How This Ends • Hacker News Board

Re: How This Ends

#601

Post by 314 » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:35 AM UTC

thechao wrote: post #343

spicyusername wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is probably the most useful wisdom for the average person: > do not invest money you need within 5-10 years and do not make rash decisions; it is better to ride this train down and then hopefully back up than jump randomly. Gaming the market successfully requires a ton of skill and knowledge, and even then you are not guaranteed success. Most people are better off focusing on asset-class diversification…

Right; so my plan of having 60% of my wealth tied up in unvested stocks in a single company is really coming to fruition!

As long as you heed standard advice (treat stock as nice to have but value it at zero during wage negotiations) then the impact on your net worth should be minimal :)

Re: How This Ends

#602

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:38 AM UTC

boppo1 wrote: post #584

quickthrower2 wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am bullish for software developers. Since 2001 I have not been fired or laid off. I have been able to get a job within 4 weeks the whole time. (Probably 1 week if not fussy and just need money). Software is still eating the world, it just might have a bit of constipation during this period. Developers can save companies money - handy in a recession. Developers can sell their skills globally (that has negatives too…

I sure hope so because I'm out here reading Stroustrup and CLRS to start a career at 30. But it really seems like there's a glut of tech companies with investment capital paying people 300k to make apps for stuff that's trivial. Juicero tier stuff, all over the place. I worry it will collapse and SWE is gonna be your run of the mill 45k job from then on.

I don't think so.. good software engineers are still somewhat rare and you need good ones to not blow up your code base once it reaches a certain size/complexity. Any high school kid can make a website, but if you want your app to grow for 3 or more years, it has to be built well-ish.

Re: How This Ends

#603

Post by froh » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:55 AM UTC

herf wrote: post #28

I agree we are working through an asset bubble in tech and housing - P/E's went quite a ways above the historical line, as did housing prices. But think about the chip shortage (automotive, consumer electronics) - raising interest rates does not "fix" supply and make prices lower. Think about oil & gas markets. Think about labor shortages. When supply is broken, it's not only a monetary policy problem. Most of these…

There is no chip shortage --- there is a lack of flexibility to upgrade PCB designs in Automotive .

Re: How This Ends

#604

Post by robocat » Mon, May 23, 2022, 5:58 AM UTC

lazide wrote: post #511

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll make housing even more expensive in 10 years as builders will be decimated like in 2008, we won't build housing for half a decade, and a new generation will look for housing while boomers sit on their 80% vacant 4bd houses they paid 1/5 of the current market price for.

In another 10 years most of the boomers will be dead.

Wrong.

71 million alive in 2019 of 76 million born[0]. If the oldest boomer is 76 now, their life expectancy is over 10 years[1]. Most boomers have more years life expectancy than that i.e. most boomers will live longer than 10 years. And in a couple one will live longer, perhaps not releasing a house.

Aside: most people mentioning “boomers” normally are saying something offensive - similar to making inane stereotypical comments about disabled people as an example. The term is very American-centric, and in my country the word mostly is used offensively. We mostly don’t know what gen__ means either.

Edit: 25% of boomers don’t own a home. Today, white millennials are almost three times as likely as Black millennials to own their homes. If you are white, then every time you make a comment about a group that has it better off than you, lookout behind you. Goes double for complaints about the wealthy if you live in the US: you are the wealthy from the point of view of most people in the world.

Disclaimer: I am not a boomer.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

Re: How This Ends

#605

Post by pmorici » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:17 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #24

I'm going to explain what has happened so far. What happens next entirely depends on how inflation continues and the feds reaction. 1. We had zero percent interest rates. This causes the value of assets with cash flows out into the future (think speculative tech, Tesla) to accelerate. 2. We had massive herding in megacap tech. These valuations are high in part because for a decade you would not have beat the index wi…

Tesla is a poor example of speculative tech. From 2019 to present they went from losing money to substantial and growing profitability. Better example would be things like Peloton, Beyond Meat, or Robinhood who all had sky high stock prices and have yet to turn a profit.

Re: How This Ends

#606

Post by robocat » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:27 AM UTC

boppo1 wrote: post #584

quickthrower2 wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am bullish for software developers. Since 2001 I have not been fired or laid off. I have been able to get a job within 4 weeks the whole time. (Probably 1 week if not fussy and just need money). Software is still eating the world, it just might have a bit of constipation during this period. Developers can save companies money - handy in a recession. Developers can sell their skills globally (that has negatives too…

I sure hope so because I'm out here reading Stroustrup and CLRS to start a career at 30. But it really seems like there's a glut of tech companies with investment capital paying people 300k to make apps for stuff that's trivial. Juicero tier stuff, all over the place. I worry it will collapse and SWE is gonna be your run of the mill 45k job from then on.

