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

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611–620 of 671 posts

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

#611
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have multiple businesses, and sell assets between them... then bankrupt the lame ones. Example: Business 1 buys a $1M piece of equipment with 30% down and 70% credit. After a couple years, and knowing that Business 1 is not that profitable anyway, the machine is sold to Business 2 for $150k, even though it's probably worth $700k still. Business 2 makes $550k profit on the books. Business 1 files bankruptcy. The c…

Can't the bankruptcy trustees come after the owner when they see that the machine was sold far below value? They do something similar in personal bankruptcy.

Selling things below value is pretty typical in a liquidation/bankruptcy scenario, though.

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

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do any of those meaningfully point to a war though? Again a war between whom? Assuming you're talking about the US pulling out of the INF treaty, that's not really a meaningful change. The Russians and various other countries were already largely ignoring it. Russia's territorial shenanigans are what really cemented the idea that we're not fighting a major super-power to super-power war ever again. The West has l…

> US troops have been in Europe for a long time. They haven't been in Romania, which is, like I said, a stone-throw away from Russia. And they started showing up after the start of the conflict in Ukraine. > Assuming you're talking about the US pulling out of the INF treaty, that's not really a meaningful change. The Russians and various other countries were already largely ignoring it. That's not my understanding of…

> They haven't been in Romania, which is, like I said, a stone-throw away from Russia. And they started showing up after the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/romania.htm

They have been, in fact.

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

#613
post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is size of economy / money supply. Printing more money doesn't inexorably produce inflation, for a lot of reasons. If the money printed is used unwisely, in ways that do not grow the economy, then it certainly does.

That's a very roundabout way of saying if you don't spend money it won't enter the economy.

That's not what ethbro is saying.

If the money supply (times velocity) is X, and I print more money so that it's now 1.1X, if I spend the new 0.1X in a way that grows the economy by 10%, then printing the money wasn't inflationary. If I spend the 0.1X in ways that don't grow the economy, then it was inflationary.

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

#614
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…

TL;DR : Trump is a 'mixed bag' but for right wingers the cost-benefit analysis surpassed that of Hillary Clinton, even though there were heavy costs. I'm not sure we should be delving into politics on hacker news. But if it's okay for the goose, allow the gander to retort. I hear you expressing your frustration and believe me I am fully aware that many Americans are very frustrated. Especially people on the left who…

> Take myself for example. I have had my IQ tested three times, and the lowest value was 147. I would say that objectively speaking I am not dumb. I must qualify this with the fact that I was a child all three times so there was a correction factor involved which would not apply now, so my IQ is probably lower today.

What you say is a great explanation, and makes sense, but then you go on about IQ as if it means something?

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

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Life is not a movie. There are no drunken masters. Being president isn’t a kungfu movie, even though Trump voters probably think it is.

Right now it's a reality TV show. But, one day, a bright shining star will make it into a Kung Fu movie. And I believe! #JackieChan2024

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/cq3o12

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

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hell, or even just good ole 'institutionalism'. "Deep state" sure does imply conspiracies afoot, and it's hardly such a thing. really it's just plain ole bureaucracy

Deep state is very much a thing: https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/ Dismissing it as a thing and calling it plain ole bureaucracy is quite a naive worldview.

Bureaucracy does moderate the effects of political leaders in exactly the ways the markets expected. It's extreme to ascribe a "worldview," no less a "naive" one, and it's a failure to appreciate context that you'd cite Bill Moyers' usage of the term when most people here know we're talking about Breitbart's usage. They each describe very different processes, institutional actors, etc., and yes, Breitbart's usage is often coterminous with the administrative state. Bureaucracy.

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

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the rational definition of Deep State is just the government “lifers” who stay in significant spheres of influence for most of their career. I.e. key defense, intelligence, financial, etc positions.

The problem is that "Deep State" is a loaded term. You could very well argue that the N-word is a historically accurate (and Latin) way to describe African Americans. Instead of using "Deep State", it might be better to say "Agency Directors", if you wanted to use neutral language. "Deep State" is loaded. Of course, its more popular these days to value-signal which side of an argument you're on, rather than appearing…

The second sentence in your post is so alarmingly inappropriate that I can't focus on anything else.

