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It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

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Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#301

Post by eddyg »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #281
arthur5005 wrote: post #68

What this doesn’t really address is the why? Yeah there’s more money floating around, so perhaps more people want to spend it, but why? Most people aren’t getting materially more stuff or even need that much more stuff, consumption’s already god damn conspicuous. Maybe everyone can afford a jet ski all of a sudden? No, the stims didn’t really do /that/ kind of wealth expansion. To me, this still looks like the bullwh…

Covid lockdowns have a a lot to do with that too. People used to spent their money in restaurants, bars, cinemas, theaters, parties, festivals, massages, hairdressers, and a bunch of other services. If you add lockdowns, many things happen: * people have leftover money, that they instead spend on "things"... and since they're used to using less services, this is also true for some time after the lockdowns * If you're…

You can easily see the massive increase in savings in data from the Fed (for the U.S., at least):

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ysLo

Typical growth in household checkable deposits/currency/savings deposits was around $500 billion/year during the mid-2010's. last year it was... $2.6 trillion

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#302

Post by maest »

the-dude wrote: post #267
lemax wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies like Airbnb, Turo, Boatsetter (airbnb for boats) offer some insurance they negotiate with an underwriter like Geico. Getting this sort of insurance individually is much more costly or next to impossible, which is why we don't see people short-term renting expensive assets to each other on Craigslist. I imagine negotiating the ability to dole out these sorts of policies at scale with Lloyd's of London o…

Isn't the crux of insuring anything 'doing it at scale'? If you are AirBNB, why would you need an insurer at all?

Insurers can spread their risk along multiple insurance lines.

If you're Airbnb, you're exposed to one type of risk: houses getting damaged. If you're Lloyds/GEICO, you're spread out over health risks, housing risk, car risk, maybe some financial assets risk etc

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#303

Post by throwaway4good »

We are doing double or triple ordering of goods not because of end-customer demand but because we fear our suppliers are not able to deliver.

Our competitors are doing the same.

At aggregate it may look like a “demand shock” due to too loose monetary policies but maybe it is not really what is going on.

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#304

Post by summm »

grayfaced wrote: post #206
KittenInABox wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that why the US government has longstanding agricultural subsidies, guarantees on prices, etc.? Do we really have a shortage of food?

That's the stated purpose. But it has no teeth. Last year we saw aisles empty of meat and lots of news about meat shortages. But during that time domestic pork supplies were down 40% in the same period that pork exports to China quadrupled. Those subsidies failed in their stated purpose of resiliency. During the bad times, all that mattered is where more profit could be found.

Meat can be easily substituted, so I'd consider that discretionary spending. Furthermore, producing meat consumes many times the plants, than if humans directly consumed those plants. So in an emergency, just stop producing meat and you'll have plenty of plant-based food left.

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#305

Post by throwaway894345 »

nostrebored wrote: post #266
throwaway210222 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why in the hell would you believe climate experts? a) because we don't have a spare planet, and b) we kind of like our children. Like Russian roulette, its the risk of being wrong that changes the decision making paradigm from the one you use for 'should I buy bitcoin'.

Your mistake is weighing superstition vs tangible harm. Eliminating fossil fuels will condemn large swathes of the living population to true poverty and kill many more. How do you think things like hospitals in the developing world run? And the infrastructure that lets them be created to begin with? The idea that we should eliminate fossil fuels is truly a privileged take.

Yes, this is precisely why we should have phased these out in the first world (and required the same of our business partners in the second world) decades ago. The longer we wait, the worse it will be. It’s like credit card debt—if you stop depending on it, you’ll have a little less money in the short term, but you need to or you’ll have much less money in the long term.

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#306

Post by _3u10 »

RC_ITR wrote: post #85
arthur5005 wrote: post #68

What this doesn’t really address is the why? Yeah there’s more money floating around, so perhaps more people want to spend it, but why? Most people aren’t getting materially more stuff or even need that much more stuff, consumption’s already god damn conspicuous. Maybe everyone can afford a jet ski all of a sudden? No, the stims didn’t really do /that/ kind of wealth expansion. To me, this still looks like the bullwh…

What everyone is going to have a real hard time wrapping their head around for the next few years: We built a highly efficient economy for a set of behaviors. A shock happened that caused a lot people to change their behaviors (probably for a long time, since they've had 2 years of 'practice'). Our economy, which was built for those old behaviors (living in cities, riding public transit, eating at restaurants, travel…

Natural gas isn't expensive. I pay 7.2 cents USD per kW/h and it's still cheaper to heat my house with natural gas. Given that the world is switching to electric cars I only foresee it getting even cheaper (comparatively) given how much hydro will need to be built to service the energy needs of the electric car market.

