31 ms·

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creatio

Our job in life is to engage in value creation. When money is decoupled from value creation, your long-term bet is that it will lose its value, as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary value, think they’ve “won” or accomplished something real. This doesn’t work long term, and will eventually collapse on itself like all false religions. If you’re planning to be alive in 20 years, you’re better off making sure you have a work ethic and skills that generate value, than obsessing over any sort of wealth-hoarding instrument at all, because it is the only true protection against change.

benjohnson 5y ago
Your great advices pays dividends much further down the road too - focusing on work and creating value is also good for your children. Sadly, there’s been many children that took decades to get out of their entitled mindset caused by easy money from their parents or the government.
- the_gipsy 5y ago
  Culture is the best inheritance you can give your children.
mam2 5y ago
There is no justice in the world. You seem to be strugglinh with this idea :(
Mattasher 5y ago
I agree with your last statement, but I think you are mixing cause and effect. Crypto is exploding because our system is already corroded. Starting with the creation of the Fed, and tracing through endless money printing and complex financial instruments which let well-connected companies and politicians create paper wealth out of nothing, we've decoupled money from value. Savings pay no interest, manual labor doesn't scale, but rent seeking and financial games get many people riches in no time. What are the incentives in this kind of a system, and where are the safe harbors for storing value? And if you can't in value creation, your safest bet may be to gamble.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Crypto is exploding because people are looking to get rich via speculation, that's it. There's a wealth of uninformed investors and they're all hearing stories about crypto millionaires and how much it went up and FOMO narratives about it. People haven't been transacting in crypto basically at all - it's not even a blip in the popular discussion about it, except as a flimsy justification for why its value is not tulip-mania. The only thing in effect is the ultimate truth of investing: the market can stay irrational a lot longer then you can stay solvent. No one was "surprised" when the housing bubble collapsed in 2008, and no one will be "surprised" when crypto collapses, but as we saw in 2008 when the returns get high enough even the "sensible" investors can't justify to their stockholders/board why they're not jumping in on the apparent "easy" money.
  - jasode 5y ago
    >Crypto is exploding because people are looking to get rich via speculation, that's it. No, that isn't just it. Like other assets, there can be multiple narratives that explain cryptocurrencies rising prices. Yes, pure speculation is one of them. But another reason for some is deliberately shifting wealth from an asset ($USD, euro, bolivar, etc) they believe is deteriorating. E.g. a multi-billionaire like Ray Dalio is already rich. He's the one saying "cash is trash" because he like many others see the M2 money supply growing very rapidly which erodes future purchasing power. (The "cash is trash" also means not holding US Treasury government bonds because of inflation.) Yes, the Fed + US Govt can have all sorts of rationale to justify $2 trillion stimulus checks and printing billions to buy corporate bonds (Home Depot bonds), bail out banks, etc ... but economic actors can also counteract the money supply expansion by taking steps to retain future purchasing power. E.g. Shift wealth into real estate, tech stocks, gold, bitcoin, etc. That fact that nobody uses bitcoin to pay for Starbucks coffee is irrelevant to the wealth holders looking for alternatives away from $USD liquid assets as long term holdings.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Ray Dalio at no point in his life ever believed he should be keeping his wealth in "cash". It has been basic economic knowledge that cash is a terrible place to keep large idle piles of wealth, and that it has to be invested to not depreciate. This is not new information, this is literally by design as a product of the Fed's 2% inflation target. US treasuries have always been a last resort investment, because the return sucks but they're as close to risk free as anything ever gets - what's happened recently is demand for them has been so incredibly high (because better investments are so rare) that the US has at various points been able to issue them with negative interest rates - taking a loss has been less of a loss then just holding currency and no better options existed. Crypto has a narrative being pushed to increase the value of crypto, but "the end if nigh" doomsayers definitely don't act like they think it's actually coming - otherwise they'd be diversified into Swedish gold depositories and basically planning to move country. Because come whatever "collapse" they think is going to happen...the power company is still going to want to be paid in USD.
sjg007 5y ago
I mean the crypto folks bought in at the right time? It's like finding oil under your land. For some reason you bought into it and that's takes some type of skill.
- beckingz 5y ago
  Or just luck. Plenty of people have also lost money on crypto and oil speculation.
- acheron 5y ago
  For some reason my friend bet on 26 last spin and won, that takes some skill.
WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
> because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary value, think they’ve “won” or accomplished something real. This doesn’t work long term, and will eventually collapse on itself like all false religions. Explain to me the value of Daddy's Money and Landlords. No, seriously, tell me about it.
