On April 27 2016 01:28 Chef wrote: Nice animations, tediously slow on delivering information.
I think it gets better after the middle half, but I think it's because it was an intro for the mass American population. That being said, I think it does it's job.
I agree. Could have been condensed to 5 minutes for what it had to say, but it was food for thought. I thought the concept of commonplace borrowing being one way the price of goods get driven up was a neat point for how things escalate despite parts and labour being equal. It's certainly a nice change from 'supply and demand' being the go-to simplification of economics.
The appeal the human nature is dumb, but besides his point, so it didn't bother me that much. It could easily be a cultural phenomenon.
I think discussing productivity as an even and stable increase was not quite right. Even very briefly he could have said something about how very important inventions dramatically change that landscape, or how scarcity of actual resources is going to have large impact on economy. It sort of treats the economy in total isolation of world history, which is probably not correct. It focuses heavily on the last century, while making statements about long term cycles that last (apparently) 80 or so years. That's kind of a starvation on data to prove his assertions.
I think if it was condensed to 5mins, it would have become unintelligible to 95% of the mass American population keke.
I think for Ray and a lot of those in investment, the greatest gains in fucking the market come when the human nature factor kicks in, which is a reality of the market, if you exclude that we really take out a major force that does affect the market.
I think Ray simplifies productivity here for obvious reasons as just a macro concept, as a business guy I understand his approach because as long as the model works in applicability then good enough, but again, I don't he means to use historical data to prove his case, rather that in the last 30 years this has worked for him as a framework,
I mean obviously we do have historical numbers from the Dutch tulip crash etc and he knows all of this, but at this level of discussion, I think it would have been more confusing and I mean this last half century or the century as a whole is an exponential rise in productivity that really could make us all say, hey what value is any historical data pre 1920 worth?
On April 28 2016 05:16 TwiggyWan wrote: Thanks for the explaination. I surely understand that a human/company does not want to wait 50 years to become richer and prefers to gamble and use credit. Good point on competition between companies too.
The video assumes that currency and credit is MONEY. Money needs to keep its value over long periods of time (in other words, inflation/deflation should not be possible).
I don't understand this. It should not be possible, well okay, but it IS happening in the real world. So how does that make the video inaccurate?
I won't get into this, other than just read my response to iloveav's post, but he is putting the entire conversation in a different context which wasn't the purpose or the intention of the video, but maybe it something you can explore on an entire different thread or ask iloveav directly.
On April 28 2016 11:36 Descent wrote: Was skeptical, but seems like a pretty good primer to economics for lay people.
iloveav, your recommended video starts with "Wealth is never destroyed, only transferred." What.
Its not entirely accurate to call wealth as impossible to destroy (you can destroy a building for instance, so I dont agree with that, nor I agree 100% with everything said in that video, but a lot of points do hold their own).
What I assume the video means is that while currency can be destroyed thou deflationary processes, the wealth that assets with intrinsic value represent do not vanish, they just have a different price.
On April 27 2016 16:50 iloveav wrote: Inaccurate video (and its conclusion). The video assumes that currency and credit is MONEY. Money needs to keep its value over long periods of time (in other words, inflation/deflation should not be possible).
Because of this phenomenon, credit/currency creation lowers the value of the currency unit itself, as more currency is chasing the same goods, making things cost more in currency units, but not necessarily in work hours.
Please also dont mistake Wealth with spending or Income. Wealth is not valued in currency but in assets. A house is not better suddenly when its price goes up, same when it goes down.
What is the difference from earning 1000 dollars and paying 1000 dollars for all the goods and services that you need that month, or earning 10000 dollars and spending 10000 dollars for the EXACT same goods and services in the same amount of time?
If prices would be stable and your income would rise, then I agree that it translates into wealth.
If anyone is indeed interested in economy, I suggest starting here:
There are other inaccuracies in the video, but to be frank, It is far too long to pick the video apart step by step (most people wont even watch the 30 minute video, much less try to critically asses the claims made against it).
I'm writing the following NOT to dissuade you from your position or thinking, I am replying to clarify my position in the thread for those who will read my post and your response.
1. What iloveav says about the inaccuracies of the video is wrong. The video of course simplifies the entire basis of the economy, but it is base on a macro approach and understanding of the fundamental pressures on what drives the economy.
2. Why iloveav thinks it's wrong and why he includes his own video and talks about wealth and currency as if it is the missed topic of Ray's video is because he is in the 'rabbit hole' and doesn't realize it. For him he already believes that the rabbit hole is the reality and is projecting his position on whatever he sees about the economy to make it fit with his position in the rabbit hole - which again he thinks is the macro reality - but I'm going to say, 100% it's not.
