What if your entire worldview was just because of near-zero interest rates?

> there's an oversupply of unskilled labor

That's interesting. What's unskilled about them? Could they not also learn some coding and marketing. Sounds like a worthwhile investment if they might 50x their salaries.

(In fact, with those numbers, even if it takes them 30 years it would still 10x their life earnings...)

The op stated

> A stock is worth the present value of future dividends

1 and 2 are a restating of that. 3 is another way of returning money, but the money still has to be there.

The folks reading this are going to get the wrong message. They are going to believe that rising interest rates will magically make it so that the most highly valued companies are the ones that produce the most societal good. This may start to happen more to a certain extent, but it's a totally false assumption.

The most valuable companies before and after this era of low interest rates were and continue to be monopolies. That's what Warren Buffet invests in (Davita Dialysis, Exxon, Apple, rail lines ---> all monopolies). That's what Peter Thiel tries to invest in (Zero to One). That's what successful Y Combinator companies ultimately strive to become.

Societal value creation is not the same as value creation to shareholders. The latter can be achieved by the former, but the former is not a requirement for the latter.

The question for many of the readers of HackerNews is whether their jobs (mostly as software engineers) ever needed to exist. The answer for many is going to be -- probably not. On the flip side of things, lowering wages for software engineers is going to enable many institutions and companies that do not operate as tech monopolies or startups to start to get some of the benefits of skilled software engineers!

"What if it was all just an illusion for a few decades?"

Reminds me of a relatively new term that has become popular, "gaslighting", especially on the internet. If "tech" companies and their investors can convince people the illusion is a reality, then they can keep the racket going longer. Seems this was quite easy. As long as the cheap money was flowing.

As middlemen watching over the internet, now a primary means of human communication, "tech" companies are in an ideal position to create and manipulate "narratives". I am astounded by the ridiculousness of the arguments I am seeing from what we consider major corporations like Google in response to their infractions. It is apparently fair game to argue anything in support of their racket continuing.

What about this term "disruption". How much of that relied on low interest debt more than "technology".

IMO, there is a difference between making money and raising money. Those invested in "tech" startups like to conflate the two. Employees of "tech" companies being paid indefinitely from investment capital rather revenues, groups of computer nerds which never achieve profitability in the market,1 believe they are "earning" their salaries.

IMHO, raising money and earning money are different practices. The "tech" nonsense is an excellent illustration of how the former does not necessarily lead to the later, and, aside from those whose job it is to raise money, e.g., VC, only the later can be considered a measure of career "success". The two should not be confused.

1. Unless perhaps they sell advertising services or otherwise collect and exploit data about and/or obtained from computer users. As rates rise, wasting money on internet advertising will likely decrease.

Back in the 80s, I used to see those TV ads with John Houseman for Smith Barney and feel somewhat skeptical.2,3 "They earn it." Yeah, right. This was after all the time of "Liars Poker". Now when I look back, those ads seem remarkably admirable, closer to the truth, probably only because of how ridiculous the situation has become today.

Imagine a "tech" company proclaiming they make money the old-fashioned way, by earning it. Meanwhile they have no profits and they are paying salaries from VC money. Nice illusion.

2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-make-money-old-fashioned-w...

3. https://www.sanfranciscoschoolofcopywriting.com/great-ad-cam...

While I try not to comment to 'defend my views' because it's a bit lame, I have to plainly say I am not "just opening my eyes to the huge role central banks play in the economy." I have been following markets many years, both as an investor and because I enjoy reading about economic history (also as part of my study).

My whole point with that sentence was - did you ever pay attention to a Jackson Hole conference before say 2022/2021, which was previously a relatively bureaucratic non-event? I certainly didn't, and now suddenly so many people around me were trying to trade it and the S&P500 moves 5% a day on it. That's the only point of that sentence, but you seem to be extrapolating much more from it... including whether or not I even deserve to write.

And are you really saying that not knowing of a Jackson Hole conference is indicative of 'not knowing anything about the past?' or whatever it is you meant there. Either way, that's just ridiculous gatekeeping of knowledge of financial markets and history based on a useless, pidgeonholed criterion - like whether or not someone is familiar with Jackson Hole.

If you didn't like the article, that's totally okay, but don't be so arbitrarily dismissive.