i_haz_rabies 5y ago
What skills can you guarantee (or at least say with high confidence) will be valuable in 20 years? I can't really think of any except maybe "soft skills" and whatever skills allow you to build a large network.
- c22 5y ago
  Welding?
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Welding is probably bit multi-modal. Traditional stuff isn't likely going away, but already there is already advanced robots for the job. Though it's unlikely they will be entirely AI controlled.
    - c22 5y ago
      No doubt a lot of "assembly line" welding operations have already become highly automated. This is, however, already the area requiring lesser skilled and more easily replaced workpeople. I was thinking more about on-site and craft-associated welding which I imagine will continue to be highly valued until extremely portable and versatile high-DOF robotic manipulators become commonplace.
      - polypodiopsi 5y ago
        Its also getting payed for grinding through your body (like a lot of trades but welding especially.)
        c22 5y ago
        A fair point, though a lot of office jobs aren't too kind on your body either.
- vsareto 5y ago
  Skills around software and IT - not just developers. There might be a lot of churn within that industry, but if you can solve problems in those industries industry with any tools, you're going to be valuable. It might take longer to find a job depending on the current times and your own retraining speed, but it will be there in some form. Nothing is likely going to make all software and IT workers obsolete like automation does to factory workers. My evidence is that we still have a lot of legacy and technical debt around, and it's likely to still be there in 20 years, so even if you don't work on the cutting edge (which may now have stratospheric requirements for entry like a PhD and Github projects and 8 rounds of interviews), you can still take legacy work. Security and defense (physical and IT/software) will also likely be around forever.
Dracophoenix 5y ago
The same could be said of the US Dollar (or anything really). All value is speculative until proven and changes in those speculations can't be stopped. What's worse in the Dollar's case vis a vis crypto is that the divorce between "real" value and "created" value is determined by a tiny group of institutional bankers and their government liaisons. Reality, much less work ethic, won't change their minds. If you think that crypto is akin to a religious sect, then the Fed is a financial Vatican slowly collapsing in its importance while denying it all the same. Rid yourself of the fallacy that holding on to value is hoarding lest you believe that what one does with one's wealth should be determined by others.
naveen99 5y ago
Appropriate Capital allocation is value creation.
GoodJokes 5y ago
I am mostly just super happy that I finally learned my job in life. It is utterly clear tech bros could have used a lot more liberal arts education.
JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago
Did Visa create no value in society with plastic payment cards? If crypto is valueless, payment processors are valueless too. It's unfortunate that Visa gets a 2% tax on the economy, but the convenience of plastic or a public/private keypair unlocks more economic growth compared to a world with only paper cash.
- whateveracct 5y ago
  Visa has a more compelling and proven value proposition than crypto
- thinkingkong 5y ago
  Yes. If you read up on the history of the credit card industry they solved the incredibly huge problem of small businesses extending loans to individuals.
- sigstoat 5y ago
  > on the economy a 2% "tax", on retail sales, at best. b2b, c2c, and large dollar b2c generally don't go through visa. calling it a "tax" is nauseating. you get something from visa, and you can choose not use them, if you'd like. it's the rare place that won't take at least a few other alternative payments, including cash. it's a rarer tax yet that you can choose not to pay.
  - wallacoloo 5y ago
    > it's the rare place that won't take at least a few other alternative payments, including cash. Yes, and when you pay with an alternative, that’s when you get hit with the 2% credit card tax. Because you and the credit card user both pay the same price, but the merchant has to raise prices by 2% to cover fees caused by the latter. The credit card user is reimbursed for the fees they created via cash-back programs, while the cash user has to just swallow them.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago
    Semantically, would 'haircut' be a preferable term to describe what's occurring? Visa isn't some government-mandated thing, so I agree that 'tax' is overloaded, but it isn't meant literally. Given the nearly omniscient use of plastic payment methods, that's why "tax" is used: everybody pays taxes.
Mizza 5y ago
> as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. I guess this is the thing that people are having a hard time coming to terms with - we no longer live in the real world. All of these surveillance-advertising tech giants, all of these financial instruments, all of these media-induced bad feelings and ideological trends, everything that defines our contemporary era - none if it is real. If it all simply stopped, wiped out from a solar flare - for most of us here, nothing "real" would change. We'd all sit for a moment looking at dead black rectangles, then we'd have to go and find something else to do. My bet is that we'd all be happier for it.
- entropicdrifter 5y ago