3. BUT It is a reality in the rabbit hole, where it seems to make sense, where very intelligent people apply and wrestle with it and use their understanding to make money off of other people and it all works, until it doesn't,
4. And it doesn't, it doesn't work when there is 2008 crash, and all of these really intelligent people who have probably never realized that they are in the rabbit hole have no choice but to dismiss the crash as just a condition of the market being a bubble - but fail to realize that their own 'macro views' are not macro at all, but are actually - taken as a whole, simply another micro construct in the context of the macro.
5. Why I'm confident in saying this, comes down to a matter of applicability. You take the sum of all these investment views or understanding about currency, wealth or whatever and yes, they give you an edge or they 'work' to maintain your own portfolio, but when it comes to preventing yourself from getting fucked by a bubble or recognizing a bubble or increasing true productivity (and I say true, because what they think productivity is in the rabbit hole is again just a micro understanding in the context of the underlying macro structures), - these 'rabbit hole macro views' simply have no answer or effect or are in a position to explain what happened.
6. iloveav isn't wrong in a certain context, but he is missing the context here and he is doesn't realize that in this case, this is NOT a choice between two equal views that are different. His position can be perfectly valid, and this position by Ray is perfectly valid, but when put together, iloveav position is a valid within the context of Ray.
7. But I say point 6, not to say that iloveav's view is actually valid. I personally don't give a shit about what iloveav's view as well as the wharton harvard investment bankers and economist view points are about the rabbit hole. You think the collective IQ and education on wall street couldn't settle a colony on Mars in a lifetime? I'm sure they could, I'm sure there are many more smarter people in wall street than elon musk or peter thiel, but then there is 2008.
And there is nothing to explain there except that from their position in the rabbit hole they could have never seen it coming.
Greedy, dumb, evil, is all besides the point, as they were all(most) intelligent enough, no one would have willing let this happen if they had known what was to come, but it does first come down to what do we really understand as macro and fundamentals.
8. To conclude: What you choose to do in the rabbit hole, do it if it works, but don't forget there is a rabbit hole.
The video is meant to be simplistic, but it s a basis for the context of all the rabbit holes out there, if you can remember what is in this video, you will always have a solid economic world view where you can build on and return to.
I'm saying that you won't go wrong with having this as your economic world view then you fill in the blanks and build upon it.
Do you think Ray or bridgewater associates invests solely on the basis of the views expressed in this video, no of course not, this is not their investment thesis or how to build wealth or manage assets, this is only the over all paradigm where they build everything else upon and really this video is not a big deal.
There is nothing so ground breaking or insightful here or controversial here, no one is going to say this is a cult video of extreme views, but the purpose and the only purpose is to share a framework which I think correct and will at the very least make you aware that there is this underlying reality and everything else which people think that drive wealth, the market and the economy.
If you don't have a full framework to view the economy, take 30 mins to watch the video, or not.
I'm not sharing to impose my views on TL, I'm sharing because I'm part of this community and would like to share.
And normally I wouldn't bother to respond to a post like iloveav's in great detail, because he writes to simply discredit my post and push his own position, and good for him, the fuck do I really care if he wants to believe or whatever, this is internet, BUT just because he pretty much wrote his own post as a perfect example of someone who completely missed the point of the context/purpose of the video and sets himself up perfectly for this, I could not resist to use this as a very strong example to further clarify and expand on my original post.
Thanks iloveav, I rarely get such easy targets on the internet and in life, it has made my day! Appreciate it bro.
If any of you haven't watched 'the big short' take 90mins to watch that, much more entertaining than the 30mins I linked in the OP, but I'd say that Ray's video is still much more significant than the Big Short, but taken together, it will make a lot more sense.
I am a bit confused. I would like you to explain more clearly what this rabbit hole is. If there is one that I am unaware of, Id surely like to know about it, but you do not give me the tools required to see it.
By the way, there were many people who saw the 2008 crash coming, you just dont hear about them in mainstream media often.
My favorite of the ones who saw it coming include Peter Schiff and Jim Richards, perhaps beacuse they explain the problems in an easy way.
Also, If you do think im wrong in this context, Id like to know what point you refer to of me being wrong, and what is "the context" here.
Your critique is slightly too loose for me to identify it correctly.
I agree that the video is meant to be simplistic and fairly straightforward, but that was not what bothered me about it. What bothered me about it is the leaps in assumptions it makes.
One of the ones that really made my eyes roll is when the video refers to "Total Spending Driving the economy". I have an opposite view in this matter. Its savings and capital investments what drive the economy.
