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Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

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331–340 of 671 posts

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm a crazy for taking the state of the fed funds rate, the budget deficit, and the Fed's balance sheet into account? We can print money, but so far the USD hasn't reflected any sort of consequence for that. They can do a QE program, but will other actors accept the implicit loss on their treasury holdings? I can think of one major player there that is a lot less likely to do so now.

What consequence would you expect? Inflation? The Fed would probably welcome inflation right now. And, how does QE cause other players to lose their treasury holdings?

If you think the federal gov't is going to print money to get itself out of the debt, you'd assume at some point that the value of the USD would drop.

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#332
post #319
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WRT making billions of dollars, clearly he didn't. WRT getting elected, he got 3mil fewer votes than his opponent, so you can thank the dysfunction of the EC. WRT to the votes he did get, it's pretty obvious- people dumber than he is, who are apparently blind to seeing his completely obvious con artist act and voting for him, that's how. By completely obvious I mean, the-sky-is-blue, 1+1=2 obvious. That's how obvious…

You might want to consider the idea that people who disagree with you politically might in fact not be dumb, but just have views that differ from yours. Just a thought.

OP is talking about a public figure, not an ideology or policy.

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#333
post #123
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in index funds? Take a look at what they did in 2008. The selling point is not "they only go up." It's "you can't beat the market."

It is a myth that the market can’t be beaten. You can beat the market if you take more risk and it works out for you. I’m beating the market right now, I’m up 33% this year still in my portfolio even with all the bullshit that’s happened. And recently, I’ve dumped all the extra margin I was holding so now I’m holding 100% equity in my stocks and paying no interest. Beating this market since 2010. That’s why my net wo…

> I took a risk yes, but it’s not greater than the risk of building a startup and trying to make it successful which people seem to have no problem doing around here.

Is that true? It sounds like you took on debt to finance your trading. Do most startup founders personally take on debt?

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#334
post #297
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difference this time around is that the largest tech companies (Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, to a lesser extent Amazon) are generating healthy profits. So while there is likely an issue with a lot of the unprofitable unicorns, the industry as a whole won't collapse.

During the dot com bust that was part of the problem. As the startups started dying, it turned out that the big companies had started to rely on them for their profitability.

Yeah, but the only one of these that might be reliant on a booming tech startup industry for profitability is Amazon (due to AWS - I'm not sure how much of its revenues come from traditional enterprises vs. VC-fueled growth money).

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly won't be worse than 2008. 2008 was a financial crisis, core parts of the banking system were suspect, nobody knew who they could trust or who was solvent and worse nobody had a clue how to solve it for a dangerously long period of time. The financial system is not in that same position this time and as for China, China's growth is largely kept to china itself and guarded jealously, China did little or no…

I'm in the "worse than 2008" camp, mostly due to the reasons the OP gives. Another consideration is that our current expansion has been a very long one, and the longer an expansion goes on, the more fraudulent cruft accumulates, the cruft beings things like assets not marked to actual market value, money-losing businesses subsidized in various ways, and sometimes outright Madoff-like fraud. This cruft appears financi…

There isn't anything like the housing bubble right now. There's nothing that really allows people who shouldn't be able to borrow lots of money to borrow lots of money like housing did last time.

What you're describing is just the normal stuff that happens in all recessions.

And as much as we had a long boom, we also had quite a long painful recovery from 2008, it wasn't the same as normal recovery which explains why it's been so long since the last recession.

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#336
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on this guy is the president of the US people need to stop calling him ignorant and dumb just because they don't like aspects of his persona (racist/greedy/cunning/divisive). He is surrounded by aides and business people giving him information and trying to forward their own agendas. He's not just sitting there thinking "wouldn't it be fun to start a trade war to look tough". I respect Krugman as an economist bu…

> Come on this guy is the president of the US people need to stop calling him ignorant and dumb just because they don't like aspects of his persona (racist/greedy/cunning/divisive). I don't consider him ignorant and dumb because I don't like aspects of his persona. I consider him ignorant and dumb because every time he opens his mouth or types something on twitter - what comes out is generally ignorant and dumb, assu…

Or, he already went through it in business and came mentally prepared for the pressure.

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm a crazy for taking the state of the fed funds rate, the budget deficit, and the Fed's balance sheet into account? We can print money, but so far the USD hasn't reflected any sort of consequence for that. They can do a QE program, but will other actors accept the implicit loss on their treasury holdings? I can think of one major player there that is a lot less likely to do so now.

The Fed can replace / deal with China's treasury holdings relatively easily at this point, especially given the strength of the dollar. While $15t in global paper is yielding nothing or worse, the US is still yielding something and is still largely regarded as entirely safe by investors. China is no longer a threat to the treasury market re selling, even though more aggressive selling on their part would definitely c…

Curious question, because international government currency flows are still something that flumox me.

What are China's options if it sells US Treasuries? If it simply parks that money internally, what does that do?

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicely put, but a real drunken master doesn't get repeatedly decked. Look at trump's financial record, that should have been quite enough (6 bankruptcies was it?) Those who were fooled, were fooled because they chose to be.

Trump has created 515 businesses and only 11 of them failed. That's a 98.64% success rate. He has a better track record than Elon Musk by an order of magnitude.

Citation? In what business did he see more success than Elon Musk?

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#339
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fed does not have the tools at its disposal that it did in 2008, they have been exhausted. The leadership on either side of the 2008 transition was much better at every level. Also, 2008 was a balance sheet depression that was more tractable to fix with monetary approaches. What is happening, right now, is literally what happened in the Great Depression (with the concurrent reemergence of nationalism) and is what…

> What is happening, right now, is literally what happened in the Great Depression (with the concurrent reemergence of nationalism) and is what led to two back-to-back world wars Note: I understand that "yield curve inversion" does not mean "recession, depression, war" is inevitable or likely - only that these things are indicators at best. That said and understood... Either our society is the dumbest there is (in ag…

This is the best we can do. We aren't perfect but perfect is the enemy of good.

Re: Yield Curves Invert in U.S., U.K

#340
post #262
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He made billions of dollars in real estate and other industries, then when on to become POTUS. HOW CAN ONE MAN BE SO INCOMPETENT!?!

WRT making billions of dollars, clearly he didn't. WRT getting elected, he got 3mil fewer votes than his opponent, so you can thank the dysfunction of the EC. WRT to the votes he did get, it's pretty obvious- people dumber than he is, who are apparently blind to seeing his completely obvious con artist act and voting for him, that's how. By completely obvious I mean, the-sky-is-blue, 1+1=2 obvious. That's how obvious…

> it's pretty obvious- people dumber than he is, who are apparently blind to seeing his completely obvious con artist act and voting for him, that's how.

Bay area engineer here. Did Google for a few years, did a B2B startup, acquired by FANG, now lead a team of 30. Good relationships with family and physically fit.

I voted for Trump. Statistically, I'm not dumb.

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