  > My bet is that we'd all be happier for it. Yeah, except for those who'd suddenly be without electronic medical assistance. There are definite downsides to the digital era, but to act as if there's been no benefit is laughable at best and dangerously ignorant of the past at worst.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Everyone whose food supply depends on electronic supply chain management (ie everyone who is not actively farming their own food _right now_) is also going to be in for a pretty rough time though. Or everyone who needs gasoline for transport because they live a non-walkable distance from the nearest food and water.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
      Here hoping for a “non essential services” solar flare!
- seph-reed 5y ago
  An interesting theory from "Sapiens" is that human happiness doesn't change too much throughout macro history. People adapt to whatever the new norm is, and sort of fall back to whatever their bio-chemical baseline is. When things are in the process of getting worse or better, it'll push them one way or another. But once it settles again, so too do they. The point being that happiness generally has more to do with internal bio-chemistry than whatever the new norm is.
eli_gottlieb 5y ago
>Our job in life is to engage in value creation. I don't think there's any non-tautological way in which this can be simultaneously true and not an oppressive imposition by capitalism.
- isoskeles 5y ago
  Even without capitalism, you have a duty to create value for the people around you, and you might expect the same of them. There are exceptions for the young, old, and infirm.
  - eli_gottlieb 5y ago
    That's the tautological branch of the dilemma, yes.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - m3ta4a 5y ago
    In no world where there is a "duty" to provide value am I going to be found happily providing value. In this world, in my experience, your statement is simply false. If I happen to provide some form of value it is from my choosing to, not to satisfy the demands of some formless "duty".
    - isoskeles 5y ago
      The "duty" is to satisfy the demands of existing within a community of people, where able-bodied freeloaders are never welcome. But I can understand nitpicking over semantics. Replace the word "duty" with whatever you want.
      - m3ta4a 5y ago
        Nonsense, a different word doesn't suddenly make it universally true. It could be a guiding philosophy, something like "to live a good life provide value to your community". But it is in no practical way a rule.
electrondood 5y ago
The bizarre part is that the speculation does create "value," in terms of appreciation. But it's a Ponzi scheme, and whoever cashes out before everyone else has the same idea wins.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
2% of the world's wealth is tied up in crypto (and it's growing quickly). If it does implode, that'll make The Great Financial Crisis look like blip. At this point, I can't imagine financial regulators doing anything to stop it.
- mytherin 5y ago
  What will actually happen if the crypto coins collapse in price? What tangible effects will there be? Very few people's salaries are paid in crypto, crypto isn't backing people's mortgages, and outside of the rare (and newsworthy) cases, people are not investing extreme amounts of money into crypto that they cannot possibly afford to lose. I have a hard time imagining what actual tangible disasters will happen if crypto currencies lose their value overnight besides some speculators losing money and some mining centers closing.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Is there even any significant amount of debt backed by crypto? As otherwise it is just money that some have spend and others have gained... Ofc, there are some energy producers that will be hit and some manufacturers. But I wouldn't be too worried about later, they should be able to pivot to other chips in current market.
  - pfisch 5y ago
    Now do gold.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    What will happen is 2% of the world's "wealth" would disappear - which would almost certainly spill over causing a much larger decline. From 2007 to 2008, for example, global wealth declined about ~10% [1]. There's not much room left for central banks before we officially enter banana town. If cyrpto implodes, it could easily be worse than the financial crisis - which means, regulators have an interest in it NOT imploding. [1] https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/g...
beiller 5y ago
The problem is that economy and technology shifts. Not so great when you are a cold fusion developer today as an example. So it is required to hedge against that isn't it. You need to ensure you have a future by saving for retirement. I've been saying "it will eventually collapse" for what seems like forever now. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent - to borrow a cliché.
nscalf 5y ago
That's really nice in theory, but in the real world money IS a proxy for time and value creation. Having money is the same thing has being able to create value, and gives you freedom to create value at your own pace however you want. Crypto as an asset class is only working the way it is because there is a separation between perceived value and net present value. The same way fundamentalists value companies by expected earnings and angel investors look at the TAM, crypto is blowing up in large part because people are starting to believe in the story that crypto is pinned to. At the end of the day, you probably should have some skills to fall back on and not depend on an asset increasing in value, but if you have enough assets, that is your skill.
svachalek 5y ago
The whole economy feels like nonsense now. There's a massive overabundance of both capital and labor required to meet actual needs, so we keep creating ever more useless games to play with capital so that we can create more capital that the world doesn't need or actually use. In the meantime, massive portions of the population are struggling to make ends meet. I don't know where this ends but it can't be good.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Exactly, even a blind should be able to see that we spmehow have broken the system