Please note that these are two fundamental different school of economic thinking:
Keynesian and Austrian.
You can choose any of them, but you need to at least know that both exist to even be able to make a choice, other way, you are in the rabbit hole.
EDIT: One thing thou, If finding easy targets on the Internet or Real life makes your day, Im afraid there wont be much productive conversation with you.
On April 27 2016 16:50 iloveav wrote: Inaccurate video (and its conclusion). The video assumes that currency and credit is MONEY. Money needs to keep its value over long periods of time (in other words, inflation/deflation should not be possible).
Because of this phenomenon, credit/currency creation lowers the value of the currency unit itself, as more currency is chasing the same goods, making things cost more in currency units, but not necessarily in work hours.
Please also dont mistake Wealth with spending or Income. Wealth is not valued in currency but in assets. A house is not better suddenly when its price goes up, same when it goes down.
What is the difference from earning 1000 dollars and paying 1000 dollars for all the goods and services that you need that month, or earning 10000 dollars and spending 10000 dollars for the EXACT same goods and services in the same amount of time?
If prices would be stable and your income would rise, then I agree that it translates into wealth.
If anyone is indeed interested in economy, I suggest starting here:
There are other inaccuracies in the video, but to be frank, It is far too long to pick the video apart step by step (most people wont even watch the 30 minute video, much less try to critically asses the claims made against it).
I'm writing the following NOT to dissuade you from your position or thinking, I am replying to clarify my position in the thread for those who will read my post and your response.
1. What iloveav says about the inaccuracies of the video is wrong. The video of course simplifies the entire basis of the economy, but it is base on a macro approach and understanding of the fundamental pressures on what drives the economy.
2. Why iloveav thinks it's wrong and why he includes his own video and talks about wealth and currency as if it is the missed topic of Ray's video is because he is in the 'rabbit hole' and doesn't realize it. For him he already believes that the rabbit hole is the reality and is projecting his position on whatever he sees about the economy to make it fit with his position in the rabbit hole - which again he thinks is the macro reality - but I'm going to say, 100% it's not.
3. BUT It is a reality in the rabbit hole, where it seems to make sense, where very intelligent people apply and wrestle with it and use their understanding to make money off of other people and it all works, until it doesn't,
4. And it doesn't, it doesn't work when there is 2008 crash, and all of these really intelligent people who have probably never realized that they are in the rabbit hole have no choice but to dismiss the crash as just a condition of the market being a bubble - but fail to realize that their own 'macro views' are not macro at all, but are actually - taken as a whole, simply another micro construct in the context of the macro.
5. Why I'm confident in saying this, comes down to a matter of applicability. You take the sum of all these investment views or understanding about currency, wealth or whatever and yes, they give you an edge or they 'work' to maintain your own portfolio, but when it comes to preventing yourself from getting fucked by a bubble or recognizing a bubble or increasing true productivity (and I say true, because what they think productivity is in the rabbit hole is again just a micro understanding in the context of the underlying macro structures), - these 'rabbit hole macro views' simply have no answer or effect or are in a position to explain what happened.
6. iloveav isn't wrong in a certain context, but he is missing the context here and he is doesn't realize that in this case, this is NOT a choice between two equal views that are different. His position can be perfectly valid, and this position by Ray is perfectly valid, but when put together, iloveav position is a valid within the context of Ray.
7. But I say point 6, not to say that iloveav's view is actually valid. I personally don't give a shit about what iloveav's view as well as the wharton harvard investment bankers and economist view points are about the rabbit hole. You think the collective IQ and education on wall street couldn't settle a colony on Mars in a lifetime? I'm sure they could, I'm sure there are many more smarter people in wall street than elon musk or peter thiel, but then there is 2008.
And there is nothing to explain there except that from their position in the rabbit hole they could have never seen it coming.
Greedy, dumb, evil, is all besides the point, as they were all(most) intelligent enough, no one would have willing let this happen if they had known what was to come, but it does first come down to what do we really understand as macro and fundamentals.
8. To conclude: What you choose to do in the rabbit hole, do it if it works, but don't forget there is a rabbit hole.
The video is meant to be simplistic, but it s a basis for the context of all the rabbit holes out there, if you can remember what is in this video, you will always have a solid economic world view where you can build on and return to.
I'm saying that you won't go wrong with having this as your economic world view then you fill in the blanks and build upon it.
Do you think Ray or bridgewater associates invests solely on the basis of the views expressed in this video, no of course not, this is not their investment thesis or how to build wealth or manage assets, this is only the over all paradigm where they build everything else upon and really this video is not a big deal.
