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Is everything falling apart?

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Re: Is everything falling apart?

#431

Post by bradlys »

User23 wrote: post #145
jimbob45 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wait for the market to cycle again - crash, boom, then crash, etc. Parent poster might have been in their 20s/30s though and implying that waiting for the next cycle would waste prime years of their life.

Or you hope that your boomer parents don't reverse mortgage the house to fund the Margarita-ville lifestyle at some compound in Florida. For many young people today inheriting a house is the only plausible way they're going to get one.

That’ll happen at far too late of an age for it to matter though. Parents aren’t dying at 60 when they had kids at 30. They’re dying at 80 and the kids will be 50+ when they finally get anything. By then - it’s far too late.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#433

Post by dv_dt »

karpierz wrote: post #267
TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

> Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. Pension funds inherently depend on increases in production. Population growth is one factor, but technological development can also increase production. > The other near-ponzi scheme is the real estate market. In my city of Toronto, average real estate prices have gone from 2x average income in 1972 to 16x average income today. Hello from a V…

Pension funds depend on increased in production, but are run on common management strategies locking them into broadly supporting large corporations - which actually run less efficiently overall in improving production than small to medium sized companies. Also imho, the public stock markets have decoupled from having a good effect on being able to promote good fundamental value creation behavior on public companies.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#434

Post by AviationAtom »

ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

I'd argue the cracks really formed in the Bush era, but began to rise during the Obama era, and skyrocketed in the Trump era (Though I am a Millennial, so perhaps that biases my recollection of timeline).

What's interesting is each reader of the above comment will take something different away from it, based upon their political alignment.

What is interesting is that society hangs on by a thinner thread than we imagine. Chaos lurks just beyond a corner. Preventing it is much easier when in union.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#435

Post by inglor_cz »

drugstorecowboy wrote: post #334
oicU00 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah no doubt; I collate trends into reports for rich investors. Lately they have been focused on youth trends, and some numbers are wacky. 40% point drop in 16 year olds getting a license since the 80s as urbanization puts people closer to stuff and ride share appeared. Youth participation in sports, especially full contact sports, had been going down since before covid which just accelerated it, leading to forec…

> “Essential workers” are pretty fucking pissed millions sat on their ass with no clue how to feed or care for themselves. They are not showing the same allegiance to shit jobs and moving on. They never had allegiance, they didn't leave shit jobs because of fear and the fact that moving between 2 minimum wage jobs likely wouldn't improve their circumstances. People are switching jobs because its an option now where i…

"Inefficiency/waste" and "slack" are very different things.

"Waste" is running an O(n^2) algorithm on a task that already has O(n logn) solutions suitable for the same dataset.

"Slack" is having 100 USD cash in your pocket even if you do not immediately plan to spend them.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#436

Post by notpachet »

trey-jones wrote: post #87
4ggr0 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the question shouldn't necessarily be who started the fire, but if it is a good idea to just let the fire burn, even though you weren't the one igniting it.

Yes, that is how I think about it. Billy Joel's generation didn't start the fire, but they also sure as hell didn't put it out. Don't get me wrong. Some people are carrying buckets of water towards the fire, but there are other people poking holes in the buckets, or shoving them so that they spill the water, or whatever other metaphor you would like to use here. And also some people standing around and telling the pe…

> whatever other metaphor you would like to use here

Selling NFT's of the buckets.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#437

Post by 11101010001100 »

TimPC wrote: post #211

I'd argue that the greater risk of things falling apart is economic rather than political. We've built our society on two near-ponzi schemes that are in danger of falling apart. The first is pension funds which are paid into by current workers to pay out for past workers. Pension funds inherently depend on population growth to avoid shortfalls. They rely on the fact that more people pay into them then take out from t…

Have you compared your parents return of their down payment if they had invested for the same duration in the stock market? I've seen a few cases where it all comes out in the wash...

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#438

Post by fullshark »

ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

Ultimately I think it's gonna be a good thing, as a lot of public naivety re: its institutions is destroyed and things will be rebuilt on a newly defined "social contract." The transition may take generations or a new threat comparable to global warfare for it to happen though.

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#439

Post by AutumnCurtain »

shadowgovt wrote: post #280
ravenstine wrote: post #111

Everything is not falling apart, though certain institutions may be falling apart. In America, there's definitely been a breakdown of belief in its own institutions. Far more people are skeptical of things like journalism and Silicon Valley; it really wasn't that long ago that the former was constantly salivating over the latter, but now it's more of an openly vulture-carrion relationship because that caters to publi…

One of the disadvantages to democracy that Thomas Paine actually highlighted in "Common Sense" is that when things are off the rails in a monarchy, the cause (and remedy) are obvious. In a democracy, far less so. When Americans elect bad leadership, they ultimately have nobody to blame but themselves, and that damages the public attitude; I suspect one of the reasons "stolen election" conspiracy theories are so popul…

>I suspect one of the reasons "stolen election" conspiracy theories are so popular right now is that the alternative is one must simply be skeptical of the good judgment of one's neighbors, and people don't want to live like that

I suspect it's because the major politicians of one of the two major parties overwhelmingly tell them it was. Trump says so, the Republicans who follow him say so, and the alternative is to acknowledge the guys you support are trying to overthrow the government, so it must be "true".

Re: Is everything falling apart?

#440

Post by sircastor »

taylodl wrote: post #8

The constant theme since the dawn of civilization threaded through all of history is that everything is falling apart. Change is continual. History is more like the seasons. Nations rise. Nations fall. Sometimes there's revolt. Sometimes there's peace. There's a continual game of King of the Mountain being played at all levels. So what can we say? Situation Normal - all effed up! Enjoy this phenomenon called life. Yo…

> Nations rise. Nations fall. Sometimes there's revolt.

I think the concern at hand (at least in the US) is that we’re on the eve of that fall or revolt, and whatever is born out of that, for good or ill, probably means a couple of really hard decades.

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