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Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

reuters.com

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Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#21

Post by fleitz »

potatolicious wrote: post #18
fleitz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to take massive downvotes on this but... You can't preach to people like that, they're fully rational and immune to patriotic emotional dulce et decorum est bullshit. They don't care that their going to hell for their actions because they know hell doesn't exist. The world isn't some retarded star wars black and white fantasy, it's black and black pretending to be white. Stop naming shadows in platos cave a…

I don't care that I'm going to hell, because I know hell doesn't exist. Indeed, no matter how pious I act, by some religion's definition I'm damned anyways. But yet I'm not out there destroying livelihoods for personal profit. Way to pander to the stereotype that fear of the hereafter/almighty is the only way to get people to act morally/curb antisocial behavior. I police my own behavior because, by some lucky stroke…

You're a programmer, most of what you is put people out of work.

That thing you automated? Someone who doesn't know how to program lost their job because of it, and it ain't coming back.

You'll tell yourself that you've created opportunities for two more programming jobs for someone else to enhance your automation work, but that guy with the GED is still out of work. Tough shit buddy, should have learned to program.

The difference between you and people in finance is they've stopped lying to themselves about what they do. Btw, I'm a programmer whose going into finance. Why? Because I can eliminate more jobs and make more money for myself doing that then I could eliminating jobs as a programmer. Now I'm just eliminating big money financier jobs instead of 40K grunt jobs. Hey broker dude, screw your 5% finders fee, my program will take 1% instead. Hit the bricks pal. Middle men need to eat just as much as producers and consumers.

We put people out of work for our own personal profit, the only difference is you're pretending about what you do and I'm not.

And you know the really funny thing is? We'll all be better off because the next generation of people won't have to do those silly jobs, but in the mean time people are going to be out of work.

Do you know how many researchers, secretaries, etc are out of work because of Google? Stop kidding yourself and get real about how the world works.

I could write a brilliant essay filled with bullshit about how I'm making the world a better place increasing efficiency, allowing one person to do more, and live a better life, and it would be just as true as what I just wrote. Financiers know double entry accounting and they know that for every credit there is a debit, both sides of the leger are equally true.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#22

Post by rogk11 »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #3

Goldman is the great american bubble machine, and it's disgusting. "From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -- and they're about to do it again" http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american...

It is not just Goldman doing this and not just for metals

http://www.simplerna.com/2011/11/who-are-biggest-commodity-t...

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#23

Post by Suan »

cletus wrote: post #8

Investment banks do provide valuable services: market making (providing liquidity in many markets), capital raising, the creation of financial instruments so investors can hedge against certain kinds of risk and so on. Unfortunately I think we're reaching the point of banks overstepping their bounds and creating far more problems than they really should. This strategy seems similar to the "demand shock" approach they…

Unfortunately I feel not much is going to change until something even more drastic happens (think brink of revolution), and that makes me sad.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#24

Post by potatolicious »

fleitz wrote: post #21
potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that I'm going to hell, because I know hell doesn't exist. Indeed, no matter how pious I act, by some religion's definition I'm damned anyways. But yet I'm not out there destroying livelihoods for personal profit. Way to pander to the stereotype that fear of the hereafter/almighty is the only way to get people to act morally/curb antisocial behavior. I police my own behavior because, by some lucky stroke…

You're a programmer, most of what you is put people out of work. That thing you automated? Someone who doesn't know how to program lost their job because of it, and it ain't coming back. You'll tell yourself that you've created opportunities for two more programming jobs for someone else to enhance your automation work, but that guy with the GED is still out of work. Tough shit buddy, should have learned to program.…

Ah yes, you're right of course - there is no objective measure of the balance of good and evil. What I do does eliminate jobs. Does the benefit to everyone else outweigh the loss of these jobs? Many people would say yes, some would say no. Some job eliminations open the door for more jobs - for different people. Does this balance the morality of putting people out of work?

I don't know. Nobody does. But there is some measure of balance to what we do. What we do has a benefit - a benefit to someone other than just ourselves. Right now I work in travel informatics. What I do empowers tens of millions of customers to make better choices about how they travel, find better prices, put more information at their fingertips, keeping them informed.

The price of this is that I'm also putting airline service agents out of work, not to mention travel agents. I've made an end run around them and made it easier to get all of this information than going and talking to a human.

Personally, I think this is a worthwhile balance. The loss of these jobs also means a massive improvement to the efficiency of travel, and the happiness of tens of millions of travelers. This isn't a clueless assumption either - the emails I've seen from users demonstrates that people are passionate about what we do. You can disagree - and you wouldn't be wrong. I am, after all, not the arbiter of what is and isn't a worthwhile trade.