There is nothing so ground breaking or insightful here or controversial here, no one is going to say this is a cult video of extreme views, but the purpose and the only purpose is to share a framework which I think correct and will at the very least make you aware that there is this underlying reality and everything else which people think that drive wealth, the market and the economy.
If you don't have a full framework to view the economy, take 30 mins to watch the video, or not.
I'm not sharing to impose my views on TL, I'm sharing because I'm part of this community and would like to share.
And normally I wouldn't bother to respond to a post like iloveav's in great detail, because he writes to simply discredit my post and push his own position, and good for him, the fuck do I really care if he wants to believe or whatever, this is internet, BUT just because he pretty much wrote his own post as a perfect example of someone who completely missed the point of the context/purpose of the video and sets himself up perfectly for this, I could not resist to use this as a very strong example to further clarify and expand on my original post.
Thanks iloveav, I rarely get such easy targets on the internet and in life, it has made my day! Appreciate it bro.
If any of you haven't watched 'the big short' take 90mins to watch that, much more entertaining than the 30mins I linked in the OP, but I'd say that Ray's video is still much more significant than the Big Short, but taken together, it will make a lot more sense.
I am a bit confused. I would like you to explain more clearly what this rabbit hole is. If there is one that I am unaware of, Id surely like to know about it, but you do not give me the tools required to see it.
By the way, there were many people who saw the 2008 crash coming, you just dont hear about them in mainstream media often.
My favorite of the ones who saw it coming include Peter Schiff and Jim Richards, perhaps beacuse they explain the problems in an easy way.
Also, If you do think im wrong in this context, Id like to know what point you refer to of me being wrong, and what is "the context" here.
Your critique is slightly too loose for me to identify it correctly.
I agree that the video is meant to be simplistic and fairly straightforward, but that was not what bothered me about it. What bothered me about it is the leaps in assumptions it makes.
One of the ones that really made my eyes roll is when the video refers to "Total Spending Driving the economy". I have an opposite view in this matter. Its savings and capital investments what drive the economy.
Please note that these are two fundamental different school of economic thinking:
Keynesian and Austrian.
You can choose any of them, but you need to at least know that both exist to even be able to make a choice, other way, you are in the rabbit hole.
EDIT: One thing thou, If finding easy targets on the Internet or Real life makes your day, Im afraid there wont be much productive conversation with you.
This is as much as you get, I wasn't expecting you to understand what I wrote, I was expecting you to respond exactly as you have. Unfortunately, you didn't disappoint. Too bad for you.
Don't expect another reply. It's not worth it for either of our time, move on.
so i read/watched something about the relationship between the government and banks (more specifically, the issuing of bonds), but i forgot so im gonna ask here. the government issues bonds in order to revive the economy but the government is still increasing its debt. how exactly does the government reduce its debt when it gets too large? (like the USA's) arent conventional methods of income such as taxes and trade insufficient? or do you just let decades go by while you attempt to chip away at the debt
On April 27 2016 01:28 Chef wrote: Nice animations, tediously slow on delivering information.
I think it gets better after the middle half, but I think it's because it was an intro for the mass American population. That being said, I think it does it's job.
I agree. Could have been condensed to 5 minutes for what it had to say, but it was food for thought. I thought the concept of commonplace borrowing being one way the price of goods get driven up was a neat point for how things escalate despite parts and labour being equal. It's certainly a nice change from 'supply and demand' being the go-to simplification of economics.
The appeal the human nature is dumb, but besides his point, so it didn't bother me that much. It could easily be a cultural phenomenon.
I think discussing productivity as an even and stable increase was not quite right. Even very briefly he could have said something about how very important inventions dramatically change that landscape, or how scarcity of actual resources is going to have large impact on economy. It sort of treats the economy in total isolation of world history, which is probably not correct. It focuses heavily on the last century, while making statements about long term cycles that last (apparently) 80 or so years. That's kind of a starvation on data to prove his assertions.
Borrowing creating inflation follows the supply and demand principle. Since money creation goes via credit/borrowing. The borrowing increases the supply of money and thus the value decreases.
On April 28 2016 23:28 evilfatsh1t wrote: so i read/watched something about the relationship between the government and banks (more specifically, the issuing of bonds), but i forgot so im gonna ask here. the government issues bonds in order to revive the economy but the government is still increasing its debt. how exactly does the government reduce its debt when it gets too large? (like the USA's) arent conventional methods of income such as taxes and trade insufficient? or do you just let decades go by while you attempt to chip away at the debt
In the case of public debt nobody really cares about the nominal amount I.E. the amount you see on the US debt clock websites. What matters is the amount of debt compared to the nations total output: Debt to GDP ratio. So the best way to decrease that ratio is to make your economy grow faster. In extreme cases a country goes bankrupt and creditors will have to accept a writedown of the debt. THis is all oversimplfied of course. Public debt is a pretty complex topic.
