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Given all the data modeling the powers that be have access to I find it hard to believe such outcomes aren’t intentional. If Exxon can correctly model climate

Given all the data modeling the powers that be have access to I find it hard to believe such outcomes aren’t intentional. If Exxon can correctly model climate change back in the 1980s the Fed can correctly model how deep to cut others to hamstring the masses acquisition of assets for themselves over 12-24 months

klipklop 3y ago
Seems very intentional. Every spare dollar a low/middle class person has in the US is destined to be sucked up by a mix of medical, education, pharma and housing. People still having money in a 401k means there is money on the table these economic vampires are missing out on.
- kurthr 3y ago
  You'll notice everything is on an installment plan. Your mortgage, your CC, your insurance. It's all financialized, and all becomes cashflow and interest rate limited. The goal of the Fed is to _crash the economy just in time for the election_ oops I mean control inflation.
  - klipt 3y ago
    So you think the fed wants to get the opposition party elected?
    - accrual 3y ago
      Does the fed have a single party it wants to align with?
      - thanatos519 3y ago
        Mammon.
    - theironhammer 3y ago
      There is no opposition party. Their policies are virtually the same.
      - xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        Their economic policies are literally exactly the same, no exceptions.
        drewcoo 3y ago
        > literally exactly the same, no exceptions "Virtual" once meant that!
        xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        I'm not sure it did...
        oezi 3y ago
        No they aren't.
        bebopcowboy 3y ago
        [dead]
        xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        A single example?
        klipt 3y ago
        https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/ https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/
        xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        A single example?
  - csomar 3y ago
    I'd say it's the opposite. They want to sustain the economy and avoid a crash. Though I don't think it's about elections but maintaining the current power structures and the current status quo.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  See https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Meditations-On-Moloch https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Meditations-On-Moloch
- MichaelRo 3y ago
  Rather than vainly trying to escape, you should embrace it. I learned this from my brother who had an epiphany: our purpose in life as humans, is to pay bills. Once you realize that, your soul is saved. No more worries, no more negativity, paying the bills is what defines you as human and makes you complete. The water, electricity company, car, pharma, doctors, education system ... all help you in realizing your purpose in life by charging you as many bills as possible. You should rejoice!
  - derwiki 3y ago
    It’s almost like a weird echo of Augustine’s City of God
  - uoaei 3y ago
    This is the tragic irony of the whole thing: that to have any influence you must play the game, but playing the game mostly limits your choices to those which encourage and strengthen the conditions in which the game remains stable. It's really quite robust as a self-organizing system. It's hard to see a way out of this local minimum without some major, sudden, and total change in the social and cultural attitudes of the people involved.
    - stillwithit 3y ago
      The only winning move is not to play. Covid lockdown was the perfect time to just not login and make Congress deal with it. Only 1 million sworn LEO in US including local, state, fed. No way police can pull together a door to door dragnet with those numbers and 3 guns per adult in US. I mean look at the Ulvad police and assume many are just like that. Pathetic. Gen Z seems aware it’s all political chicanery so unless the rural nutters blow stuff up, GZ and Millennials could leverage their 170 million strong to steamroll over 50 million GenX via politics.
csomar 3y ago
They are intentional and the direct effect of raising interest rates (aka: sucking up liquidity). Liquidity has to come from somewhere and since it's the interest rate being raised here, it comes up from everywhere it can come up (ie: SVB bank blowing up). But I guess 401K holders don't have Janet Yellen to help bail them out. By the way, since people are pulling money of their retirement accounts, this is new liquidity hitting the market or, essentially, inflation. The deflation, in this case, will happen at the people's retirement time; or on a very long-term interval (people trying to raise their 401k again by spending less). The only positive outlook is that this can convince paper holders that the Fed is strict and disciplined and ask them to trust the paper a little more. The damage of the Covid liquidity package will be felt for years, if not decades.
- theironhammer 3y ago
  What about all the QE printing post 2008 crisis? Didn't that have a lot to with the present house price inflation? Not all of course but shouldn't that QE printing share some of the inflation blame?
  - csomar 3y ago
    It does. But in 2008 there was some buffer (GDP/Debt ratio) and the amount was smaller and the interest rates went down. Now the GDP/Debt ratio is dangerous, the amounts are higher and the interest rates are up and so servicing the debt is more expensive. It's a funny mix.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      There's also shifting global factors that look to be permanent. The US' ability to export its inflation, as well as guaranteed dollar supremacy have played a major role in the general stability of our economy. Now you have a multipolar world imperiling dollar supremacy, and China becoming the world's largest consumer economy imperiling the ability to export our inflation. It's so weird. Life went from so boring and predictable to 'may you live in interesting times' [1] in like 10 years. 2013 feels like a century ago, not a decade. In some ways it makes one have some degree of empathy for what those living around the turn of the 20th century might have felt. There's no way they could have known the ride they were about to step onto, especially as they started off living through the advent of the automobile, dramatic improvements in labor conditions, etc.. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
wholesomepotato 3y ago
Exxon is a private company so some basic level of competency can be assumed. The Fed is basically bunch of incompetent academic buffoons.
- cced 3y ago
  I thought the Fed was private.
  - wholesomepotato 3y ago
    What products/services they produce if they're private? They're in this sweet spot where they're neither held accountable by the voter, nor by the consumer. The can be wrong over and over and over again and nothing is going to happen. A private company has to at least not loose more money then they can bribe politicians to give them.
    - cced 3y ago
      Private/public doesn’t have anything to do with selling a product, but with who owns the institution. > neither held accountable by the voter, nor by the consumer Don’t know if you meant to do this but you’re implying that voter!=consumer. Citizens united strikes again! > A private company has to at least not loose more money then they can bribe politicians 1 dollar 1 vote!
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
As long as we're positing conspiracies -- it seems odd that this retirement savings story is being written up in Plutocrat Weekly. I wonder what dark purpose the editor had in mind for when it hit the HN homepage.
- melagonster 3y ago
  This is obvious. some worker try start a rebellion.
SantalBlush 3y ago
Yeah, it's the Fed rate alone that caused this, and not inflation. If the Fed kept rates lower, inflation would be ripping right now and even more people would be sharing their wild conspiracy theories. This is such an absurd take.
- stillwithit 3y ago
  You certainly seem convinced but we’ll never actually know since the Fed did its job of keeping Congress from doing anything at all.
fulafel 3y ago
The climate disaster is indeed a good parallel. Probably same reasons behind people voting to drive off the cliff in both cases as well. But saying "outcomes are intentional" alluding to a nebulous "them" pulling the strings doesn't really serve to improve the situation IMO.
zzleeper 3y ago
> the Fed can correctly model how ... I wish :(

