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Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

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21–30 of 45 posts

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We used to buy things that had physical value, now we just buy memes. Money doesn't really have physical value, only speculative (you want it because you trust that someone else will want it in the future). Shares in public companies don't really have physical value unless you own enough to change the management. Sure you 'own' that fraction of the company and their assets, but the managers of the company don't eve…

By taking things to their extreme you end up grouping things together that in practice behaves very differently, that's not really a practical approach. Disagree with too many points to list but in general the asset list is more like "things that generate money" (shares/farms/rent), speculative assets. Then you added a more meta category that's not about assets.

I think maybe our disagreement is based on us talking about different categories. The category I'm looking at is not 'things that generate money', and I'm not taking things to an extreme here.

I'm much more talking about things that have value only because people think they have value. That's mimetic value. These things are valuable because the meme of them being valuable has infected society.

Like money, or art, or education (except in narrow practical fields) or entertainment or a notional (but rarely practical) ownership claim on a company, or intellectual property,

None of those things would have any value at all if people didn't think of them as valuable, or treat them as valuable, or respect them.

Notably, a farm does not fall into this category. It is a physical asset that produces other physical assets; that's utility value, not mimetic value. You can eat its output for food or burn it for energy.

The more meta stuff is about how even physical and utility value assets are often partially acquired based on mimetic elements. So people pay more for a car that makes them feel like an international spy than they do for a car that gets them from A to B, so the meme of feeling like an international spy has increased the value of the simple physical asset.

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We used to buy things that had physical value, now we just buy memes. Money doesn't really have physical value, only speculative (you want it because you trust that someone else will want it in the future). Shares in public companies don't really have physical value unless you own enough to change the management. Sure you 'own' that fraction of the company and their assets, but the managers of the company don't eve…

I'm with you on physical value being a bad concept, but I still have to push back a bit >Money doesn't really have physical value, only speculative (you want it because you trust that someone else will want it in the future). And because you need it to pay your taxes in it >Shares in public companies don't really have physical value unless you own enough to change the management. Sure you 'own' that fraction of the c…

Is requiring life insurance something that is common for buying a house? As someone who just bought a house I was never asked if I have life insurance.

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#23

I feel literally like Abe Simpson "I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn’t 'it' anymore and what's 'it' seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!" We used to buy things that had physical value, now we just buy memes.

I feel like this has just been a casino built with entertainment and memes from the last 10 years. No one wants the old school casino experience of smoke-filled rooms, classic table games, and shows any more. We just want to buy random tokens with questionable value, see a Shiba Inu dog show, and walk past a bunch of TV walls with Twitch streamers talking about how they got rich with some new coin on the way to buy legal weed.

The whole movement is really good at making you feel dumb for following safe and conservative career advice like "do something practical, save your money, and retire eventually (maybe)". Why sit through yet another technical interview when you could just buy the right stock/cryptocoin?

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We used to buy things that had physical value, now we just buy memes. Money doesn't really have physical value, only speculative (you want it because you trust that someone else will want it in the future). Shares in public companies don't really have physical value unless you own enough to change the management. Sure you 'own' that fraction of the company and their assets, but the managers of the company don't eve…

I'm with you on physical value being a bad concept, but I still have to push back a bit >Money doesn't really have physical value, only speculative (you want it because you trust that someone else will want it in the future). And because you need it to pay your taxes in it >Shares in public companies don't really have physical value unless you own enough to change the management. Sure you 'own' that fraction of the c…

> since private property is also only legally a thing

This is a particularly interesting thing to point out in this context - property ownership is a meme itself.

> Things have value because we need them (inelastic part of the supply-demand curve), things have a price because we want them (elastic part of the supply-demand curve).

Incidentally while it's an interesting distinction, I don't agree with your comment on need/value want/price. I value lots of things I don't need. Humans are creatures that value things, things that are valued are valuable.

> Only if you don't understand probabilities and risk management.

Yeah, you're probably right on that. I could maybe try to claim that probabilities and risk management are memes themselves...

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#26

Tangent: as a Money Stuff fan, one minor gripe I have is that Matt often links back to previous newsletters (as in the first link here), but to find what he's referring to you have to trawl through the entire day's items. One simple fix would be adding ids to the heading ( ) tags and linking to those. Not sure how much work it would be to tweak this in their CMS but it would add a lot of value.

You should email him - his email address is at the bottom of every article.

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#27

I feel literally like Abe Simpson "I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn’t 'it' anymore and what's 'it' seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!" We used to buy things that had physical value, now we just buy memes.

We’re one big crash away from a return to value investing. This is fun while it lasts though.

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By taking things to their extreme you end up grouping things together that in practice behaves very differently, that's not really a practical approach. Disagree with too many points to list but in general the asset list is more like "things that generate money" (shares/farms/rent), speculative assets. Then you added a more meta category that's not about assets.

I think maybe our disagreement is based on us talking about different categories. The category I'm looking at is not 'things that generate money', and I'm not taking things to an extreme here. I'm much more talking about things that have value only because people think they have value. That's mimetic value. These things are valuable because the meme of them being valuable has infected society. Like money, or art, or…

Well it was when you included shares into that category I got triggered I suppose. Although we're at an extreme point in time right now speculation wise the fundamentals still hold true that shares represent a way to partake in the revenue of a company (much like a farm which is why I included it). A company where dividends is an important part of the valuation will be valued differently if they stop paying dividends, that there's a delay is just a technical detail.

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#29
post #23

I feel literally like Abe Simpson "I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn’t 'it' anymore and what's 'it' seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!" We used to buy things that had physical value, now we just buy memes.

I feel like this has just been a casino built with entertainment and memes from the last 10 years. No one wants the old school casino experience of smoke-filled rooms, classic table games, and shows any more. We just want to buy random tokens with questionable value, see a Shiba Inu dog show, and walk past a bunch of TV walls with Twitch streamers talking about how they got rich with some new coin on the way to buy l…

It reminds me a lot of Terror Management Theory. Sure, there are apex predators who are knowingly scamming and defrauding people, but how do I describe a coworker who is enthusiastic about the $1000 of Bitcoin he has?

Even a cursory, technically-minded dig in the garden shows that there's nothing at the center. Smart contracts require oracles. NFTs are addresses that depend on an external interface to make any sense of them. Blockchains are expensive public immutable databases...

I tend to filter a lot of these crowd behaviors through the lens of Terror Management Theory. In this case, convincing others that crypto has some true value might not only benefit investors financially, but also reinforce their identity as part of some important movement.

I think it's been a tragic waste of economic resources and brain power. Talk about "the smartest people of my generation spend their time figuring out how to make me click ads." If all of this energy had been pointed in the direction of innovating against the direct problem of abundance vs scarcity, it would have avoided becoming a joke. Otherwise, it's just a mimicry of the economic patterns that have dominated the West since its inception, and thus, not revolutionary in the least bit.

Re: Doing Fraud on Securities Fraud

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on physical value being a bad concept, but I still have to push back a bit >Money doesn't really have physical value, only speculative (you want it because you trust that someone else will want it in the future). And because you need it to pay your taxes in it >Shares in public companies don't really have physical value unless you own enough to change the management. Sure you 'own' that fraction of the c…

Is requiring life insurance something that is common for buying a house? As someone who just bought a house I was never asked if I have life insurance.

I'm from Ireland, and it was required for me to get a mortgage in order to buy an apartment.

It's basically mortgage protection insurance - This is a particular type of life assurance taken out for the term of the mortgage and designed to pay it off on the death of the borrower or joint borrower

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/owning_a_home/...

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