- pbourke 5y ago
  You are seeing one response in the various relief and reform proposals put forward by the Biden administration. Biden is following FDR’s blueprint of first relief then reform in response to a crisis. The refundable child tax credit alone has the potential to sharply curtail extreme poverty. Whether it works or not is to be seen. You can look at both Biden and Trump as the end of the arc of neoliberalism that began with Reagan. The same broad moves seem to be happening in other peer nations.
qznc 5y ago
Value creation is only one part. The next question is how much of the value you create, you can capture for yourself. Nurses create a lot of value, especially during a pandemic, but they receive only a tiny part of it. Competition can force you to give most of the value you create to your customers.
- polypodiopsi 5y ago
  I'd argue that this is also an systemic issue, that can not exhaustively be thought about on the level of just an economic model (of supply and demand), but has to be scrutinized on a broader scope. (Epistemic, historical, sociological, psychologically etc.) Reproductive labor (actual birthgiving as well as carework, sustaining the potential to work in the bodies), has for the most time been thought to be just given by the "nature" of women. Even early Marxsim excluded reproductive work, as the precondition of all productive labor from its aspirations.
yks 5y ago
Wealth is a human's worth under capitalism and arguing against riches of any kind while the number goes up is a philosophical attack on what we believe in as a society. At best you're looked at as an idiot, at worst you're the enemy that threatens the system. Fortunately, this too shall pass.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
People (at least in the developed world) already have created all the value that they need. They have enough food, safety and shelter. Majority of the effort now goes into creating virtual goods. If you’re planning to be alive in 20 years, you’re better off making sure you hire robots with good work ethics.
jpdus 5y ago
What you call "corrosive" (appreciation of non-value-creating assets) is 1:1 applicable to Real Estate. Compared to the appreciation of worldwide real estate, the market value of crypto is only a drop in the ocean. And countless people got unbelievable rich due to rising prices and "crowding-out" in cities without creating any value for society at all (in the opposite, making life harder for everybody struggling to keep up with their rent). And nobody so far managed to explain convincingly, in which ways investments in (existing, residential, not for self-use) real estate creates any value. People don't by these assets b/c they provide better service or can run their properties more efficiently than someone else. They buy these assets b/c its risk-free return on the backs of tenants who need a place to live. In this aspect, Real Estate investors are arguably way worse than Crypte gamblers. But I agree that the rent-seeking behavior we see in more and more parts of our economy and our society is indeed corrosive in the longterm....
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  > And nobody so far managed to explain convincingly, in which ways investments in (existing, residential, not for self-use) real estate creates any value. Shelter is literally third on the list of human needs after water and food. Make something desirable and people will leave their previous (possibly decent) place behind to move in. I'm not sure how anyone can say real estate doesn't create value just because they are frustrated that some people make money off of real estate.
  - DylanDmitri 5y ago
    People who build housing create value. People who manage properties create value. People who speculate on properties do not create value.
    - ryan93 5y ago
      Why are people selling real estate assets to speculators for less than they are worth?
      - 5y ago
w0de0 5y ago
> Our job in life is to engage in value creation. That's grim! It's not my job in life.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- polypodiopsi 5y ago
  The cycnicism in me insists that the the ones saying this also make money in finance; and feel that the purpose of life for everybody should be to create value - of course with an implicit exclusion of themselves; because their purpose in life is obviously to ENJOY. (The latter of course is a silent narcisitic thought that can only dwell in the privacy of the ego, and is not allowed to enter public discourse)
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Finance people tell all kinds of stories to themselves about how they're actually adding value to the system with their activities.
- fullshark 5y ago
  That's how the gov't views you, as an economic unit = labor production.
  - w0de0 5y ago
    "The government" is a massive institution inclusive of multiple separate power bases, agencies, motivations, responsibilities, and bosses. It doesn't view me as anything; parts of it view - if "view" is the right verb - as variously a citizen, a suspect, a taxpayer. Always a datum, sure, but the important metadata varies.
- Invictus0 5y ago
  Value doesn't have to be money. You can be nice to someone and that adds value to the world and counts as value creation. If all you do is suck value out of the world then I would argue you are a bad human being.
cblconfederate 5y ago
Tbf, the same holds for stocks. It's a game where everyone wins, currently. This obviously never ends well.
andrepd 5y ago
> This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary value, think they’ve “won” or accomplished something real. As opposed to rent, property speculation, the stock market, etc?

