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How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

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Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#231

Post by jariel »

sebmellen wrote: post #140
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

West coast cities homelessness problems are indicative of nothing more than the specific economic and political realities in those cities. It is folly to extrapolate that to larger macroeconomic conditions. While some specific cities may have their heads up their butts with regard to public policy resulting in more visible homeless the living conditions of the "almost homeless" and working poor have very much improve…

That's just not true. Please don't spread this kind of misinformation. Many cities and states bus their homeless into California. Drug addiction, homelessness, and mental illness are all huge problems throughout the US (though also in Europe, et al.). The downfall of the middle class is the downfall of everyone except the super-rich. Some kind of Portugal drug model / New Deal-type infrastructure plan would be necess…

"The downfall of the middle class is the downfall of everyone except the super-rich. "

a) There was no 'downfall' of the middle class and

b) Everyone with a job got materially richer, just not in assets like the 'super rich'.

We used to have smaller working + bigger middle + smaller upper, but now it's levelled out but a lot of middle class people have moved up.

Material surpluses for anyone with a job have gone up dramatically. Walmart has increased the material standard of living of working people hugely.

For those 'without jobs' - it's been hard.

And those with assets - it's been disproportionately good.

But the material surpluses in the form of better products and lower real prices to the masses means higher standard of living.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#232

Post by shard »

harimau777 wrote: post #75
jariel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People have been endlessly screwed over" Heyzeus you have it easier than any generation literally in the history of civilisation. Those just a little bit older than you were fighting in Vietnam, getting beaten up because they were gay, told to live in ghettos and denied jobs by banks and government because they were Black, forbidden from drinking from 'White' fountains. Nothing anyone has faced 'since 2008' is exist…

Not being able to own a home. Working multiple unfulfilling jobs. Being socially isolated. Having no prospects for retirement. Having no health insurance. Etc. Together these can become oppression or existential life difficulty.

This sounds like textbook "first world problem". Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty in the past few decades so that the items you listed are not the status quo, and there is a chance that some of the items might become better. My grandparents lived under almost all of the items in your list, my parents lived under some of them, and even I was not able to evade all the items growing up.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#234

Post by sebmellen »

jariel wrote: post #230
sebmellen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in a city with a large homeless population, I think it would be interesting for you to go and talk with them. I live in San Diego, and I've talked to hundreds of homeless people while doing volunteer work and photography. You would not believe how many people, though they may be mentally ill, are smart, honest, good people, who just got fucked by the system. They're out here scrounging for food and gettin…

"I think it would be interesting for you to go and talk with them." Do you see gangs of homeless children wandering your neighbourhood? Because that's 'what it used to be like'. I am not denying that real problems exist. I am not denying that individuals face real, life pain, of the timeless kind. I'm saying that materially, on the whole, everything is better. Way better. In the Victorian era there would be homeless…

Yes, again, I'm not disagreeing with any of what you're saying.

But for those barely clinging on to society, and those who haven't had the chance to accumulate real wealth, life is still pretty hard. Or, at least, a millennial may find life seems hard in comparison with the Baby Boomer generation. Many Baby Boomers lived stable, tracked lives in the postwar economy, and have now accumulated vast generational wealth.

If there's a generation that grew up in a bubble, it's the Baby Boomers, and you'll see this typified by the "in my day, I worked my way through college and bought a house while working my job at the coffee shop" sentiment. Millennial and younger generations just don't have this chance at stability and building wealth at a young age.

Also, drug addiction, lack of any care for mental illness (even sanatoriums), and homelessness of the kind we see now are unique problems that started around the same time as the "war on drugs."

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#235

Post by sebmellen »

jariel wrote: post #231
sebmellen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true. Please don't spread this kind of misinformation. Many cities and states bus their homeless into California. Drug addiction, homelessness, and mental illness are all huge problems throughout the US (though also in Europe, et al.). The downfall of the middle class is the downfall of everyone except the super-rich. Some kind of Portugal drug model / New Deal-type infrastructure plan would be necess…

"The downfall of the middle class is the downfall of everyone except the super-rich. " a) There was no 'downfall' of the middle class and b) Everyone with a job got materially richer, just not in assets like the 'super rich'. We used to have smaller working + bigger middle + smaller upper, but now it's levelled out but a lot of middle class people have moved up. Material surpluses for anyone with a job have gone up d…

There definitely was a downfall of the middle class! Why do you think we had Occupy Wall Street, and why are populists on the left and right, like Sanders and Trump, gaining in popularity? Why did Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders poll highest among Trump voters? It's because the real middle class of blue- and white-collar work at a stable career has been vanishing. Much of this is due to bad trade and jobs policy, some is due to automation.

