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It seems like at some point in the past few decades money stopped becoming a useful abstraction for the values of goods and services and instead turned into a s

It seems like at some point in the past few decades money stopped becoming a useful abstraction for the values of goods and services and instead turned into a some numbers game played by by finances and tech bros looking to play the game rather than do anything good. I mean ultimately the value of the money went like this Some VC thought they could make money off a dog walking AI/ML self cleaning mapping proposotion. Not that they believed it would produce that much value but merely believed they could make a return. The startup put money in SVB which held the funds that represented the supposed value of the startup. The pension fund saw SVB had money (that represents the abstract value of a couple of dozen startups) and decided that would be a good place for them to put/invest more money. All of this undergirded by the idea that the value was in the 100s of millions of dollars for an AI/ML Dog Walking Mapping Startup platform. Which everyone knew was never worth that much to begin with, but was just following the numbers game because the hope was it would be able to be pawned off on other suckers. With the suckers being either a) The general public through an IPO or b) The tech giants who would acquire it. It just seems something broke somewhere and we need a correction.

zwieback 4y ago
Sure but the question to ask is whether our financial systems have gotten better or worse since the time of tulip panics, railroad stocks, etc. I would argue that they have gotten better but there's always possible improvements.
ant6n 4y ago
That doesn’t seem a problem, if the depositors go bankrupt, the banks shouldn’t be affected unless the bank lent them money. But the VCs gave the money, not the bank. I think the problem is really that the bank grew too quickly, so it only recently bought a bunch of low interest long term debt that was now worth much less. Could happen to other banks, too.

zwieback 4y ago

Sure but the question to ask is whether our financial systems have gotten better or worse since the time of tulip panics, railroad stocks, etc. I would argue that they have gotten better but there's always possible improvements.

ant6n 4y ago

That doesn’t seem a problem, if the depositors go bankrupt, the banks shouldn’t be affected unless the bank lent them money. But the VCs gave the money, not the bank. I think the problem is really that the bank grew too quickly, so it only recently bought a bunch of low interest long term debt that was now worth much less. Could happen to other banks, too.