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#307

Post by _3u10 »

nitrogen wrote: post #247
88913527 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If hair clippers become mildly more difficult to procure over a 2-year window of an 80 year lifespan, all-in-all the efficiency seems to be worth it. I get 78 years of low prices for goods are that are useful to my everyday existence, but not critically vital and to which there are reasonable substitutes, if I need something in a pinch.

Human experience simply cannot be averaged over large spans of times while ignoring the extremes. Dipping into the red means permanent damage. Imagine applying this line of thinking to your bank account -- "sure I spent $500k in two years on fast cars and fancy bars, but averaged over 80 years of paying small amounts of interest, the bank should be glad to make the sacrifice of stability in favor of efficiency."

umm... this is kind of the purpose of banks... get car now, enjoy car now, pay 3%, inflation is 5%. If you buy the car cash you pay more, and get it later.

Lets take a C8 Stringray @ $100K, if you buy it today, it will cost $107K over 5 years. In five years it will cost you $128K.

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#308

Post by Xcelerate »

throwaway210222 wrote: post #277
nostrebored wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is weighing superstition vs tangible harm. Eliminating fossil fuels will condemn large swathes of the living population to true poverty and kill many more. How do you think things like hospitals in the developing world run? And the infrastructure that lets them be created to begin with? The idea that we should eliminate fossil fuels is truly a privileged take.

> Your mistake is weighing superstition vs tangible harm. Care to share which of the thousands of peer-reviewed papers on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's website, you have: a) read b) understood c) found errors in d) brought to the world's attention? 500, 10, 1, ? I thought not. And yes, of course it sucks - no one wants this. You seem to think the unpleasantness of the diagnosis and remedy gives you…

> You seem to think the unpleasantness of the diagnosis and remedy gives you and yours an out.

This is such an interesting observation. I had always thought that with a dire enough problem, humanity would band together and come up with a solution at all cost.

But after observing the worldwide response to the pandemic, I’m quite sure the world will become engulfed in wildfire and famine while a notable fraction of the population continues to insist that “this is normal and everything is fine”.

It’s an odd situation where magical thinking (“it can’t happen to me”) negates self-preservation.

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#309

Post by _3u10 »

the-dude wrote: post #267
lemax wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies like Airbnb, Turo, Boatsetter (airbnb for boats) offer some insurance they negotiate with an underwriter like Geico. Getting this sort of insurance individually is much more costly or next to impossible, which is why we don't see people short-term renting expensive assets to each other on Craigslist. I imagine negotiating the ability to dole out these sorts of policies at scale with Lloyd's of London o…

Isn't the crux of insuring anything 'doing it at scale'? If you are AirBNB, why would you need an insurer at all?

To limit your downside. What AirBnB likely has is a high deductible policy. AirBNB pays for minor damages, but if the world goes on a AirBnB party rental spree Lloyds pays.

Re: It’s mostly a demand shock, not a supply shock, and it’s everywhere

#310

Post by _3u10 »

lemax wrote: post #213
oarabbus_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they deal with insurance? I'm not sure I'd feel very comfortable trusting a random stranger to use my car for 5 days, unless I was sure I'd be paid out in full (or more) if they were to damage or total the vehicle.

Most companies like Airbnb, Turo, Boatsetter (airbnb for boats) offer some insurance they negotiate with an underwriter like Geico. Getting this sort of insurance individually is much more costly or next to impossible, which is why we don't see people short-term renting expensive assets to each other on Craigslist. I imagine negotiating the ability to dole out these sorts of policies at scale with Lloyd's of London o…

Lloyds et al wants to do business. They are super easy to deal with. Far easier to talk to someone at Lloyds than any major tech company. Only Google would be audacious enough not to let someone spending $100k / month not talk to a human / ban them without warning / send canned email responses to business inquiries at scale.

Check their website, they have this crazy idea where you put in the country where you are and then they give you a list of people to call so you can do business with them. The even crazier thing is the people who pick up the phone aren't humanized robots, but are incredibly intelligent and talented people who want your business and will create tailored plans to suit your needs.

If I want to talk to their President all I have to do is call him.

https://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insights/data-and-research/m...

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