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Experts from a world that no longer exists

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Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#201

Post by WalterBright »

nly wrote: post #123
pezzana wrote: post #116

> “Don’t buy stocks when the P/E ratio is over 20” was a good lesson to learn from the 1970s when interest rates were 7%, the Fed hadn’t yet learned what it’s capable of, and most businesses were cyclical manufacturing companies vs. asset-light digital services. Is it relevant today? At a broad, philosophical level, yes. In practical terms, probably not. In the same sense, buying stocks at all seemed like nothing but…

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

> from age 18 to age 55, when he retired

Pension plans that start paying out for life at age 55 are fiscally infeasible

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#202

Post by roenxi »

nly wrote: post #123
pezzana wrote: post #116

> “Don’t buy stocks when the P/E ratio is over 20” was a good lesson to learn from the 1970s when interest rates were 7%, the Fed hadn’t yet learned what it’s capable of, and most businesses were cyclical manufacturing companies vs. asset-light digital services. Is it relevant today? At a broad, philosophical level, yes. In practical terms, probably not. In the same sense, buying stocks at all seemed like nothing but…

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

The problem with the current situation is if the stock market gets too divorced from reality, it won't matter if the stock price is high or not. There will be physical shortages of goods. The stock market is supposed to represent capital formation where people set up systems to produce stuff in the future. If the stock market gets too broken, those systems won't be in place and stuff won't be produced.

As a tangential aside it is fun to imagine how an animal perceives shopping - humans walk in to a shop, picks up some stuff, and walk out. It seems very communal. Some humans get in trouble when they pick things up and walk out but it isn't obvious why. They get called thieves. The humans know a bit more than that - the trick is a complex system of bookkeeping, represented by money, to track who is entitled to how much of what. The bookkeeping only matters if people trust that it accurately represents entitlement. If the trust is lost there is hell to pay.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#203

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

varelse wrote: post #84

When someone today complains that solar power is still too expensive, or that cell phones and flat screen TVs in the hands of poor people proves they aren't really poor, they immediately flip my Bozo bit. To be fair people who hate nuclear power have always flipped my Bozo bit although they might have done the job delaying its adoption long enough for solar power to become cheaper by now.

> or that cell phones and flat screen TVs in the hands of poor people proves they aren't really poor

I have been to a social services building, many times, that also has a homeless shelter.

I often see shelter residents hanging outside.

They almost all have cellphones.

They are probably bottom-tier Android devices (all the phones I saw looked like smartphones).

Instead of making me think that “the homeless are coddled,” it reinforces my opinion that smartphones have become a basic human requirement.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#204

Post by anm89 »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #195
anm89 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't MMT just tell us that we should focus on inflation instead of The Deficit? While this is roughly aligned with some of MMTs talking points, I don't think you can reduce MMT to just this. At a minimum these talking points have some other implications like: 1) Our current congress is capable of reigning in spending - I strongly disagree that there is any political will power to do this regardless of inflation.…

In response to your first point, I'd counter that Gen X through Gen Z are generally in favor of both decreasing defense spending and taxing the snot out of the ultra-wealthy - the only reason we haven't done it yet is because the silent generation has only just passed the baton to the baby boomers, who are now running the show. Your second point is a very good one, and has given me something to think about. Appreciat…

Seriously think about that point with discretionary spending though. Even if Gen Zers took 100% control tomorrow and eliminated every penny of US spending that law makers are allowed to eliminate, we would still run a deficit. That's a game changer in my mind.

And because the entitlement pay as you gos are inflation adjusted you can't just inflate that problem away.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#205

Post by epa »

The idea of pets.com vs chewy is a function of bias due to failed events is a bit stretched. The real reason is consumers trust and access to online payments. In 2000 very few were online shopping because the experience was clunky and unsafe. Mobile and fraud protection changed the game.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#206

Post by steve76 »

>Not a day goes by that I don’t become more confident that the secret to business and investing is identifying the few things that never change and hold onto them for dear life, and identifying what evolves and be ready to adapt those views quickly.

So that's all it takes. God you're spoiled. Talk to me when you've been on a ventilator.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#207

Post by jkhdigital »

fragmede wrote: post #175
redisman wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how a pensions would work in tech. 95% of the companies won’t exist by the end of your career so who pays for the pensions?

If only there were some sort of entity "above" corporations that governed, in some sort of way. They could provide security for society. Nope, that could never work.

Government is not a magic box that just solves problems. It is full of people who are just as flawed and selfish and short-sighted as those running corporations. Look no further than the gaping fiscal hole that is Social Security for evidence of government’s ability to “provide security for society”.

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#208

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

jjoonathan wrote: post #199
epicureanideal wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Which seems a bit convenient for the wealthy. I think it was intentional, to align the interests of pensioners with the wealthy. It seems to me that pensions are one thing governments can do a good job at, because companies may fail but the government is much less likely to be unable to pay retirement benefits. They may…

Right. Strategy 1 was "offer retirement plans and default on them," strategy 2 is "let them buy assets, dilute them with printed money." I also agree that when the middle class erodes to the point that asset ownership falls below 50% is when things get, uhh, interesting.

A lot of people think this - but most of Europe has been like this for a while. Why will it be so interesting when it happens in the US?

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#209

Post by jkhdigital »

jprd wrote: post #196
aembleton wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock market. You get a private pension.

Yep. If you pay very close attention, research, move things when necessary, etc. That's either a cool hobby or a second job. Here's the thing, most humans find it less than scintillating to devolve ALL their activities to some sort of spreadsheet or algo optimization. World of Warcraft is fun for most until the end-game where discovery and imagination is ripped away and all that is left is actuarial tables and dice r…

> World of Warcraft is fun for most until the end-game where discovery and imagination is ripped away and all that is left is actuarial tables and dice rolls.

Going to add this to my quote rolodex, thanks

Re: Experts from a world that no longer exists

#210

Post by mlac »

trenning wrote: post #152
nly wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're all now dependent on stock market performance to make retirement feasible. Employer guaranteed defined-benefit pension schemes are dead. My uncles pension scheme was structured to pay out 1.5% of his final salary, inflation adjusted for the rest of his life, for each year he'd worked. He worked at one company his whole career, from age 18 to age 55, when he retired. Factoring in his mortgage, whi…

Adding on to your first paragraph about dependency on stock market performance for retirement. 401ks that my generation is used to are a concept only ~36years old, even at that most companies didn't start offering them until the 90s. It's a very young tool that we're only just now seeing play out for people reaching retirement age that missed the ubiquitous pension era. And roth IRA was introduced in 1997. No comment…

I do wonder if it will be durable… or they will just change it to something else in 30 years (when I can touch the money).
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