like i remember r'ing mde at the al gore movie ending with, "change your lightbulbs"
― flopson, Thursday, 14 January 2016 14:55 (eight years ago) link
it felt like such a wasted opportunity. you've emotionally manipulated thousands of theatres full of well-meaning people, they're all just waiting at the end for you to tell them what to do... and you tell em to change their lightbulbs
― flopson, Thursday, 14 January 2016 14:56 (eight years ago) link
i remember that. i almost wonder if thats just gore's DLC style mindset of "we'll never be able to get congress to act on this in any meaningful way, but we can sure as shit make people change their bulbs"
― ecclesiastes nutz (m bison), Thursday, 14 January 2016 15:02 (eight years ago) link
curious when the rising tide is going to life all boats. it's been about 35 years now. tide sure is taking its sweet time coming in!
― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 14 January 2016 15:53 (eight years ago) link
otm. i don't think 'big houses' and 'driving culture' can change fast enough
it certainly won't with enough people enabling it
― Mr. Snroombes (mattresslessness), Thursday, 14 January 2016 16:03 (eight years ago) link
what do you think is a realistic window of time for say, 50% of people in america to move into smaller houses? 100 years?
― flopson, Thursday, 14 January 2016 16:09 (eight years ago) link
i mean, if we had a tonne of uninhabited smaller houses it wouldn't be that bad. but we probably don't, and the ones that exist are probably further from where people work, so then people have to drive further. and even if they drive smaller cars, driving further kind of cuts your losses
― flopson, Thursday, 14 January 2016 16:14 (eight years ago) link
we just need to hold on a little longer for rubio's tax cuts qualmsley
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Thursday, 14 January 2016 16:28 (eight years ago) link
third straight month to show a decline in U.S. industrial production
http://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/g17/current/g17.pdf
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Friday, 15 January 2016 15:40 (eight years ago) link
we used to make more things in this country, three months ago
― j., Friday, 15 January 2016 15:42 (eight years ago) link
*eagle tear drop*
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Friday, 15 January 2016 15:44 (eight years ago) link
We used to make cars, now we just connect drivers and passengers who love to share them.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2016 15:58 (eight years ago) link
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Friday, January 15, 2016 10:40 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
sounds far worse said that way than looking at this, you can see the little downard wiggle if you squint hard enough
http://i68.tinypic.com/j6rh90.png
― flopson, Friday, 15 January 2016 16:06 (eight years ago) link
the first thing I read in this thread was
Now the dollar is at an all-time low against the euro and the canadian dollar. [...]
― Aimless, Saturday, October 20, 2007 7:36 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
pretty funny given that CADUSD has just hit 0.690
― Sharkie, Friday, 15 January 2016 16:08 (eight years ago) link
USD vs any other single currency is not, in itself, a very good proxy for economic health anyway, just one of those things that makes for gawky headlines.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2016 16:22 (eight years ago) link
yeah it's very annoying in canada right now
― flopson, Friday, 15 January 2016 16:40 (eight years ago) link
Two Tim Duy posts arguing that if a recession is coming, so far it's not in the data:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/01/fed-watch-so-you-think-a-recession-is-imminent-employment-edition.htmlhttp://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2016/01/fed-watch-so-you-think-a-recession-is-imminent-yield-curve-edition.html
― o. nate, Friday, 15 January 2016 19:32 (eight years ago) link
thanks
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Friday, 15 January 2016 19:38 (eight years ago) link
I don't find that analysis too meaningful. Each recession is a little or a lot different.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2016 19:53 (eight years ago) link
He's just saying these are indicators that have worked pretty reliably in the past, and as now, they're not indicating recession. No indicator is perfect.
― o. nate, Friday, 15 January 2016 20:01 (eight years ago) link
black swans wont be in the data either
― carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries), Friday, 15 January 2016 20:05 (eight years ago) link
are ppl predicting a new recession bc they see a particular black swan on the horizon, though, or bc there is a lot of residual nervousness about the ongoing health of the system from the last recession?
― Mordy, Friday, 15 January 2016 20:09 (eight years ago) link
7-8 year typical recession cycle also a factor here according to our CEO
he's predicting a 2017 US crash, following China in 2016.
― sleeve, Friday, 15 January 2016 20:11 (eight years ago) link
I'm more concerned about residual effects from the last one that have been masked. I also think underestimating the effect of the end of low rates could lead to a kind of black swan, but those are really two sides of the same coin.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Friday, 15 January 2016 20:12 (eight years ago) link
we just had a black swan 7 years ago isn't it a little too soon, aren't they supposed to have low probability? maybe a grey swan. taleb's
looking to real economy indicators or yield curves may not be perfect, but probably better than listening to heads of big banks who are (1) just freaking out cause they bet on oil (2) engaged in some form of cheap talk
― flopson, Friday, 15 January 2016 20:13 (eight years ago) link
agreed esp regarding (1)
― sleeve, Friday, 15 January 2016 20:57 (eight years ago) link
"supposed to have low probability"
"supposed to" being the operative thing. the metaphor is a lot more subtle than that.
like its something you think is rare-to-nonextant, and it turns out there's _lots_ of them, you just hadn't gone to that part of the world yet
― consecrated LOLcalhost (s.clover), Friday, 15 January 2016 21:06 (eight years ago) link
i haven't read many theories for the chinese slowdown -- is it attributable to their demographic crisis plus their aggressive expansion now self-correcting?
