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How This Ends

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Re: How This Ends

#681
post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... nato bombed whole (what was then left of) yugoslavia, including civilian targets and destroyed civil infrastructure, to make the country give up the southern part (kosovo)... they even bombed a tobacco factory in Niš and the national TV station in Belgrade which have nothing to do with kosovo, and threw cluster bombs on residential areas "just because". So yeah... putin is basically doing the same to destro…

The difference being Serbia committed genocide whereas Ukraine was just minding its own business.

What genocide? And since when is "bombing minority cities" == "minding it's own business"?

There are few well written articles about yugoslavia post 1991, but here's one of them, complete with western sources: https://web.archive.org/web/20200319062355/http://www.michae...

Re: How This Ends

#682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, so sorry.

Not really, if they go to zero, then he/she will be in the same situation as most (99.9%) of employees who get no stock.

We call it the lottery — the last ~5 years we "won"; this year? Maybe not so much.

Re: How This Ends

#683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, if they go to zero, then he/she will be in the same situation as most (99.9%) of employees who get no stock.

We call it the lottery — the last ~5 years we "won"; this year? Maybe not so much.

“We” meaning a subset of “not me”

Re: How This Ends

#684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan is the common counterexample. That only provides a counter example to investing all your money into a single country. Unless you think every stock market in the world is going to do poorly, that's a reason to buy a globally diversified index fund (like VT), so even if American economic hegemony ends, you can pick up on growth of other countries.

Is there really any western country that is "on the rise"? If the US is a poor choice, what else is there? I don't wanna invest in China as that could be throwing money into a black hole. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this way.

> Is there really any western country that is "on the rise"?

Why does it have to be a western country?

> I don't wanna invest in China as that could be throwing money into a black hole.

There are countries other than just Western countries and China: namely, African countries and SEA countries.

Re: How This Ends

#685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally anecdotal, but I know a couple who are renting out their house they highly and renting a place to live because the interest rate they secured (2.75%) means renters paid their mortgage and then some (about 40% on top), so they basically make like $200/mo to live somewhere else as renters pay for their home.

This doesn't make sense or you are omitting key information. If a homeowner rents their place for more than it costs them in mortgage + property taxes and makes $200 on top, that's fine and quite a nice deal. However you're suggesting they're also subsidizing their own rental and +$200. That only makes sense if they're renting well below their means or in a different market entirely while their home is in an ultra pr…

It makes plenty of sense, happy to explain.

New Orleans has wild real estate. It’s not San Francisco but it’s way above the average income here and swings wildly from neighborhood to neighborhood. Home prices flip radically even just a few blocks over. We’re talking $400k->$800k if you move 5, maybe 6 blocks. Sometimes fewer than that - saw a near-turnkey place go for $500k and another for $900k 2 blocks from each other right by me about 3 or 4 years ago (obviously the latter was very nice new construction, but you get the point).

They own in a solid neighborhood, one that was “up and coming” 5 years ago, and rent in an average one (it’s in a higher risk flood zone which factors in a ton). Irish Channel vs. midcity, if you know the area at all.

They don’t have kids and see their rental as a place to sleep. It’s small, barely what I’d qualify as enough for two people. But it works for them so power to them I guess. Making out like bandits.

I get why you’re skeptical but it’s not like I’m lying here. Not sure why I would? The whole point of this anecdote is to show how crazy these interest rates were.

Re: How This Ends

#686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't understand the US stock market, re: Beyond Meat. It's a fucking recipe. Where I live in Ireland there a dozen different fake-meat brands, and they're even getting competition from supermarket "own brand" products (burgers, sausages etc). Don't get me wrong, beyond meat isn't a bad product, but how the hell is a recipe and a few business deals worth IPO and wild speculation? What do they have beyond, uh, fake…

What is Coca-Cola besides a recipe, a brand, and some business deals?

Re: How This Ends

#687
post #348

Global economic problems were not caused by COVID19; it was just a convenient opportunity deflect blame away from more fundamental issues. One of the main real problems is that a decade of near 0% interest rates had led to money printing on such a scale that certain activities which would otherwise not have been profitable were able to be profitable (in nominal fiat terms)... But while these activities were reaping h…

> it was purely a money-printing scheme to allow the elites to cash out What did the elites cash out to?

Cash, precious metals, value businesses, real estate.

Re: How This Ends

#688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not forget the influencers. I know 16yr olds with zero coding skills earning 100k+ annually. All they do is peddle web3 APIs on twitter. We live in a bizarre world.

tl;dr - just a rant. you're not missing anything. And it all comes back to the fact that has been true since 2003 that Google earns 90% of its revenue on ads, and despite decades of trying at this point they still can't figure out how to move past that. I mean, I think they've improved a bit, I've seen the number 70%, but still; a company as innovative as Google should be making money from innovations, not selling ad…

Thanks for this interesting read. It fully resonates with me. It does feel like the economy of many developed countries has been hollowed out. Our economies are built on rent-extraction, dividends, royalties and interest. It feels like we produce nothing, but the elites in our society just collect free money from all over the world because they own a lot of assets overseas. Any country which decided to opt out of the globalist agenda and take control of their national assets would suddenly find themselves rich from not having to constantly send money to overseas investors.

Re: How This Ends

#689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get that. And that's natural. But if a huge population swell is accustomed to treating the market as a get-rich-quick casino, the market stops serving its purpose and I guess we're in for a really bad series of shocks.

The scary thing for me is the 2nd order effects of this activity as companies try to act increasingly like meme stocks to boost share price and abandon all pretence of P/E ratios and profitability.

This. Also, in terms of downstream effects: Taking sibling's point, even now at $650B Tesla has market cap equivalent to the next 10 largest automakers combined, while having a P/E ratio ten times higher than Toyota, 32 times higher than BMW. Isn't the effect that other automakers are undercapitalized? The distortion of the market that's inflated Tesla has funneled investment away from productive non-meme competitors. That means layoffs and more supply chain problems. And that capital just gets wiped out when the bubble bursts, leaving a giant supply-side hole.

Re: How This Ends

#690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow your equation. https://ycharts.com/indicators/sp_500_monthly_return Yours is unweighted, but return of the S&P in Dec 2021 4.36% The dividend yield about 1.37% The price ~4600. 4.36/1.37 - 4600 indeed very less than zero. The relationship means nothing to me. I must be getting this all wrong.

It’s the sum over all periods into the future.

How do we get the returns or dividend yields for future periods?
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