Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge • Hacker News Board

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#161

Post by caf » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 12:29 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #159

supercanuck wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned a very valuable lesson from reading Housing Bubble blogs and what not during the 2008 Financial Crisis. I prided myself on being one of those people who saw it before it was happening, and had purchased double shorted bank ETF's. I thought I was a genius by "getting news first" and acting on it, and seeing the money I was "making". But then the Government stepped in and said they would not let the banks fai…

You learned half the lesson. The other half is the over-class will force the government to do whatever is needed to keep them from going bust. My dad claimed that the biggest mistake he made financially was when Chrysler was going bankrupt in in the early eighties. He knew that it was politically impossible for the government to let Chrysler fail. However my dad didn't follow through and sock the 100k he had into Chr…

"Not letting them fail" does not necessarily mean that investors in those institutions won't be taking a bath.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#162

Post by notahacker » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 12:46 AM UTC

mangeletti wrote: post #156

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A slightly technical read, but here you go: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm .

So, a link to conjecture from an associate professor at the PREEMINENT SCHOOL for studying Austrian School economics in the US... is evidence against Austrian school economics? Let me put it this way: there is a lot of financial incentive for Austrian School economics to appear "wrong", because Keynesian "economics" is really all about printing money and earmarking it for buddies within a given office's constituency.…

I'd have thought the opinion of an academic based at the pre-eminent school for studying Austrian economics in the US would be considered an unusually informed one. Especially when he explains why even though he's largely politically aligned with them he thinks much of their theory is lacking.

Let me put it this way: the reason the academic mainstream has relatively little regard for Austrian economics and even less for permabear investment advice based around passing familiarity with Austrian economics has nothing to do with printing money for their buddies (which the more influential half of the economic establishment has been passionately arguing against for decades) and everything to do with adherents of the discipline's tendency to rely on rants about government conspiracy once the economic problem gets a bit more complicated than determining who buys the purple bicycle from whom.

The education system isn't in the slightest bit interested in disproving the sort of trivial economic stuff about preferences that most microeconomists simply absorb as foundational axioms on the first day of their undergrad course rather than writing papers about how they can be deduced from the statement "humans act", but they're rather more sceptical about extending that to "therefore, it's true a priori the gold standard is the only way to run an economy and that QE will inevitably lead to uncontrollable hyperinflation and large scale malinvestment. (Which is the sort of prediction made on a regular basis by Austrian-inspired economic commentators on finance sites like the one being discussed here). Especially if the proponent of the idea starts ranting about "financial incentives" and wrapping inverted commas around the word education at the mere suggestion that such hypotheses might be falsified.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#163

Post by CamperBob2 » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 1:11 AM UTC

caf wrote: post #161

Gibbon1 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You learned half the lesson. The other half is the over-class will force the government to do whatever is needed to keep them from going bust. My dad claimed that the biggest mistake he made financially was when Chrysler was going bankrupt in in the early eighties. He knew that it was politically impossible for the government to let Chrysler fail. However my dad didn't follow through and sock the 100k he had into Chr…

"Not letting them fail" does not necessarily mean that investors in those institutions won't be taking a bath.

Exactly. After learning from his mistake with Chrysler, Gibbon1's dad might have bought GM's bonds, and gotten hosed yet again. Oops.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#164

Post by UK-AL » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 1:12 AM UTC

carsongross wrote: post #92

maze-le wrote: post #16

I stopped reading this site some years ago. It had, and probably still has some interesting opinins and analysis. Most content is pretty far fetched / sensationalist, but if you have your grain of salt, this is not a problem, since most media outlets do this in one form or another. About 2 years ago the tenor of the publications shifted from libertarian to more and more reactionary (bordering on proto-fascist). When…

I think what you are noticing is a broader shift in the libertarian community: people are noticing that an open libertarian society isn't possible since most people aren't libertarians but would like the material benefits that more libertarianish societies offer. Many libertarians I know are now "nationalist libertarians", opposed to large scale immigration, increasingly skeptical of international free trade, and so…

I don't how you can be libertarian and be opposed to free trade and immigration.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#165

Post by Tycho » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 3:07 AM UTC

15 posts a day of as much as 1500 words? That's kind of... prodigious.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#166

