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napoleon_thepig commented on Costco gold bars are selling out within hours   cnbc.com/2023/09/27/costc... · Posted by u/walterbell
noduerme · 2 years ago
Not exactly. I just sent this link to my (Argentine) friends with a different observation. My observation was: The United States is starting to look like Argentina.

You must understand: Most Americans are not accustomed to shoving a third party currency under their mattress, or buying physical gold. The phenomenon of hyperinflation is foreign to them, and there's a steep learning curve.

The actual significance of this is that metal is being offered at a "blue dollar" rate by one of the three largest retailers in America. Prior to there being any concept of blue dollars here. This is going to influence spot prices. The people buying this are too stupid to even go to their local coin dealer. (Which I do, sometimes, go to my local coin dealer - and trust me - the people there to buy are generally pretty stupid).

If I had an hour, I'd like to expound on the significance of Americans buying precious metal at a loss through a giant vertical monopoly. But I'll leave it at the fact that they seem to be starting to alert themselves to the one critical thing that has defined Argentinian inflation for the past 20 years: Bullshit figures from the government saying the currency is stabilized, at the same time as the government takes obvious punitive measures to curb inflation. This leads to distrust which leads to the demolition of the currency.

Argentines can take a 20% drop in the Peso with a morning medialuna. Americans have no fucking idea what's going on. Americans have barely begun to put together the networks to measure it - and is evidenced by Costco taking advantage here, Americans have absolutely no peer-to-peer ways of negotiating the value of a dollar against value anymore. That's quite a dangerous situation, because it means prices are psychologically still thought of as an "act of God" as opposed to any true understanding of who is outpacing whom.

Like I said, inflation and hyperinflation especially are a steep learning curve.

If I were living in BsAs, I'd begin looking for something else to put under the floorboards besides USD. And voting for that clown who wants to tie ARS to USD as if it was 1983 is probably like trying to get tickets to the Titanic right before it sinks. You can do better than resurrecting Menem's economy. (Then again, the Fernandez are even bigger clowns, which is why I refuse to engage in anyone's politics in Argentina).

napoleon_thepig · 2 years ago
>Not exactly. I just sent this link to my (Argentine) friends with a different observation. My observation was: The United States is starting to look like Argentina.

As someone who is studying economics in Argentina... You're pretty much the polar opposite of Argentina when it comes to the economy.

napoleon_thepig commented on Is technical analysis just stock market astrology?   alicegg.tech//2023/07/25/... · Posted by u/zer0tonin
hammock · 3 years ago
>Technical analysis is the ultimate dumbification of market structure and dynamics

Technical analysis is the macroeconomics (macroeconomics, the discipline taught in school etc) of the stock market! It’s like drawing aggregate demand and supply curves and imagining that they move around monolithically as they drive the economy. Tail wags the dog

napoleon_thepig · 3 years ago
I don't think you understand macroeconomics (or the undergrad level curves you're mentioning)
napoleon_thepig commented on British F-35Bs to bring vertical landing abilities to highways   thedrive.com/the-war-zone... · Posted by u/clouddrover
smcl · 3 years ago
To an non-expert like me the Gripen just seems so well-suited for Ukraine's Air Force in this conflict - relatively inexpensive, can land/operate in tougher conditions, can be serviced nearby (Czechia), outfitted to handle Western/NATO missile tech. I wonder what caused them to push so hard for F-16 instead.
napoleon_thepig · 3 years ago
The F-16 is the most numerous fighter jet in existence today and some countries are replacing them with F-35s, so there are a few dozen F-16s that might be available soon for Ukraine. On the other hand, the amount of Gripens available is in the low hundreds, which in practice means that Sweden would have to donate a significant part of it's current air force capability to Ukraine.

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napoleon_thepig commented on US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected   bls.gov/news.release/arch... · Posted by u/ericliuche
lukas099 · 3 years ago
Just consider the same country at two different points in time as two different countries and the distinction disappears.
napoleon_thepig · 3 years ago
Unless the country in question only consumes big Macs, using that index as a measure of inflation would be a terrible idea.
napoleon_thepig commented on US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected   bls.gov/news.release/arch... · Posted by u/ericliuche
Prunkton · 3 years ago
you are describing pretty much the Big Mac Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
napoleon_thepig · 3 years ago
The main objective of the big Mac index is not to measure inflation, it's to measure purchase parity power by using the price of something that is available in almost every country and has a very standard quality.
napoleon_thepig commented on What to read to understand how economists think   economist.com/the-economi... · Posted by u/helsinkiandrew
NeutralForest · 3 years ago
Talking about Economics on HN, what could go wrong
napoleon_thepig · 3 years ago
Brace yourselves for people commenting with a lot of confidence in what they're saying, but without actually having read anything about the topic.
napoleon_thepig commented on Ask HN: Is anyone else glad the crypto market is crashing?    · Posted by u/blueberrychpstx
logifail · 4 years ago
> What real math is involved in predicting the stock market?

Given the apparently inability of active funds to routinely outperform passive funds[0], "not much" would be my response.

One could be really cynical and reduce it to: some people get lucky, some of the time. That's all.

[0] https://www.ft.com/content/06317e0e-b6bf-4fdc-9255-cf664cb92... ( https://archive.ph/NumMp )

napoleon_thepig · 4 years ago
This is just... wrong, to put it mildly.

When it comes to serious financial modeling in big firms, everything from PDEs and stochastic calculus to cutting edge forecasting models and deep learning is fair game.

napoleon_thepig commented on Formula E Gen3: The world’s most efficient race car   engadget.com/formula-e-ge... · Posted by u/RickJWagner
Scene_Cast2 · 4 years ago
My take is that what makes a sport exciting for spectators is different from what makes a sport exciting for the participants, which is also different from an exciting sports spec sheet.
napoleon_thepig · 4 years ago
I agree and I think that FE is a well designed entertainment product, considering the technology and budget limitations they have.

u/napoleon_thepig

KarmaCake day30May 21, 2021View Original