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

#618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now it's a reality TV show. But, one day, a bright shining star will make it into a Kung Fu movie. And I believe! #JackieChan2024

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/cq3o12

right. exactly. after China buys the US, Jackie Chan becomes president.

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

#619
post #565
post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inflation is a consequence of money spent foolishly No, it's a consequence of printing money as soon as the newly printed money gets out into the economy. The only reason the previous rounds of QE in the last decade didn't cause inflation was that practically all of it stayed in the banks' accounts at the Fed and never got loaned out, so it never actually got into the economy. > The same arguments were made against…

Inflation is size of economy / money supply. Printing more money doesn't inexorably produce inflation, for a lot of reasons. If the money printed is used unwisely, in ways that do not grow the economy, then it certainly does.

> Inflation is size of economy / money supply.

No, inflation is either an increase in the money supply (according to classical, i.e., pre-Keynesian, economics) or an increase in the average price level, often qualified to be the average price level of "wage goods" (according to Keynesian economics).

The underlying argument behind "size of economy/money supply" is that if the economy is growing (more precisely, if the rate of economic activity is growing), then increasing the money supply will not increase the average price level. In fact, if for whatever reason (and Keynesians have no trouble coming up with plausible-sounding reasons) you want the average price level to remain basically the same, you should print more money as the rate of economic activity increases.

While these are true statements, they ignore the fact that printing more money is economically equivalent to a wealth transfer from whoever does not get the newly printed money to whoever does get it (which under our current system is banks and other financial institutions). In other words, it's the same economically as a tax on ordinary people whose proceeds go to rich bankers and financiers. But it's much more palatable politically, which is why it's our current system. (The old system, before the Federal Reserve and other central banks gained power, was that when governments got in financial trouble they had to explicitly go to rich bankers and financiers and ask for bailouts, which was politically unpalatable, not to mention a huge pain for the rich bankers and financiers since people would see that they were effectively profiting from the economic woes of others. So the rich bankers and financiers got together and sold the politicians a system of central banks where all of this could be done under the radar so the ordinary taxpayers wouldn't see it and wouldn't complain about it.)

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

#620
post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inflation is a consequence of money spent foolishly No, it's a consequence of printing money as soon as the newly printed money gets out into the economy. The only reason the previous rounds of QE in the last decade didn't cause inflation was that practically all of it stayed in the banks' accounts at the Fed and never got loaned out, so it never actually got into the economy. > The same arguments were made against…

The New Deal allowed labor to capture the majority of surplus value created by the rapid wartime industrialization of America. We would not have our modern understanding of a middle class lifestyle had it not been for New Deal policy and the blood of organized labor shortly before and during wartime.

> The New Deal allowed labor to capture the majority of surplus value created by the rapid wartime industrialization of America

That's certainly how such policies were sold to the labor force, yes. But it's not what actually happened.

> We would not have our modern understanding of a middle class lifestyle had it not been for New Deal policy

To the extent that this is true, it means that our modern understanding of a middle class lifestyle is not what "middle class" meant at any previous time in human history. "Middle class" used to mean entrepreneurs--what today we would call small business owners. In other words, people who understood that the only way to make sure of the lifestyle they wanted was to manage their own business risks and not entrust them to anybody else.

Our modern understanding of "middle class" is what used to be called "wage slaves"--people who are content to let the leaders of the large organizations they work for take care of all the business risks, in exchange for a safe source of steady wages and benefits. But the leaders of the large corporations, unlike the "middle class" who worked for them, always understood that the steady wages and benefits were not "safe"--that as soon as the business realities changed (i.e., as soon as the huge new markets that opened up after WW II became saturated, which was happening by the mid-1960s to early 1970s), the large corporations would basically renege on all the promises they made to the labor force during the boom. Which is exactly what happened, and which amounted to whatever surplus value was in fact captured by labor being temporary. And the New Deal did absolutely nothing to prevent it.

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