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‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

nytimes.com

261–270 of 289 posts

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#261
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something on the order of a decade between recessions. A signal with a 3 years error is actually useful here. If the signal is instead "there will be something in 2-3 years", that's instead a great signal.

As another commenter below astutely pointed out, with a mean time between recessions of 4.7 years you could blindly make this prediction every year and be right more often than not (with a 3 year window).

Perhaps, but a 50% accuracy rate is not all that impressive. While the sample size is low, it seems that historically, the yield curve as a predictor of recessions has been significantly more accurate than that.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one thing I did to attempt to make a small difference in the current climate, picked a few media outlets I thought were doing a good job and paid for subscriptions. Living in very solidly blue places, nothing else I have done has likely mattered at all.

You can do a lot in blue states/towns, but it involves pushing the Democratic party further left (Medicare for All, Abolish ICE, Affordable housing, and more) if that's your cup of tea.

It isn't my cup of tea. Pushing democrats further from center makes them lose more than they already do. I also don't think many of those things achieve their goals or are correct for a free society depending on context.

I'm a very blue moderate with some ideas that are sometimes rather far from the traditional one dimensional spectrum.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#263
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately they're not raising tariffs on end products, they're raising it on parts, but that will still cause inflation plus unemployment because tariffs on parts will drive production out of the US where it gets taxed on the way back in, so you'll both lose exiting US jobs while driving up the cost of products coming back in as you both make it impossible to produce in the US and also drive up prices.

What reason do you have for expecting current tariffs to not escalate into broader and more destructive tariffs in this ongoing trade war? Are you basing this on rational choice theory? Because I have some disappointing news for you in that case.

If I were in charge of a country subject to new tariffs, I would consider playing it differently. Rather than applying punitive tariffs back, I would consider trying to get US manufacturers that are affected to the tariffs to move to my country and export finished products to the US. After all, the nonsensical structure of Trump’s tariffs may be more harmful to the US than to anyone else.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#264
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course this is going to end terribly. It is basically guaranteed to do so unless the business cycle has stopped for good (unlikely). The question in my mind is who the scapegoat is going to be, and how much denial there's going to be if the real effects of slowing growth start becoming apparent.

With any luck (sorry), the crash happens just prior to Election Day.

I expect the crash happens just after there is an impeachment or election defeat, and everyone draws exactly the wrong conclusion.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#265
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

B is where you overfit your model and D is where oops actually we didn't profit :(

Do you imply that someone has tried this before?!

This time, we add a blockchain!1!!

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#266
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With any luck (sorry), the crash happens just prior to Election Day.

Not likely. All the new jobs and lower taxes will keep it boosted for a long time.

Recent history shows that the Fed starts raising interest rates and then goes just a bit too far. They're like a driver who won't stop rhythmically pressing and releasing the gas pedal, until the passengers get motion sick.

In my opinion, the tax cut that has been benefiting the economy is the move away from zero percent interest rates. Lending to banks at below inflation is like a tax that goes directly to them. But when we keep on raising short term rates above inflation, that's going to be like a tax too, and I expect we will promptly get whiplash since the Fed doesn't know when to stop.

Maybe I am becoming a crank, because I feel Cassandra-ish, like major macroeconomic problems are so simple but nobody gets it. Feel free to explain why I am totally wrong.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#267
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m impressed by your post’s combination of cynicism and conspiracy-theory-type reasoning, compounded by the agency fallacy.

> I’m impressed by your post’s combination of cynicism I'm impressed by your naivety. Where's the cynicism? I've worked on wall street/finance and I've read finance publications for decades. It's not cynicism, it's experience. > conspiracy-theory-type reasoning What's the conspiracy? > compounded by the agency fallacy. I'd advise you to give Logic 101 another try. Also look up ad hominem while at it.

We've banned this account for violating the HN guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#268
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every finance site - marketwatch, wsj, cnbc, bloomberg, zerohedge, etc along with the peter schiffs/etc clickbait it. For some reason, nytimes paywalled clickbait is constantly spammed here. The inverted yield curve. There are thousands of articles about the inverted yield curve. The death cross. The black swan event. All just voodoo clickbait nonsense. Also, I love how the nytimes say "wall st is concern…

I’m impressed by your post’s combination of cynicism and conspiracy-theory-type reasoning, compounded by the agency fallacy.

Please don't respond to a bad comment by adding another bad comment. Nothing good can come of snarky swipes like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#269
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something on the order of a decade between recessions. A signal with a 3 years error is actually useful here. If the signal is instead "there will be something in 2-3 years", that's instead a great signal.

As another commenter below astutely pointed out, with a mean time between recessions of 4.7 years you could blindly make this prediction every year and be right more often than not (with a 3 year window).

Um, how do you get 4.7 years as the mean time between recessions?

As someone elsewhere notes, since the 60s we've had a recession every 5 to 10 years. Were there two recessions a year apart that I missed?

EDIT: Ah, the other commenter supplied it as the mean length of an economic cycle, measured peak to peak or trough to trough.

But a trough in the economic cycle isn't necessarily a recession unless the trough is two quarters of negative GDP growth.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#270
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The illiterate (i.e. 'l33t') form of 'wrecked', I believe.

Also, a memetic allusion to shock/gore imagery and videos, especially those where people are horrifically mutilated by accidents or violence. Emerging into common use across and throughout The Internet circa 2014.

Thank you, Commander Data.
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