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Comparing Meta and Google, to Lyft and Uber isn't an apples to apples comparison. The former have cash cow businesses and have captial that they can deploy to f

by websap 4y ago

Comparing Meta and Google, to Lyft and Uber isn't an apples to apples comparison. The former have cash cow businesses and have captial that they can deploy to find the next $100 billion dollar business. Its essential for their long term survival to keep diversifying and reinventing themselves.

halJordan 4y ago
I think that's the point. That even these well funded, relatively sovereign companies will be punished for their moonshots and that means the future will be devastating for these magical unicorns.
- sfblah 4y ago
  One wonders what government policies preventing this from happening are doing to the future. I don't have any way to objectively measure this, but my general sense is each day interest rates remain artificially low, the downside becomes greater. I'd be curious if you know a way to quantify this effect.
  - ForHackernews 4y ago
    Interest rates are not being kept "artificially low": central banks have already raised rates, and have signalled that they intend to continue raising rates.
    - sfblah 4y ago
      We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Here is a 670-year history of interest rates: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-history-of-interest-rates-over-670-years/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-history-of-interest-rat... There is a separate book you can read that attempts to go back 2000 years. Interest rates have never been this low in recorded human history, and there's an obvious reason why. The point of interest rates is to compensate the lender for deferring consumption. In a world without government manipulation, it makes no logical sense for a lender to be willing to lend money and receive zero or even negative interest. The US government is artificially keeping interest rates low because recessions have become politically untenable, and the wealthy have totally captured the mechanisms of government. The end result is monetary policy which inflates assets for the wealthy while impoverishing the poor and middle classes. Other countries have been forced to adopt the same policies to avoid their currencies appreciating. Worse yet, government is implicitly and explicitly backstopping and even socializing industries owned by the wealthy through fiscal policy. This is where you get "green energy credits" and "privatizing space," both of which have served only to enrich a couple billionaires. It's the western version of Russian oligarchs.

by websap 4y ago

halJordan 4y ago

I think that's the point. That even these well funded, relatively sovereign companies will be punished for their moonshots and that means the future will be devastating for these magical unicorns.

sfblah 4y ago
One wonders what government policies preventing this from happening are doing to the future. I don't have any way to objectively measure this, but my general sense is each day interest rates remain artificially low, the downside becomes greater. I'd be curious if you know a way to quantify this effect.
- ForHackernews 4y ago
  Interest rates are not being kept "artificially low": central banks have already raised rates, and have signalled that they intend to continue raising rates.
  - sfblah 4y ago
    We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Here is a 670-year history of interest rates: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-history-of-interest-rates-over-670-years/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-history-of-interest-rat... There is a separate book you can read that attempts to go back 2000 years. Interest rates have never been this low in recorded human history, and there's an obvious reason why. The point of interest rates is to compensate the lender for deferring consumption. In a world without government manipulation, it makes no logical sense for a lender to be willing to lend money and receive zero or even negative interest. The US government is artificially keeping interest rates low because recessions have become politically untenable, and the wealthy have totally captured the mechanisms of government. The end result is monetary policy which inflates assets for the wealthy while impoverishing the poor and middle classes. Other countries have been forced to adopt the same policies to avoid their currencies appreciating. Worse yet, government is implicitly and explicitly backstopping and even socializing industries owned by the wealthy through fiscal policy. This is where you get "green energy credits" and "privatizing space," both of which have served only to enrich a couple billionaires. It's the western version of Russian oligarchs.