Politics US Edition (2021-vol 2)

[Guard Dog]

Just now, Pidesco said:

I thought it was well established that the Austrian school of economics is a bunch of nutters following an agenda, with little basis in actual science.

You don’t have to buy the idea one hundred percent understand there is merit to be found in it. It doesn’t have to be all of one thing or all of another. Although that does appear to be the assumption people make around here at least when it comes to contrary opinions.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

I thought it was well established that the Austrian school of economics is a bunch of nutters following an agenda, with little basis in actual science.

Probably well established upon those who have completed Econ 101/102

7 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Not quickly

"About 19 hours" is relative I guess.

Sorry to hear you're having a bad day

6 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

You don’t have to buy the idea one hundred percent understand there is merit to be found in it. It doesn’t have to be all of one thing or all of another. Although that does appear to be the assumption people make around here at least when it comes to contrary opinions.

This is true. Just like The Communist Manifesto, there are nuggets within that sound like they should be obvious to all. The problem is that things that sound great on paper don't always work when actual people are involved.

You options are 1) wait for the rest of humanity to change into what you expect them to be or 2) try to find what actually works, understanding the people will probably always be flawed.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Achilles

[BruceVC]

10 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

You don’t have to buy the idea one hundred percent understand there is merit to be found in it. It doesn’t have to be all of one thing or all of another. Although that does appear to be the assumption people make around here at least when it comes to contrary opinions.

GD dont get upset, I generally agree with you? You make lots of sense in many discussions 

[Pidesco]

9 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

You don’t have to buy the idea one hundred percent understand there is merit to be found in it. It doesn’t have to be all of one thing or all of another. Although that does appear to be the assumption people make around here at least when it comes to contrary opinions.

Austrian Economics follows praxeology, which means it rejects empiricism, which means it's not scientific, so it's not actually economics.

https://mises.org/wire/do-austrians-really-reject-empirical-evidence

Quote

Austrians do not believe that economic laws can be discovered via empirical evidence/statistics. For by definition, the purpose of the evidence and statistics is to gather historical information, not to discover economic theory. Therefore, empirical information relates to “economics” only in a broad and general way; to get a better picture of the past, but never to acquire laws of human action.

 

[Darkpriest]

19 minutes ago, Pidesco said:

I thought it was well established that the Austrian school of economics is a bunch of nutters following an agenda, with little basis in actual science.

Established by whom? Have there been a real application of it? Or something near it? 

Look what we have when you get policy makers tinkering too much. Valuations out of @ss in the stocks, bankrupt companies getting to high stocks (Hertz last year), or companies with no prospects going record high (Gamestop insanity).

Perpetuating debt driven economy, which will either result in inflating the debt away, making a lot of people poor, or crashing markets as evetually the debt spiral will lead to a point, when the growth value will be consistently outpaced by debt service costs value, and that will make also a lot of people poor and helpless as all the programs and a lot of jobs will be lost. 

 

Healthy economy, same as healthy household/company can't run on debt ad infinitum. Temporary debt can boost growth prospects and overall propserity by smart use of money, but those should be mixed with periods of reducing debt significantly or no debt at all. 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Look what we have when you get policy makers tinkering too much. Valuations out of @ss in the stocks, bankrupt companies getting to high stocks (Hertz last year), or companies with no prospects going record high (Gamestop insanity).

LOL 

Did you just argue that policy makers are responsible for the GME financial meme du jour?!

Next you’ll tell me that up is down and black is white

Edited January 27, 2021 by Achilles
Missing word

[Darkpriest]

25 minutes ago, Achilles said:

LOL 

Did you just argue that policy makers are responsible for the GME financial meme du jour?!

Next you’ll tell me that up is down and black is white

And who poured all that free cash onto the market, which enabled this insanity? 

[Elerond]

3 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

And who poured all that free cash onto the market, which enabled this insanity? 

Market itself

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

And who poured all that free cash onto the market, which enabled this insanity? 

Assuming for a moment that I accept the premise of your argument, you do realize that the necessary implication is that individuals can’t be trusted to make their own investment decisions, right?

”Wasn’t my fault I followed the wall street bets bros off a cliff”

[Malcador]

WSB seems like they wanted to screw over the hedge fund.  Wonder how it would be if they banned short selling

[Darkpriest]

12 minutes ago, Elerond said:

Market itself

Market, or FED printing machine that pushed money through banks and treasury, who gulped the money from the market to run high deficit, and push the money onto hands of masses of people, who without jobs try their luck as retail traders. 