On April 29 2016 14:40 MysteryMeat1 wrote: Hi Mighty Atom Hyung,
I'll be reading this after mid-terms. If you had to recommend a couple of books for a entre-tech focused person what would they be?
Thanks and hope your back gets better. My dad has a herniated disk in his neck and has me pound it to help him breathe.
I'm not that bad, but sometimes I ask my wife or someone to punch my back so I can get some pain relief just cause the pain is so constant.
If you had to read 2 books read:
The Lean Start-Up by Eric Ries - this is pretty much the basis for all new dev approaches, and you can follow it by the 'Lean product play book' by Olsen.
For overall solid old school view- but still very valid for fundamentals: Reality Check: Guy Kawazaki Don't bother reading any of his other books, they suck compared to this one, but you can use this book as a reference, it's all legit.
I think it's not necessary to read the really old old school -like classical now - stuff like, crossing the chasm and inside the tornado, of course I have, but that was when hardware was the main point of disruption, but then it moved to software, and now platforms/mobile sharing economy etc, we're like in this craziness of disruption that back in the early 90's this type of disruption happened once every 10 years or so up to that point. So, it's too dated.
If you wanna read about old school hardware disruption, then a recent book, 'losing the signal' about the rise and fall of blackberry is an ok read, it was more like memory lane for me, but even though it's only been like 6 years since they got smashed by Apple and Samsung, it reads as if it ancient history now from where we are now with Uber, airbnb, and tinder (lol).
Watch silicon valley series, it's truncated, but I think there are a lot of truths there.
As for reading specifically for being an entrepreneur, I think Reality Check does a good job as a reference and the Lean Start up makes you very current, but for the nitty gritty on being an entrepreneur, I haven't found a book yet that really captures it all. A lot of them are pats on the back of entrepreneurs who think you can only be born as one and who have made it or other retards who think that being an entrepreneur makes you some kind of special human being that is fearless and takes risks only they can because they are so good and doing fully informed calculated risks that the rest of humanity can't fathom and for them it's not risk, its really that they are super caution lol.
I just spent a few minutes looking at my bookshelf and thinking, fuck non of these hundred books here are good, but I just remembered one, and it wasn't on my book shelf because I made my 2 executives read it and gave as a copy to one. The $100 dollar Start-up,
Ok, I know it's not what you would expect to read, but I think it's probably the most true no bullshit and most truly informative book out there about being an entrepreneur.
I was embarrassed to actually buy it in the book store, arrogantly thinking that I should be above it, but when I flipped through the book, I could see it was addressing something that I had been just scratching the surface of as the missing x factor in why I sucked so much as an entrepreneur and it took me so long to adapt to having my own companies.
If you read and watch the above, and then read the books over every 6 months to a year for the next 3 to 5 years, then I think it's all you need. ^^
That video in the OP is pretty awesome. I've read a far bit into how the economy works, so no individual part of it surprised me, but it really explained how the pieces fit together in a fairly elegant way. The other link is fairly dense stuff, it'll definitely take some time to absorb it properly. Thanks for sharing that!
Came here ready to the video to shreds based on your supporting text, but actually its accurate and good quality too. I think I will share it with other people now, so thanks.
One thing I will say though, which happens near the start of the video, is that when most people talk about "the economy" they really mean just GDP. Sometimes people also are considering the unemployment rate, but mostly just GDP. GDP of course isn't the whole economy with many productive activities not being paid for with either cash or credit and many destructive things included in that solitary figure. GDP is a reasonable approximation though for many situations which is why it's so often used.
All the other problems with the video are in what it doesn't say too which is pretty difficult to fault it on as it is deliberately simplified and concise.
I barely read anything iloveav wrote, but I could smell gold in the writing pretty quickly and gold in macroeconomics is complete bullshit. There is probably no single issue that economists agree more on. A constant state of deflation is terrible.
Yes, this is the principal (and only major)* problem with bitcoin. Bitcoin is like digital gold, virtually untraceable and inherently of a limited supply while the economy (GDP) grows faster than it can.
The ideal currency is one where the amount of that currency circulating can be adjusted to match the size of the economy in an on-going basis.
*Edit: whoops, forgot about the electricity use problem, I used to dismiss this as trivial, but lately it is apparent that, for bitcoin at least, it is a major problem. Not sure how badly litecoin, which was developed to deal with this problem, is affected.
EPT