benjohnson 5y ago

Your great advices pays dividends much further down the road too - focusing on work and creating value is also good for your children. Sadly, there’s been many children that took decades to get out of their entitled mindset caused by easy money from their parents or the government.

the_gipsy 5y ago
Culture is the best inheritance you can give your children.

mam2 5y ago

There is no justice in the world. You seem to be strugglinh with this idea :(

Mattasher 5y ago

I agree with your last statement, but I think you are mixing cause and effect. Crypto is exploding because our system is already corroded. Starting with the creation of the Fed, and tracing through endless money printing and complex financial instruments which let well-connected companies and politicians create paper wealth out of nothing, we've decoupled money from value. Savings pay no interest, manual labor doesn't scale, but rent seeking and financial games get many people riches in no time. What are the incentives in this kind of a system, and where are the safe harbors for storing value? And if you can't in value creation, your safest bet may be to gamble.

XorNot 5y ago
Crypto is exploding because people are looking to get rich via speculation, that's it. There's a wealth of uninformed investors and they're all hearing stories about crypto millionaires and how much it went up and FOMO narratives about it. People haven't been transacting in crypto basically at all - it's not even a blip in the popular discussion about it, except as a flimsy justification for why its value is not tulip-mania. The only thing in effect is the ultimate truth of investing: the market can stay irrational a lot longer then you can stay solvent. No one was "surprised" when the housing bubble collapsed in 2008, and no one will be "surprised" when crypto collapses, but as we saw in 2008 when the returns get high enough even the "sensible" investors can't justify to their stockholders/board why they're not jumping in on the apparent "easy" money.
- jasode 5y ago
  >Crypto is exploding because people are looking to get rich via speculation, that's it. No, that isn't just it. Like other assets, there can be multiple narratives that explain cryptocurrencies rising prices. Yes, pure speculation is one of them. But another reason for some is deliberately shifting wealth from an asset ($USD, euro, bolivar, etc) they believe is deteriorating. E.g. a multi-billionaire like Ray Dalio is already rich. He's the one saying "cash is trash" because he like many others see the M2 money supply growing very rapidly which erodes future purchasing power. (The "cash is trash" also means not holding US Treasury government bonds because of inflation.) Yes, the Fed + US Govt can have all sorts of rationale to justify $2 trillion stimulus checks and printing billions to buy corporate bonds (Home Depot bonds), bail out banks, etc ... but economic actors can also counteract the money supply expansion by taking steps to retain future purchasing power. E.g. Shift wealth into real estate, tech stocks, gold, bitcoin, etc. That fact that nobody uses bitcoin to pay for Starbucks coffee is irrelevant to the wealth holders looking for alternatives away from $USD liquid assets as long term holdings.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Ray Dalio at no point in his life ever believed he should be keeping his wealth in "cash". It has been basic economic knowledge that cash is a terrible place to keep large idle piles of wealth, and that it has to be invested to not depreciate. This is not new information, this is literally by design as a product of the Fed's 2% inflation target. US treasuries have always been a last resort investment, because the return sucks but they're as close to risk free as anything ever gets - what's happened recently is demand for them has been so incredibly high (because better investments are so rare) that the US has at various points been able to issue them with negative interest rates - taking a loss has been less of a loss then just holding currency and no better options existed. Crypto has a narrative being pushed to increase the value of crypto, but "the end if nigh" doomsayers definitely don't act like they think it's actually coming - otherwise they'd be diversified into Swedish gold depositories and basically planning to move country. Because come whatever "collapse" they think is going to happen...the power company is still going to want to be paid in USD.

sjg007 5y ago

I mean the crypto folks bought in at the right time? It's like finding oil under your land. For some reason you bought into it and that's takes some type of skill.

beckingz 5y ago
Or just luck. Plenty of people have also lost money on crypto and oil speculation.
acheron 5y ago
For some reason my friend bet on 26 last spin and won, that takes some skill.

WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago

> because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary value, think they’ve “won” or accomplished something real. This doesn’t work long term, and will eventually collapse on itself like all false religions. Explain to me the value of Daddy's Money and Landlords. No, seriously, tell me about it.

i_haz_rabies 5y ago

What skills can you guarantee (or at least say with high confidence) will be valuable in 20 years? I can't really think of any except maybe "soft skills" and whatever skills allow you to build a large network.

c22 5y ago
Welding?
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Welding is probably bit multi-modal. Traditional stuff isn't likely going away, but already there is already advanced robots for the job. Though it's unlikely they will be entirely AI controlled.
  - c22 5y ago
    No doubt a lot of "assembly line" welding operations have already become highly automated. This is, however, already the area requiring lesser skilled and more easily replaced workpeople. I was thinking more about on-site and craft-associated welding which I imagine will continue to be highly valued until extremely portable and versatile high-DOF robotic manipulators become commonplace.
    - polypodiopsi 5y ago
      Its also getting payed for grinding through your body (like a lot of trades but welding especially.)
      - c22 5y ago
        A fair point, though a lot of office jobs aren't too kind on your body either.
vsareto 5y ago
Skills around software and IT - not just developers. There might be a lot of churn within that industry, but if you can solve problems in those industries industry with any tools, you're going to be valuable. It might take longer to find a job depending on the current times and your own retraining speed, but it will be there in some form. Nothing is likely going to make all software and IT workers obsolete like automation does to factory workers. My evidence is that we still have a lot of legacy and technical debt around, and it's likely to still be there in 20 years, so even if you don't work on the cutting edge (which may now have stratospheric requirements for entry like a PhD and Github projects and 8 rounds of interviews), you can still take legacy work. Security and defense (physical and IT/software) will also likely be around forever.

Dracophoenix 5y ago

The same could be said of the US Dollar (or anything really). All value is speculative until proven and changes in those speculations can't be stopped. What's worse in the Dollar's case vis a vis crypto is that the divorce between "real" value and "created" value is determined by a tiny group of institutional bankers and their government liaisons. Reality, much less work ethic, won't change their minds. If you think that crypto is akin to a religious sect, then the Fed is a financial Vatican slowly collapsing in its importance while denying it all the same. Rid yourself of the fallacy that holding on to value is hoarding lest you believe that what one does with one's wealth should be determined by others.

naveen99 5y ago

Appropriate Capital allocation is value creation.

GoodJokes 5y ago

I am mostly just super happy that I finally learned my job in life. It is utterly clear tech bros could have used a lot more liberal arts education.

JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago

Did Visa create no value in society with plastic payment cards? If crypto is valueless, payment processors are valueless too. It's unfortunate that Visa gets a 2% tax on the economy, but the convenience of plastic or a public/private keypair unlocks more economic growth compared to a world with only paper cash.

whateveracct 5y ago
Visa has a more compelling and proven value proposition than crypto
thinkingkong 5y ago
Yes. If you read up on the history of the credit card industry they solved the incredibly huge problem of small businesses extending loans to individuals.
sigstoat 5y ago
> on the economy a 2% "tax", on retail sales, at best. b2b, c2c, and large dollar b2c generally don't go through visa. calling it a "tax" is nauseating. you get something from visa, and you can choose not use them, if you'd like. it's the rare place that won't take at least a few other alternative payments, including cash. it's a rarer tax yet that you can choose not to pay.
- wallacoloo 5y ago
  > it's the rare place that won't take at least a few other alternative payments, including cash. Yes, and when you pay with an alternative, that’s when you get hit with the 2% credit card tax. Because you and the credit card user both pay the same price, but the merchant has to raise prices by 2% to cover fees caused by the latter. The credit card user is reimbursed for the fees they created via cash-back programs, while the cash user has to just swallow them.
- JMTQp8lwXL 5y ago
  Semantically, would 'haircut' be a preferable term to describe what's occurring? Visa isn't some government-mandated thing, so I agree that 'tax' is overloaded, but it isn't meant literally. Given the nearly omniscient use of plastic payment methods, that's why "tax" is used: everybody pays taxes.

Mizza 5y ago

> as value creation is what actually matters in the “real” world. I guess this is the thing that people are having a hard time coming to terms with - we no longer live in the real world. All of these surveillance-advertising tech giants, all of these financial instruments, all of these media-induced bad feelings and ideological trends, everything that defines our contemporary era - none if it is real. If it all simply stopped, wiped out from a solar flare - for most of us here, nothing "real" would change. We'd all sit for a moment looking at dead black rectangles, then we'd have to go and find something else to do. My bet is that we'd all be happier for it.

