but it seems a tough sell that the US population has actually seen a real doubling in that time. That is saying a dude with a house in 1996 is a dude with 2 houses now. Is…

> Is that arguably true? Where is the stuff? First off, the chart shows GDP per capita at current prices, meaning it's not adjusted for inflation. GDP per capita is a very rough proxy for economic well-being. Adam Neumann of WeWork 'earned' $185 million for getting fired. So in essence, he raised GDP per capita by about $0.50.

someone needs to do a blog post or write up explaining how in sane world this is rational or justified, but in a serious manner . That is unheard of anywhere else in the world where people get paid so much after they fuckk up.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#139

Post by DC1350 »

vsareto wrote: post #80
i_haz_rabies wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 autom…

I’d love to believe this, but dev and IT people are not paid exceptionally well in most of the world. That says to me that the high salaries are a consequence of social structures and the current economy, not that the skills are super valuable. It’s proximity to money that actually matters.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#140

Post by Ekaros »

c22 wrote: post #79
i_haz_rabies wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Welding is probably bit multi-modal. Traditional stuff isn't likely going away, but already there is already advanced robots for the job. Though it's unlikely they will be entirely AI controlled.
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