The number skills that are useful today are also less than they used to be. The need for actually skilled manual labor has been outsourced to China, Taiwan, and increasingly India.

And don't forget the swindle of universities — 18 year olds signing themselves away to lifelong debt to party, drink, and learn at an institution that couldn't care less about their future prospects. People who leave college with degrees in anything but highly desirable fields are learning they've been lied to about the importance of a degree.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#236

Post by brighterthanyou »

coliveira wrote: post #39
cbozeman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How about merely building a business? More people need to be told this. The combination of work ethic, of risk tolerance, and of perseverance against ridiculous odds that is required to build a Tesla, or an Apple, or a Whatever, is extraordinarily rare

Tesla was built by a billionaire. There was little to no risk involved.

If you'd actually read, perhaps his biography, rather than just blowing smoke out your ass, you might know that he actually almost went bankrupt numerous times getting Tesla up and running. He wasn't a billionaire at the time. 'No risk involved' - wtf? Have you ever actually started a business? What a moron.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#237

Post by brighterthanyou »

symlinkk wrote: post #57
cbozeman wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk had about $140 million when he ~started~ bought (sorry) Tesla. That's a pretty far cry from a billion. On top of that, there was no guarantee that electric cars would ever be embraced, especially by Americans, who traditionally, love ICE muscle cars.

Once you get past a few million dollars, the extra money is just bargaining power and losing it doesn’t affect your day to day quality of life

So, I take it you actually 'have' a few million dollars (like me) and are speaking from experience? There's a saying - the bigger you are the harder you fall. Multi millionaires can easily leverage themselves into massive failures. It's the norm, not the outlier. But, of course, you people who talk out your ass would know all about it. What a joke.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#238

Post by bsanr2 »

tasuki wrote: post #227
bsanr2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dropped ~$1000 of my last savings into options earlier this year because "DIS is going to print." Actually, it's because I was unemployed and staring down the barrel of a rent payment that that money would not be able to cover. I figure I lose the money and not make rent, just as if I'd done nothing, or it makes the money back and then some, and I'm able to cover another month. If I'd sold about a week into holding…

I think the second half of your comment is sarcastic but also... entirely correct?

Well, no. The bailout was unprecedented in size, it was completely insane (in that it clinches the imminent and extremely messy doom of either the American middle or investor class, depending on whether populist fear or populist rage prevails), and there is zero percent chance that the coming maelstrom is "priced in."

Most Americans have been so fully shut out of capital that they're practically begging for asset values to get rocked. They'll encourage it, even. (What do you think this lockdown backlash is, unconsciously?)

All of Disney's revenue streams shut down for 3 months and its stock went up. The market needs to be reflective of conditions and not simply the desperation to never see a bubble corrected, or people are going to start calling the bluff.

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#239

Post by andrepd »

closeparen wrote: post #218
andrepd wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Who are these people, why do they get to decide what gets built and what do people labour on? I want democratisation of capital.

Sure, democratize capital. Then it will be decided by a few thousand voters in swing states, with “who are you and why should you get to decide” problems that put VC to shame. A lot of VC capital is democratized: an elected official appointed a pension fund manager who decided to allocate some funds to a particular VC firm.

Who said anything about swing states, and how is an opaque political appointment a democratic way to decide anything?

Re: How to Run a Ponzi Scheme for Tech People

#240

Post by seppin »

peteretep wrote: post #145
seppin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve been nomading for ten years. The most i've ever been able to do was half a year. How can you choose to be without a real home that long?

> How can you choose to be without a real home that long? Depends what you mean by "real home" I guess. I have a tiny apartment in Bangkok, where we would normally spend ~ 8 weeks a year in total a year, and then we rent ad-hoc or stay with family the rest

Ah ok you are married. Do you have long term friends locally ? Is your wife your anchor to a local community ?
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