entropicdrifter 5y ago
> My bet is that we'd all be happier for it. Yeah, except for those who'd suddenly be without electronic medical assistance. There are definite downsides to the digital era, but to act as if there's been no benefit is laughable at best and dangerously ignorant of the past at worst.
- WJW 5y ago
  Everyone whose food supply depends on electronic supply chain management (ie everyone who is not actively farming their own food _right now_) is also going to be in for a pretty rough time though. Or everyone who needs gasoline for transport because they live a non-walkable distance from the nearest food and water.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    Here hoping for a “non essential services” solar flare!
seph-reed 5y ago
An interesting theory from "Sapiens" is that human happiness doesn't change too much throughout macro history. People adapt to whatever the new norm is, and sort of fall back to whatever their bio-chemical baseline is. When things are in the process of getting worse or better, it'll push them one way or another. But once it settles again, so too do they. The point being that happiness generally has more to do with internal bio-chemistry than whatever the new norm is.

eli_gottlieb 5y ago

>Our job in life is to engage in value creation. I don't think there's any non-tautological way in which this can be simultaneously true and not an oppressive imposition by capitalism.

isoskeles 5y ago
Even without capitalism, you have a duty to create value for the people around you, and you might expect the same of them. There are exceptions for the young, old, and infirm.
- eli_gottlieb 5y ago
  That's the tautological branch of the dilemma, yes.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- m3ta4a 5y ago
  In no world where there is a "duty" to provide value am I going to be found happily providing value. In this world, in my experience, your statement is simply false. If I happen to provide some form of value it is from my choosing to, not to satisfy the demands of some formless "duty".
  - isoskeles 5y ago
    The "duty" is to satisfy the demands of existing within a community of people, where able-bodied freeloaders are never welcome. But I can understand nitpicking over semantics. Replace the word "duty" with whatever you want.
    - m3ta4a 5y ago
      Nonsense, a different word doesn't suddenly make it universally true. It could be a guiding philosophy, something like "to live a good life provide value to your community". But it is in no practical way a rule.

electrondood 5y ago

The bizarre part is that the speculation does create "value," in terms of appreciation. But it's a Ponzi scheme, and whoever cashes out before everyone else has the same idea wins.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

2% of the world's wealth is tied up in crypto (and it's growing quickly). If it does implode, that'll make The Great Financial Crisis look like blip. At this point, I can't imagine financial regulators doing anything to stop it.

mytherin 5y ago
What will actually happen if the crypto coins collapse in price? What tangible effects will there be? Very few people's salaries are paid in crypto, crypto isn't backing people's mortgages, and outside of the rare (and newsworthy) cases, people are not investing extreme amounts of money into crypto that they cannot possibly afford to lose. I have a hard time imagining what actual tangible disasters will happen if crypto currencies lose their value overnight besides some speculators losing money and some mining centers closing.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Is there even any significant amount of debt backed by crypto? As otherwise it is just money that some have spend and others have gained... Ofc, there are some energy producers that will be hit and some manufacturers. But I wouldn't be too worried about later, they should be able to pivot to other chips in current market.
- pfisch 5y ago
  Now do gold.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  What will happen is 2% of the world's "wealth" would disappear - which would almost certainly spill over causing a much larger decline. From 2007 to 2008, for example, global wealth declined about ~10% [1]. There's not much room left for central banks before we officially enter banana town. If cyrpto implodes, it could easily be worse than the financial crisis - which means, regulators have an interest in it NOT imploding. [1] https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/g...

beiller 5y ago

The problem is that economy and technology shifts. Not so great when you are a cold fusion developer today as an example. So it is required to hedge against that isn't it. You need to ensure you have a future by saving for retirement. I've been saying "it will eventually collapse" for what seems like forever now. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent - to borrow a cliché.

nscalf 5y ago

That's really nice in theory, but in the real world money IS a proxy for time and value creation. Having money is the same thing has being able to create value, and gives you freedom to create value at your own pace however you want. Crypto as an asset class is only working the way it is because there is a separation between perceived value and net present value. The same way fundamentalists value companies by expected earnings and angel investors look at the TAM, crypto is blowing up in large part because people are starting to believe in the story that crypto is pinned to. At the end of the day, you probably should have some skills to fall back on and not depend on an asset increasing in value, but if you have enough assets, that is your skill.

svachalek 5y ago

The whole economy feels like nonsense now. There's a massive overabundance of both capital and labor required to meet actual needs, so we keep creating ever more useless games to play with capital so that we can create more capital that the world doesn't need or actually use. In the meantime, massive portions of the population are struggling to make ends meet. I don't know where this ends but it can't be good.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Exactly, even a blind should be able to see that we spmehow have broken the system
pbourke 5y ago
You are seeing one response in the various relief and reform proposals put forward by the Biden administration. Biden is following FDR’s blueprint of first relief then reform in response to a crisis. The refundable child tax credit alone has the potential to sharply curtail extreme poverty. Whether it works or not is to be seen. You can look at both Biden and Trump as the end of the arc of neoliberalism that began with Reagan. The same broad moves seem to be happening in other peer nations.