You could apply for jobs in businesses that are not affected by economic vagaries, or government jobs, or jobs at counter-cyclical businesses like debt collection.

Re: How This Ends

#607

Post by bjornsing » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:29 AM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #443

bjornsing wrote: post #249

Are Americans this certain that the Fed will put an end to inflation? The economic incentives to let it rip are extraordinary… In Sweden there’s a lot of political debate around this, and many are arguing that it would be better to let inflation eat the debt burden.

> let inflation eat the debt burden. Good news everyone! By destroying our economy we have successfully reduced the real cost of the debt by 80%! Unfortunately, we now need to print massive piles of money to incentivize economic activity again! Ouroboros, meet tail.

I agree it’s risky business, but that is what happened in the 70ties. So it is possible to let inflation eat say half of the US national debt. That’s 13 trillion USD…

Even if the US economy shrinks by 5% in the process it may still be beneficial for many. This is the extraordinary economic incentive I was referring to above.

Re: How This Ends

#608

Post by YZF » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:30 AM UTC

froh wrote: post #603

herf wrote: post #28

I agree we are working through an asset bubble in tech and housing - P/E's went quite a ways above the historical line, as did housing prices. But think about the chip shortage (automotive, consumer electronics) - raising interest rates does not "fix" supply and make prices lower. Think about oil & gas markets. Think about labor shortages. When supply is broken, it's not only a monetary policy problem. Most of these…

There is no chip shortage --- there is a lack of flexibility to upgrade PCB designs in Automotive .

It's not just automotive. It's everywhere. E.g. power supplies are apparently a big deal right now... And sure, you can't easily re-design, re-qualify, re-tool for something very different than what is in your design. Companies do that typically for EOL'd components but they usually have a bit more of a heads up and opportunity to buy some extra of those to buffer their redesigns.

Re: How This Ends

#609

Post by simonebrunozzi » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:35 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #24

I'm going to explain what has happened so far. What happens next entirely depends on how inflation continues and the feds reaction. 1. We had zero percent interest rates. This causes the value of assets with cash flows out into the future (think speculative tech, Tesla) to accelerate. 2. We had massive herding in megacap tech. These valuations are high in part because for a decade you would not have beat the index wi…

> Bonds will be wrecked

Why? Also, isn't it in contrast with:

> it's actually a really good deal to buy bonds when they yield north of 10% (if we get there).

Re: How This Ends

#610

Post by at-fates-hands » Mon, May 23, 2022, 6:35 AM UTC

boppo1 wrote: post #584

quickthrower2 wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am bullish for software developers. Since 2001 I have not been fired or laid off. I have been able to get a job within 4 weeks the whole time. (Probably 1 week if not fussy and just need money). Software is still eating the world, it just might have a bit of constipation during this period. Developers can save companies money - handy in a recession. Developers can sell their skills globally (that has negatives too…

I sure hope so because I'm out here reading Stroustrup and CLRS to start a career at 30. But it really seems like there's a glut of tech companies with investment capital paying people 300k to make apps for stuff that's trivial. Juicero tier stuff, all over the place. I worry it will collapse and SWE is gonna be your run of the mill 45k job from then on.

>> But it really seems like there's a glut of tech companies with investment capital paying people 300k to make apps for stuff that's trivial.

I work for one of the largest health care companies in the world. In the US, there are only three or four major health care companies and they're all massive. My company has repeatedly said its too big to move as fast as smaller startups who are coming in and disrupting one niche of the entire market.

For example, we have something like 4-5 different billing systems, none of which are able to talk to each other. They're monolithic, they're 10 years past what you would consider "legacy" software. So in comes all these companies building billing apps for health care companies. My company? We can't compete, so we're constantly buying other companies, and integrating their tech into our company.

Today in Health Care, startups with good ideas and good products? They're not lasting and are being bought up at a record pace. My company? Bought 15 companies last quarter, we're on pace to buy more this quarter. So instead of creating and building this tech in-house? They're just buying up these smaller startups and using their technology instead.

My advice? Build a decent product/app/platform for a niche area in Health Care and you'd be surprised how fast one of these companies will be knocking on your door.