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There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

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Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#251

Post by lamontcg »

jayd16 wrote: post #95
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #78

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…

>Financial elites have been gambling for decades. They seem to be really upset that the plebs now can also do it. I really don't understand this sentiment, as if a professional gambler would not gladly gamble with novices...but putting that aside... I think the emphasis is more about how there's no other game in town that can compete, not that gambling is new. Interest rates are so low that there isn't a simple/safe…

The problem is that the economy is being driven by rent seeking behavior and cantillion effects. This is great for the elites, but at the same time they can see how the ground is starting to crumble. As "the plebs" start to gamble they're working to blame any future collapse on the irresponsibility of the crowd. Shrinking responsibility for the fact that this is the system that they have lobbied for and created and the plebs are behaving rationally irrational.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#252

Post by rideontime »

ArtWomb wrote: post #16

Skip this NYMag pablum. Read Dean Kissick's Downward Spiral: Popular Things (on NFTs and the pervasiveness of mundane art) instead. "We live in an algorithmically generated culture, and we are the algorithms" ;) https://www.spikeartmagazine.com/articles/downward-spiral-po...

I hope your dismissive tone doesn't cause people to skip the column you linked. I appreciate seeing a criticism of NFTs (and meme "art" in general) that isn't solely about environmental impact. "Post-death culture" is a term that's going to stick with me.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#253

Post by imtringued »

tim333 wrote: post #32
AlexandrB wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't something feel wrong about the post 2008 "boom"? Theoretically the economy is doing great but you have constant social upheaval, a generation where many are still living with their parents, and the need for constant central bank stimulus in the form of cheap credit. I sometimes wonder if we've managed to mask the real state of the economy by pumping the metrics to make it look like it's fine.

Things are kind of distorted from what would be fair. The near zero interest rates have lead to high property prices which has made owners rich and renters poor in a rather arbitrary manner. It's like the governments are trying to control a lot of variables with only a couple of levers.

A lot of the Fed problems are related to the fact that it doesn't have direct control over the economy and the help (fiscal stimulus) that is most needed can only be done by the US government.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#254

Post by pbourke »

lazerpants wrote: post #229
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No real damage (except to those holding it) unless enough people have bought crypto with borrowed money. That's where it can cause damage to the overall economy.

The Wealth Effect is a real consideration here. During 2007 people cut their spending considerable because their houses went down in value, even if they were not, at that time, trying to sell their home. You would see the wealth effect work similarly if cypto assets were devalued. As an example, I have 5-20k in crypto assets on any given day. My wife and I are also shopping for a new couch. If my crypto assets evapor…

60% of Americans (roughly) own real estate. It’s by far their largest asset. What proportion of Americans own crypto and how much of their net worth does it comprise? That would show you how significant the wealth effect would be.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#255

Post by imtringued »

api wrote: post #46
sauwan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many economists argue that the 2008 stimulus didn't do enough, and that where it did provide stimulus it was applied at the wrong places (towards the top rather than the bottom). That's why we're seeing this response to the current situation.

If you are going to do stimulus, the way we are doing it now is better. Even better still would be to drop money from helicopters. There's an argument to be made that we have done too much over the past ~10 years and are risking significant inflation, but that's a separate argument and it's hard to say what else we could have done that would have been better. Inflationary blowoff is usually less painful than deflatio…

I agree, ineffective policies just cause unintended consequences. If the Fed or us government had done its job we wouldn't have to print so much money in the first place.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#256

Post by lazerpants »

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.

That is incorrect. GDP is typically calculated using an expenditure approach. Just transferring 185MM would not impact GDP.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#257

Post by imtringued »

tim333 wrote: post #56
quickthrowman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to look at velocity of money in conjunction with the money supply to get the true picture: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V The tweet you linked leaves out half the story, which is that money velocity is down greatly, thus the increase in money supply hasn’t caused rapid inflation. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/wha...

Yeah though what happens when people go out again?

Hopefully people spend their money and corporations invest their money to meet the demand.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#258

Post by pbourke »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #189
mytherin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What will happen is 2% of the world's "wealth" would disappear - which would almost certainly spill over causing a much larger decline. From 2007 to 2008, for example, global wealth declined about ~10% [1]. There's not much room left for central banks before we officially enter banana town. If cyrpto implodes, it could easily be worse than the financial crisis - which means, regulators have an interest in it NOT impl…

In no way, shape or form would a crypto implosion be anywhere near the financial crisis in impact. It’s just not systemically important. It’s essentially “phantom wealth” not underpinned by any economic reality - even more unglued from reality than esoteric derivatives.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#259

Post by Aunche »

ksdale wrote: post #238
Aunche wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If workers are putting 25% of their paychecks in an index fund and retire a few years earlier, instead of paying off their too-expensive car loan or something, it will be bad for the current financial elite. Nobody is complaining about people placing their paychecks in index funds though. Index funds are a reasonably good proxy for the future health of the economy, so your gains from it will likely represent real g…

Index funds go up because more people want to buy them than sell them, cryptocurrencies go up because more people want to buy them than sell them. Index funds happen to represent ownership of productive assets, but the assets don't really care who owns them, your investment in an index fund doesn't increase the number of productive assets in the world, likewise with cryptocurrency.

> your investment in an index fund doesn't increase the number of productive assets in the world

Eventually, some rich people will notice that they aren't getting as much money from buybacks and dividends as they used to and will place their money elsewhere. It would be relatively more attractive to invest in developing countries or buy PR in the form of charity.

Re: There’s Nothing to Do Except Gamble

#260

Post by imtringued »

tekromancr wrote: post #120
paulpauper wrote: post #9

How many people are actually getting rich with NFTs besides people who who are already celebrities/famous? Not many. The market is flooded now with NTFs. The overwhelming majority of listings do not sell or sell for little. A better way to make money is with 3x ETFs using options strategies, which I am working on. The performance of some of the major 3x funds such as TECL, FNGU, and TQQQ surpass even Bitcoin

Ah, 3x ETFs. For the sophisticated degenerate.

They work just fine, until they don't.
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