qznc 5y ago

Value creation is only one part. The next question is how much of the value you create, you can capture for yourself. Nurses create a lot of value, especially during a pandemic, but they receive only a tiny part of it. Competition can force you to give most of the value you create to your customers.

polypodiopsi 5y ago
I'd argue that this is also an systemic issue, that can not exhaustively be thought about on the level of just an economic model (of supply and demand), but has to be scrutinized on a broader scope. (Epistemic, historical, sociological, psychologically etc.) Reproductive labor (actual birthgiving as well as carework, sustaining the potential to work in the bodies), has for the most time been thought to be just given by the "nature" of women. Even early Marxsim excluded reproductive work, as the precondition of all productive labor from its aspirations.

yks 5y ago

Wealth is a human's worth under capitalism and arguing against riches of any kind while the number goes up is a philosophical attack on what we believe in as a society. At best you're looked at as an idiot, at worst you're the enemy that threatens the system. Fortunately, this too shall pass.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago

People (at least in the developed world) already have created all the value that they need. They have enough food, safety and shelter. Majority of the effort now goes into creating virtual goods. If you’re planning to be alive in 20 years, you’re better off making sure you hire robots with good work ethics.

jpdus 5y ago

What you call "corrosive" (appreciation of non-value-creating assets) is 1:1 applicable to Real Estate. Compared to the appreciation of worldwide real estate, the market value of crypto is only a drop in the ocean. And countless people got unbelievable rich due to rising prices and "crowding-out" in cities without creating any value for society at all (in the opposite, making life harder for everybody struggling to keep up with their rent). And nobody so far managed to explain convincingly, in which ways investments in (existing, residential, not for self-use) real estate creates any value. People don't by these assets b/c they provide better service or can run their properties more efficiently than someone else. They buy these assets b/c its risk-free return on the backs of tenants who need a place to live. In this aspect, Real Estate investors are arguably way worse than Crypte gamblers. But I agree that the rent-seeking behavior we see in more and more parts of our economy and our society is indeed corrosive in the longterm....

CyberDildonics 5y ago
> And nobody so far managed to explain convincingly, in which ways investments in (existing, residential, not for self-use) real estate creates any value. Shelter is literally third on the list of human needs after water and food. Make something desirable and people will leave their previous (possibly decent) place behind to move in. I'm not sure how anyone can say real estate doesn't create value just because they are frustrated that some people make money off of real estate.
- DylanDmitri 5y ago
  People who build housing create value. People who manage properties create value. People who speculate on properties do not create value.
  - ryan93 5y ago
    Why are people selling real estate assets to speculators for less than they are worth?
    - 5y ago

w0de0 5y ago

> Our job in life is to engage in value creation. That's grim! It's not my job in life.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
polypodiopsi 5y ago
The cycnicism in me insists that the the ones saying this also make money in finance; and feel that the purpose of life for everybody should be to create value - of course with an implicit exclusion of themselves; because their purpose in life is obviously to ENJOY. (The latter of course is a silent narcisitic thought that can only dwell in the privacy of the ego, and is not allowed to enter public discourse)
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Finance people tell all kinds of stories to themselves about how they're actually adding value to the system with their activities.
fullshark 5y ago
That's how the gov't views you, as an economic unit = labor production.
- w0de0 5y ago
  "The government" is a massive institution inclusive of multiple separate power bases, agencies, motivations, responsibilities, and bosses. It doesn't view me as anything; parts of it view - if "view" is the right verb - as variously a citizen, a suspect, a taxpayer. Always a datum, sure, but the important metadata varies.
Invictus0 5y ago
Value doesn't have to be money. You can be nice to someone and that adds value to the world and counts as value creation. If all you do is suck value out of the world then I would argue you are a bad human being.

cblconfederate 5y ago

Tbf, the same holds for stocks. It's a game where everyone wins, currently. This obviously never ends well.

andrepd 5y ago

> This is also why “crypto” (the asset class, not technology) is so corrosive, because it makes people who have done approximately nothing to create value in society, but who’ve enjoyed a massive boost in monetary value, think they’ve “won” or accomplished something real. As opposed to rent, property speculation, the stock market, etc?