― Mordy, Friday, 15 January 2016 21:15 (eight years ago) link
bc those are 2 problems the US doesn't really have. we could probably afford to spend more on our infrastructure than we already do (we don't have hundreds of empty cities) and our fertility rate is above replacement
― Mordy, Friday, 15 January 2016 21:16 (eight years ago) link
I think a lot of it was straight up book-cooking and false growth projections tbh
― the 'major tom guy' (sleeve), Friday, 15 January 2016 21:22 (eight years ago) link
apparently the US is below replacement level as well (not as extremely - US is at 1.87 and China is 1.60) but i'm guessing high levels of immigration probably help our rate. ot but can u guess which western country has the highest replacement level in the world?
― Mordy, Friday, 15 January 2016 21:25 (eight years ago) link
― Mordy, Friday, January 15, 2016 4:15 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
housing bubble
― flopson, Friday, 15 January 2016 21:30 (eight years ago) link
but like that's a pretty unique problem to build a ton of cities and then not have ppl to move in. unless like the argument is that a chinese economic meltdown would def drag down the rest of the world into another recession but is that a reasonable expectation?
― Mordy, Friday, 15 January 2016 21:32 (eight years ago) link
imo: no
― flopson, Friday, 15 January 2016 22:04 (eight years ago) link
I mean if it's bad enough I'm sure it could. Maybe a better question for the world recession poll thread than the us toilet economy thread
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Friday, 15 January 2016 22:40 (eight years ago) link
my black swan candidate is china too.. not only a housing bubble but an infrastructure bubble that propped up their growth rate - building a shit ton of defective crap nobody has any use for
so many swans, so little time
https://49.media.tumblr.com/34116b28018224117bfb28d379b3a41f/tumblr_n4f9wxKYqi1rdutw3o1_400.gif
― carthago delenda est (mayor jingleberries), Friday, 15 January 2016 23:07 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQz6K0aWWiY
― rap is dad (it's a boy!), Friday, 15 January 2016 23:53 (eight years ago) link
we could probably afford to spend more on our infrastructure than we already do
understatement of the decade?
people will look back at this time of sluggish demand, high unemployment, creaking public services and eight years of interest-free loans and wonder what was stopping us. an opportunity - and a generation of actual real people - squandered permanently on an altar of deficit ideology. public debt as a percentage of gdp has been average/normal for years now, even after we all bailed out the banks. for fuck's sake it's basically criminal what's happening.
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Friday, 15 January 2016 23:57 (eight years ago) link
Another respected economist who think the stock market needs to chill out:
http://blogs.piie.com/realtime/?p=5341
― o. nate, Monday, 18 January 2016 02:15 (eight years ago) link
Blanchard OTM
― flopson, Monday, 18 January 2016 02:27 (eight years ago) link
I don't think so, that's far too simple an answer to be satisfying.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, 18 January 2016 02:38 (eight years ago) link
I don't believe in "herding" per se in the US stock market -- it's far too dominated by large, sophisticated players for any kind of prolonged or sustained herding imo.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, 18 January 2016 02:41 (eight years ago) link
OB's on twitter! https://twitter.com/ojblanchard1
― flopson, Monday, 18 January 2016 02:52 (eight years ago) link
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Sunday, January 17, 2016 9:41 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
but "large, sophisticated players" still don't know what the hell will happen any more than etrade babies, that's how equity markets work
― Option ARMs and de Man (s.clover), Monday, 18 January 2016 03:10 (eight years ago) link
yeah but large institutional investors don't just say "Oh shit, the stock market is going down, something must be going on, fuck, let's sell"
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, 18 January 2016 03:11 (eight years ago) link
Do they not? I have no idea how large institutional investors do things. Isn't a lot of their money in the day to day market like everyone else's?
― something totally new, it’s the AOR of the twenty first century (tipsy mothra), Monday, 18 January 2016 03:15 (eight years ago) link
Their decision-making process is a little more complex.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, 18 January 2016 03:22 (eight years ago) link
More complex, I mean, than just "Oh I don't know what's going on but if everyone else is panicking it must be something bad"
right -- the process is "do we think everyone else's panic will keep going on" and if so then yeah bail. or rather it depends on the player. that's the case for "large, sophisticated players" and hedge funds and etc.
like the thing happening _is_ everyone else's panic -- the market moves mainly on expectations of future market movement.
in fact one of the things the flash crash showed is that when things start to buckle, the "market makers" who "provide liquidity" by lots of small hft trades throughout the day, they all bail first because its just safer for them to sit it out.
and when that happens, then everything else plummets much more quickly because it loses a sort of basic support.
― Option ARMs and de Man (s.clover), Monday, 18 January 2016 03:34 (eight years ago) link
No matter how sophisticated the investor is, I think there comes a point when they just want to stop the pain. Very few have the stamina and conviction of the Michael Burry character in the Big Short, who was a few years early on the shorting subprime call and had to ride out large losses and investors trying to redeem. On the other hand, I'm sympathetic to the argument that the market collectively can be smarter than the individuals who make it up. Stocks were pretty richly valued before this correction, and I think there's a decent case to be made that they're just adjusting to the fact that growth is going to be slow for the next few years, rather than anticipating a major recession.
― o. nate, Monday, 18 January 2016 03:40 (eight years ago) link