klipklop 3y ago

Seems very intentional. Every spare dollar a low/middle class person has in the US is destined to be sucked up by a mix of medical, education, pharma and housing. People still having money in a 401k means there is money on the table these economic vampires are missing out on.

kurthr 3y ago
You'll notice everything is on an installment plan. Your mortgage, your CC, your insurance. It's all financialized, and all becomes cashflow and interest rate limited. The goal of the Fed is to _crash the economy just in time for the election_ oops I mean control inflation.
- klipt 3y ago
  So you think the fed wants to get the opposition party elected?
  - accrual 3y ago
    Does the fed have a single party it wants to align with?
    - thanatos519 3y ago
      Mammon.
  - theironhammer 3y ago
    There is no opposition party. Their policies are virtually the same.
    - xkekjrktllss 3y ago
      Their economic policies are literally exactly the same, no exceptions.
      - drewcoo 3y ago
        > literally exactly the same, no exceptions "Virtual" once meant that!
        xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        I'm not sure it did...
      - oezi 3y ago
        No they aren't.
        bebopcowboy 3y ago
        [dead]
        xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        A single example?
        klipt 3y ago
        https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/ https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/
        xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        A single example?
- csomar 3y ago
  I'd say it's the opposite. They want to sustain the economy and avoid a crash. Though I don't think it's about elections but maintaining the current power structures and the current status quo.
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
See https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Meditations-On-Moloch https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Meditations-On-Moloch
MichaelRo 3y ago
Rather than vainly trying to escape, you should embrace it. I learned this from my brother who had an epiphany: our purpose in life as humans, is to pay bills. Once you realize that, your soul is saved. No more worries, no more negativity, paying the bills is what defines you as human and makes you complete. The water, electricity company, car, pharma, doctors, education system ... all help you in realizing your purpose in life by charging you as many bills as possible. You should rejoice!
- derwiki 3y ago
  It’s almost like a weird echo of Augustine’s City of God
- uoaei 3y ago
  This is the tragic irony of the whole thing: that to have any influence you must play the game, but playing the game mostly limits your choices to those which encourage and strengthen the conditions in which the game remains stable. It's really quite robust as a self-organizing system. It's hard to see a way out of this local minimum without some major, sudden, and total change in the social and cultural attitudes of the people involved.
  - stillwithit 3y ago
    The only winning move is not to play. Covid lockdown was the perfect time to just not login and make Congress deal with it. Only 1 million sworn LEO in US including local, state, fed. No way police can pull together a door to door dragnet with those numbers and 3 guns per adult in US. I mean look at the Ulvad police and assume many are just like that. Pathetic. Gen Z seems aware it’s all political chicanery so unless the rural nutters blow stuff up, GZ and Millennials could leverage their 170 million strong to steamroll over 50 million GenX via politics.