Eventually a lot of them will end up broke at best, while the fat sharks, with little collaterall damahe will rake with money. 

One of the reasons, you do not see inflation going nutts, is that a lot of money sits in the stocks, so the impact of the printing machine nd skyrocket debt is withheld from small folk by low velocity of that cash. 

[Darkpriest]

15 minutes ago, Achilles said:

Assuming for a moment that I accept the premise of your argument, you do realize that the necessary implication is that individuals can’t be trusted to make their own investment decisions, right?

”Wasn’t my fault I followed the wall street bets bros off a cliff”

I'd agree, if this game was a more fair game than your typical casino. 

There are some rules in that part of gambling for some reason. 

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Darkpriest said:

Market, or FED printing machine that pushed money through banks and treasury, who gulped the money from the market to run high deficit, and push the money onto hands of masses of people, who without jobs try their luck as retail traders. 

Not even close to true.

The argument might be less ridiculous if you said they took it to the casino or blew it all on scratchers. GME is a pump and dump for idiots with Robin Hood accounts.

But either way you’re arguing that people need regulation to stop them from doing stupid things with their money

[Elerond]

It seems that Hedge funds have been stupid with their money and shorted so much that market stunts like this cause them to fall badly

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Pidesco said:

I thought it was well established that the Austrian school of economics is a bunch of nutters following an agenda, with little basis in actual science.

That's arguably true for economics generally, with Austrians being more upfront about it. One of the funnier things I remember about taking econ courses outside of 101 is how one of the first things we were told is to relax at least half of the assumptions made in theory to arrive at a framework that is close to applicable to real life.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

That's arguably true for economics generally, with Austrians being more upfront about it. One of the funnier things I remember about taking econ courses outside of 101 is how one of the first things we were told is to relax at least half of the assumptions made in theory to arrive at a framework that is close to applicable to real life.

I think the tired joke is, “it works in practice, but does it work in theory?”

[Elerond]

BlacKkKlansman 2?

[Guard Dog]

29 minutes ago, Elerond said:

BlacKkKlansman 2?

You beat me to it! I was just coming here to post this! If this story doesn’t make you laugh I don’t know what will!

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Elerond said:

It seems that Hedge funds have been stupid with their money and shorted so much that market stunts like this cause them to fall badly

 

[ComradeYellow]

While America Was Sleeping - TomDispatch.com

TLDR:  Obamas bold geopolitical strategy, commonly referred to as the "TPP", was designed to block China's "Silk Road initiative" and transfer nearly 60% of the global economy preferentially into the U.S.  However, it received widespread condemnation both in the U.S. and Europe because it was completely beneficial to American CEO's and shareholders and detrimental to workers and environmental causes.

Trump came in and completely abandoned the TPP and developed a "America First" strategy and completely alienated U.S. allies in his tariff war against China, which completely failed as China literally did exactly what Obama tried to do during Trump's four years and has successfully set up an international trade network that benefitted them as America attempted to isolate itself from the world.

Wondering what Biden's response to this will be.

Edited January 27, 2021 by ComradeMaster

[Raithe]

[Gfted1]

 Religion, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uh-huh, uh-huh

[Malcador]

31 minutes ago, Raithe said:

Pretty glib interpretation.

[Zoraptor]

9 hours ago, Achilles said:

GME is a pump and dump for idiots with Robin Hood accounts.

They were pumping Gamestop specifically to asterisk with Melvin Capital, who were dumb enough to expose the fact they'd shorted GME stock in public documents.

The normal pump and dump strategy is for the Big Players with media contacts, AI trading and massive portfolios to target the small players by artificially inflating prices with orchestrated good news then crashing it with orchestrated bad news; this is the spiritual reverse of that. It doesn't even really rely on the normal good news cycle since there isn't any way to spin Gamestop positively; the stock appreciation is being driven by the stock appreciation, and that is the 'good news'. It's also only making news because it's a Big Player being targeted, not a bunch of individual investors as it is 99% of the time.

('Fun' fact for the day: half of Joe Biden's biggest campaign contributors are fund hedge managers, and 3 more worked in related fields.)

Edited January 28, 2021 by Zoraptor

[Malcador]

It is amusing, additionally to see Reddit users being carried away with what they're doing, various comments about "defeating" Wall Street, etc.

Pump and Dump doesn't need you to supply bad news though, once you've pumped it, you sell and that's that.  Suppose you could decide to just **** around with the price for fun, but would think you'd want cash out of it, especially as you burn a bridge once you've done it (or have a high chance to).   Sort of odd that this even happened though, could have sworn naked shorts were illegal in the US.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Malcador