Post by mangeletti » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 3:11 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #162

mangeletti wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, a link to conjecture from an associate professor at the PREEMINENT SCHOOL for studying Austrian School economics in the US... is evidence against Austrian school economics? Let me put it this way: there is a lot of financial incentive for Austrian School economics to appear "wrong", because Keynesian "economics" is really all about printing money and earmarking it for buddies within a given office's constituency.…

I'd have thought the opinion of an academic based at the pre-eminent school for studying Austrian economics in the US would be considered an unusually informed one. Especially when he explains why even though he's largely politically aligned with them he thinks much of their theory is lacking. Let me put it this way: the reason the academic mainstream has relatively little regard for Austrian economics and even less…

Milton Friedman was the father of Neo-Keynesian economics, and Milton Friedman literally INVENTED monetarism. If you actually think Austrian School, which has been considered heterodoxy, if not blasphemy, to any standing US government in the past 80 years, is the influence behind quantitative easing, then I don't really know what to say at this point...

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#167

Post by shostack » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 4:03 AM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #159

supercanuck wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned a very valuable lesson from reading Housing Bubble blogs and what not during the 2008 Financial Crisis. I prided myself on being one of those people who saw it before it was happening, and had purchased double shorted bank ETF's. I thought I was a genius by "getting news first" and acting on it, and seeing the money I was "making". But then the Government stepped in and said they would not let the banks fai…

You learned half the lesson. The other half is the over-class will force the government to do whatever is needed to keep them from going bust. My dad claimed that the biggest mistake he made financially was when Chrysler was going bankrupt in in the early eighties. He knew that it was politically impossible for the government to let Chrysler fail. However my dad didn't follow through and sock the 100k he had into Chr…

Putting all your eggs into a single risky basket is not a good thing. Sounds like your dad was wise despite wishing he had done otherwise with the benefit of hindsight.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#168

Post by Gibbon1 » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 7:04 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #163

caf wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not letting them fail" does not necessarily mean that investors in those institutions won't be taking a bath.

Exactly. After learning from his mistake with Chrysler, Gibbon1's dad might have bought GM's bonds, and gotten hosed yet again. Oops.

Chrysler was 1979, GM was 2008 totally different political economic climate. In 1979 ordinary businesses and unions had a huge amount of political clout. And Chrysler wasn't an ordinary business.

By 2008 only Wall Street investment banks had that clout. That's because under neo-liberalism the profits from the real economy are funneled through the investment house. Letting them go under means the spigot gets turned off.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#169

Post by 0x445424 » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

pfarnsworth wrote: post #120

jonstokes wrote: post #98

I think ZH is a great site, and I read it daily, BUT if you don't take it with a truckload of salt then it will be hazardous to your wealth. Seriously, if you had been in the ZH bear trade since 2009, then you missed out on the greatest stock market rally in a generation. I know, because I missed the first half of said rally as a ZH reader until I realized that the constant drumbeat of negative news from that site wa…

I lost about $100k in 2009 buying into the ZH-gloom and doom mentality, unfortunately. Everything they said made sense, but it just wasn't how the world works.

Yeah, and had you acted on the type of information ZH pushes in 2007 you'd probably saved as much or more.

In fact, I made $225K in 2006 on real estate arbitrage buying into ZH type gloom.

A lot of what ZH publishes still does make sense; it's just that the financial/ponzi schemes the Fed has employed since 2009 haven't busted yet.

I still don't get the pass that's given to the mainstream financial "experts" who all missed 2008.

Since 2006 Gold has out performed the DOW by ~30%, even with the the financial schemes and pushing the national debt to 19 trillion.

Re: Unmasking the Men Behind Zero Hedge

#170

Post by tobltobs » Sun, May 01, 2016, 3:23 AM UTC

didjdjjdjf wrote: post #53

alistproducer2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think that the authors have no problem with authoritarianism Like any conspiracy site, it's going to attract people who share a view of the world in which everything must be orchestrated, controlled - a reason for all things. Randomness has no place in the mind of a conspiracy theorist. The order provided by conspiracies comfort the conspiracy theorist: paradoxically making the world feel safer, more ordered while…

What's sad is no matter how often people like you are proven wrong you'll just keep on repeating the same bullshit. I recall HN saying gold market manipulation was conspiracy theory, ZH was right HN commenters were wrong. There's a long list but when it comes to finance HN commenters are typically poorly educated.

I did stop reading any financial website years ago. It seems that I missed this story about the (proof of the) gold market manipulation and i followed this thema for years. Can you give me a link for this, my google foo doesn't work.