The points are valid. But it's entirely possible to replace 'Bad Economics' with even 'Worse Economics'
Readit NewsJackPoach commented on Bad Economics bostonreview.net/articles... · Posted by u/VieEnCode
I get the point you're making - but honestly I have to raise the counter argument, which I think is equally valid. Take for example, the average lecture video. The information density is so low, that I'd imagine that a 60 minute video could be compressed into 10-12 minutes without any loss of information. It really depends on what you're listening to/watching.
It's not just density, many books are pure nonsense. So 200 books of pure nonsense a year won't teach you much. They'll just introduce you to a ton of terrible ideas.
JackPoach commented on A molten salt storage solution using sodium hydroxide sifted.eu/articles/salt-e... · Posted by u/ericdanielski
This is nothing new. Molten salt ideas have been around 30+ years and there are projects in Spain and other countries that tested them on small scale. The economics is still poor.
JackPoach commented on US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis theguardian.com/business/... · Posted by u/cs702
Median household income has gone up. It's currently the highest it's ever been in real terms. Households are better off today then they have ever been in their day-to-day affordability of goods.
You also can't cherry-pick a handful of things that have gone up a lot and then assume that it applies to everything. Some things have gone up in price, others haven't. Inflation is sitting at about 6%, which after a decade+ of sub-2% might seem like such a shock, but it isn't really a big deal.
Real wages have been stagnant since 1970s in the US. Median household incomes have only gone up because some people work in highly paid industries, like IT, plus household incomes include income from stocks and real estate AND most households now are two working adults.
JackPoach commented on US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis theguardian.com/business/... · Posted by u/cs702
People need to decide whether they think this is because of supply chain issues and the demand spike following COVID or if it's because of the Fed.
Clearly the Fed mostly. We'll see it once the supply chain issues go away, but high prices stay high.
JackPoach commented on US inflation jumps to 31-year high amid global supply chain crisis theguardian.com/business/... · Posted by u/cs702
And it's probably going to only get worse looking at Fed
The problem with these indicators is that, although they may indicate over- or undervaluation, they tell you nothing about when a mean reversion will happen.
As Keynes famously said: "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
An indicator that does a pretty good job of signaling the "when" of a recession, and by extension the likely "when" of large market corrections, is yield curve inversion. It predicted the recession of early 2020 quite well, even with the external shock of the pandemic.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leonlabrecque/2020/02/26/anothe...
From the perspective that somehow a reset of the business cycle has happened through government transfers (not exactly a sound assumption), watch interest rates, and in particular the relationship between the 2 and 10 year.
Should we start to see a rise in short-term rates, without a similar rise in long rates, watch out. You'll no doubt see a multitude of articles explaining how "this time is different." It won't be. And on top of all of that, we'll head into it with the most overvalued market in history.
It's not an indicator problem, it's a problem of people trying to time markets. Also, there are two ways to use the Buffet Indicator - right and wrong. The wrong way is to say 'it's overvalued, I should do something - short the market'. The right way is 'it's overvalues, I should avoid doing something - buying overvalued stocks'.
Buffett has been sitting on piles of cash in the past for years and years, avoiding buying securities when they are overvalued. He never tried timing the market, simply waiting for the right moment. Nor did he sell stocks when they were overvalued in order to try to buy them back at a lower cost at least AFAIK from reading his biographies. So, for a value investor, it's a useful tool.
Please provide any proof they work at all. Facebook has been fined larger amounts previously and continues to receive more fines for violations of user privacy. I would say there is currently very strong proof in the real world against what you’re assuming is true. Until a fine is ~10% of their stock value they won’t even consider it. This might as well be free for Facebook.
Did you study the work of Ralph Nader and the auto industry? Or the history of tobacco industry? There are multiple examples when it worked in the past. I am quite confident that when abuse goes too far, the pushback is even bigger. I just don't want to oversimplify the issue and say that any big corporation or any IT giant is bad by nature. It's growing pains in my book.
Facebook generates this much free cash flow in 3 days.
This is irrelevant
Well, when each country does that it becomes economically unfeasible. Such fines work and work very well, once FB realizes that they lose more money from unethical behavior than they make, they'll stop it. I don't believe that any corporation is evil. I do believe that there are temptations to do bad things in order to make money, even if short term. This corrects such behavior. Hopefully.
JackPoach commented on Europe has now created more $1bn ‘unicorn’ companies than China sifted.eu/articles/europe... · Posted by u/dukeyukey
It's kind of strange to compare companies strictly based on their valuation. Saudi Aramco valuation today is higher than that of Apple but these are very different companies and I wouldn't claim that one is better than the other.