There's a difference between this and what Goldman does, though. The balance is way on the other end of the scale. The artificial supply squeeze on industries benefits... what exactly, besides Goldman itself? The price is obvious - rising consumer prices, starving people who can no longer afford to eat (re: the food crisis that Goldman is also accused of contributing to), wars and revolutions caused by desperate, hungry people.

So what's the upside? What did we gain for this price Goldman has exacted?

> "Financiers know double entry accounting and they know that for every credit there is a debit, both sides of the leger are equally true."

Please name the "credit" of what Goldman has done here.

We're not idiots, we know there's a credit and a debit. The question is, this doesn't seem to be the case in situations like these, where it seems we're all paying the price, and the only "credit" is to the financier.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#25

Post by cperciva »

Cieplak wrote: post #7

A similar thing is happening with generic chemotherapy drugs. Profit margins for generics are thin, so few companies manufacture them. When a supply issue arises, distributors stockpile the drug and charge hospitals one or two scales of magnitude of the generic price.

... which is a perfect example of why we need derivatives markets. If hospitals purchased drugs a year in advance of anticipated demand, they would pay a slight premium, but wouldn't be subject to squeezes like this.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#26

Post by Peaker »

fleitz wrote: post #21
potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that I'm going to hell, because I know hell doesn't exist. Indeed, no matter how pious I act, by some religion's definition I'm damned anyways. But yet I'm not out there destroying livelihoods for personal profit. Way to pander to the stereotype that fear of the hereafter/almighty is the only way to get people to act morally/curb antisocial behavior. I police my own behavior because, by some lucky stroke…

You're a programmer, most of what you is put people out of work. That thing you automated? Someone who doesn't know how to program lost their job because of it, and it ain't coming back. You'll tell yourself that you've created opportunities for two more programming jobs for someone else to enhance your automation work, but that guy with the GED is still out of work. Tough shit buddy, should have learned to program.…

The moral issue raised above was one of corruption and fraud, not efficiency. It seems you are trying to pretend that the issue is increased efficiency taking away people's jobs.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#27

Post by feralchimp »

fleitz wrote: post #21
potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that I'm going to hell, because I know hell doesn't exist. Indeed, no matter how pious I act, by some religion's definition I'm damned anyways. But yet I'm not out there destroying livelihoods for personal profit. Way to pander to the stereotype that fear of the hereafter/almighty is the only way to get people to act morally/curb antisocial behavior. I police my own behavior because, by some lucky stroke…

You're a programmer, most of what you is put people out of work. That thing you automated? Someone who doesn't know how to program lost their job because of it, and it ain't coming back. You'll tell yourself that you've created opportunities for two more programming jobs for someone else to enhance your automation work, but that guy with the GED is still out of work. Tough shit buddy, should have learned to program.…

Because there's only so much value to be created, and we've reached "peak value"?

False.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#28

Post by Jd »

potatolicious wrote: post #24
fleitz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a programmer, most of what you is put people out of work. That thing you automated? Someone who doesn't know how to program lost their job because of it, and it ain't coming back. You'll tell yourself that you've created opportunities for two more programming jobs for someone else to enhance your automation work, but that guy with the GED is still out of work. Tough shit buddy, should have learned to program.…

Ah yes, you're right of course - there is no objective measure of the balance of good and evil. What I do does eliminate jobs. Does the benefit to everyone else outweigh the loss of these jobs? Many people would say yes, some would say no. Some job eliminations open the door for more jobs - for different people. Does this balance the morality of putting people out of work? I don't know. Nobody does. But there is some…

In case you didn't read the preceding comment carefully, he knows that what you say is true, he just doesn't give a shit -- and, moreover, knows that you can't do a damn thing about it.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#29

Post by invalidOrTaken »

rapind wrote: post #17
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #3

Goldman is the great american bubble machine, and it's disgusting. "From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -- and they're about to do it again" http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american...

So hypothetically if someone wanted to opt-out of this essentially corrupt system completely, how would they go about it? I mean paying taxes in a country with bailouts certainly ties you up into the system. Even without bailouts, living in a country tied to a dollar that's being printed like mad kind of ties you up into it too right? So... how exactly would one go about this? Possible?

It's not trivial, but one way you could opt out would be...opting out.

http://www.trulymovingpictures.org/festival-years/2010/movie...

Linked is a review of the movie Zero Currency, about a former social worker who stopped using money or barter. Disclaimer: I haven't seen it.

A good place to start would be to own your own home, aggressively invest in solar energy, and grow your own food.*

All that's pretty expensive though...maybe you could go work in finance and save up?

*3D printing might also be worth a look for some items.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#30

Post by DenisM »

A normal person would never starve a child to better his own lot. Instead he will give his pension fund savings to Goldman Sachs, who will then promptly cause a world-wide famine by manipulating the food markets. Which is why GS gets paid the big bucks - they absolve the future retirees of the moral responsibility for the starvation of the less fortunate.
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