csomar 3y ago

They are intentional and the direct effect of raising interest rates (aka: sucking up liquidity). Liquidity has to come from somewhere and since it's the interest rate being raised here, it comes up from everywhere it can come up (ie: SVB bank blowing up). But I guess 401K holders don't have Janet Yellen to help bail them out. By the way, since people are pulling money of their retirement accounts, this is new liquidity hitting the market or, essentially, inflation. The deflation, in this case, will happen at the people's retirement time; or on a very long-term interval (people trying to raise their 401k again by spending less). The only positive outlook is that this can convince paper holders that the Fed is strict and disciplined and ask them to trust the paper a little more. The damage of the Covid liquidity package will be felt for years, if not decades.

theironhammer 3y ago
What about all the QE printing post 2008 crisis? Didn't that have a lot to with the present house price inflation? Not all of course but shouldn't that QE printing share some of the inflation blame?
- csomar 3y ago
  It does. But in 2008 there was some buffer (GDP/Debt ratio) and the amount was smaller and the interest rates went down. Now the GDP/Debt ratio is dangerous, the amounts are higher and the interest rates are up and so servicing the debt is more expensive. It's a funny mix.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    There's also shifting global factors that look to be permanent. The US' ability to export its inflation, as well as guaranteed dollar supremacy have played a major role in the general stability of our economy. Now you have a multipolar world imperiling dollar supremacy, and China becoming the world's largest consumer economy imperiling the ability to export our inflation. It's so weird. Life went from so boring and predictable to 'may you live in interesting times' [1] in like 10 years. 2013 feels like a century ago, not a decade. In some ways it makes one have some degree of empathy for what those living around the turn of the 20th century might have felt. There's no way they could have known the ride they were about to step onto, especially as they started off living through the advent of the automobile, dramatic improvements in labor conditions, etc.. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...

wholesomepotato 3y ago

Exxon is a private company so some basic level of competency can be assumed. The Fed is basically bunch of incompetent academic buffoons.

cced 3y ago
I thought the Fed was private.
- wholesomepotato 3y ago
  What products/services they produce if they're private? They're in this sweet spot where they're neither held accountable by the voter, nor by the consumer. The can be wrong over and over and over again and nothing is going to happen. A private company has to at least not loose more money then they can bribe politicians to give them.
  - cced 3y ago
    Private/public doesn’t have anything to do with selling a product, but with who owns the institution. > neither held accountable by the voter, nor by the consumer Don’t know if you meant to do this but you’re implying that voter!=consumer. Citizens united strikes again! > A private company has to at least not loose more money then they can bribe politicians 1 dollar 1 vote!

0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago

As long as we're positing conspiracies -- it seems odd that this retirement savings story is being written up in Plutocrat Weekly. I wonder what dark purpose the editor had in mind for when it hit the HN homepage.

melagonster 3y ago
This is obvious. some worker try start a rebellion.

SantalBlush 3y ago

Yeah, it's the Fed rate alone that caused this, and not inflation. If the Fed kept rates lower, inflation would be ripping right now and even more people would be sharing their wild conspiracy theories. This is such an absurd take.

stillwithit 3y ago
You certainly seem convinced but we’ll never actually know since the Fed did its job of keeping Congress from doing anything at all.

fulafel 3y ago

The climate disaster is indeed a good parallel. Probably same reasons behind people voting to drive off the cliff in both cases as well. But saying "outcomes are intentional" alluding to a nebulous "them" pulling the strings doesn't really serve to improve the situation IMO.

zzleeper 3y ago

> the Fed can correctly model how ... I wish :(