5 ms·

I Wasn't Worried About the Fed. Now I Am

85 points by petethomas 1y ago

justin66 1y ago
The number of things ordinary people consider to be risks, but are nevertheless not priced in by the market, is rather high right now.
phendrenad2 1y ago
Obviously Trump wants more control over the Fed, but the backlash against this is also obviously propaganda. If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. All of the reporting saying that the firing isn't being done in the proper manner is just hiding behind technicalities. At some point people have to accept that throwing out all laws so your side "wins" just benefits wannabe-dictators, and I don't see many of those on the left.
- thehoff 1y ago
  "If" being a keyword here.
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  > If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. Given the players involved, that honestly seems to be quite controversial.
- xhrpost 1y ago
  How is due process a technicality?
- ahoka 1y ago
  > If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. She should be the POTUS if she's really a felon.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    Having studied history a bit more than most people, I have a gut reaction to the kind of "lawlessness escalation vortex" where lawlessness by one group is used to excuse lawlessness of an opposing group. I've seen how this ends in history, and it's not good. Essentially, the strongest side wins, takes all of the power, and becomes totalitarian, because who wants to re-institute laws once you're king? Oh, it might be Trump. Or it might be some Bernie Sanders bro. Does it matter in the end, if the laws are gone and we all live as loyal subjects of the crown? But sure, downvote me, shoot the messenger. This is a lesson, I fear, we must learn at the point of the despot's guards spears every 200 or so years, so perhaps there's no avoiding it. But someday, you'll say "damn you phendrenad2, why couldn't you be more convincing, you tried to warn me but not hard enough!"
- germinalphrase 1y ago
  “If she committed a felony…” This has been asserted but not proven to be true. “…she shouldn't be in charge of anything.“ Even if sensible, this is clearly not a heuristic that is being applied universally.
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    I saw a video where someone visited a house she claims to live at, and there was a tenant there. Proven to be true yet? Or no?
- nine_zeros 1y ago
  > If she committed a felony, It is not proven. Trump is merely alleging - it is a manufactured allegation. > If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything Apply the same logic to the 34 count felon in the office of the President. Until you apply the harshest standard to the President, none of your other complaints hold any value.
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    If the allegation turns out to be true, which seems to be incredibly likely now, will you learn from this? Or will you continue to believe the news outlets that led you to this mistaken belief?
- underlipton 1y ago
  >If she committed a felony Big if, especially since she hasn't been formally charged with anything. In any case, even if she has, Trump and Pulte's authority to fire her is questionable. It would be like a mayor attempting to fire a private security guard that's contracted with the city, pending an investigation. A couple of points: if it were a LEO, they would generally be put on leave, not fired. But, again, officer of a private entity (which the Fed) is; the mayor/president's ability to influence that entity's activity ends at the contracts/relevant statutes's stipulations - and if there's a dispute, it gets hashed out in civil court. Of course, if a felony has been committed, one could just wait for the conviction, which would likely lead to termination by one of several exigencies. But, again, big if.
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    > Trump and Pulte's authority to fire her is questionable So you agree that if she did it, she should be fired, but not by Trump. But the effect is the same. Seems like you're making a mountain out of a molehill. And by the way, if she did it, and whomever is (in your eyes) responsible for firing her chooses not to, would you consider that a direliction of duty, I.E. would that person deserve to be fired? And would it eventually get to the president's responsibility to fire someone if people kept deciding no to, all theh way up the chain? I'm really curious to know what your thoughts are on this, if any.
- orwin 1y ago
  In my country, she would be put on leave, then investigated, then tried, then let go, then hidden away if the felony was big or forgotten if it was minor (because white collar crime almost always pays, it's better to go hard).
- triceratops 1y ago
  I heard "lawfare" a lot when allegations against prominent Republicans were proven in court.
- ranger207 1y ago
  > If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. When Al Franken resigns because of allegations of sexual misconduct, it proves Democrats are evil. When Donald Trump is convicted of dozens of felonies, it proves Republicans are victims of politically motivated witch hunts. It shouldn't be a controversial opinion that being a felon should disqualify you from public service, but because of that very opinion, labeling someone as a felon as been weaponized to the point where the label can be dismissed by supporters
- jacquesm 1y ago
  What are the chances that suddenly half the people in power that Trump wants to get rid of have committed a felony? And what are the chances that the people that Trump has put into power have committed the same felonies (or much worse) and are getting a pass? If that doesn't worry you then you have to stop statements like 'having studied history more than most' or something to that effect and realize that you are in uncharted territory. You are still applying normal standards to a blatant power grab and slide into a form of government that does not have a happy ending.
  - phendrenad2 1y ago
    > What are the chances that suddenly half the people in power that Trump wants to get rid of have committed a felony? What? Name three please. You're just needlessly generalizing because you don't know anything.
Buttons840 1y ago
Politicians want to control the Fed so they can drop interest rates and cause a short-term economic and stock market boom, followed by really bad things in the long-term. How are markets supposed to react to that? If markets are going to go up, and then down, do you buy or sell? If Trump is going to take over the Fed, the smart move is to buy. If there's going to be a huge party before the world ends, you go to the party.
- dizlexic 1y ago
  Audit the fed?
  - akkartik 1y ago
    The point of GP is that market-external mechanisms like that will only affect the price when they seem likely to happen.
  - Buttons840 1y ago
    I don't know what you mean. What would an audit check for? What would be the goals of an audit?
    - dizlexic 1y ago
      The downvote because you don't understand is a bit silly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Transparency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Transparency_A...
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- MattPalmer1086 1y ago
  But the cost of borrowing will go through the roof because the market knows the bad stuff will happen. So nobody is going to buy treasuries without a significant increase in return.
xhrpost 1y ago
This post went from mid 20s on the front page to 37 on 2nd page in a matter of less than 5 minutes. What would cause that? Total points didn't go down. It isn't flagged.
- c22 1y ago
  Other posts going up? HN is very active in the morning.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  It probably hasn't had enough flags to be marked as "flagged", but likely it has been flagged by several users. IIRC, flags below the threshold still act as downranks, but they don't kill the post until there are enough flags.
- ahoka 1y ago
  There are much more important pop science articles that need the well deserved publicity. Nothing to see here.
- layer8 1y ago
  Moderators sometimes demote submissions they deem shouldn’t be ranked that high. From https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html: “Of these four interventions (deleting, killing, burying, and downweighting), the only one that moderators do frequently is downweighting. We downweight posts in response to things that go against the site guidelines, such as when a submission is unsubstantive, baity or sensational. Typically such posts remain on the front page, just at a lower rank.”
  - mountainriver 1y ago
    This seems to have gotten a bit out of control. I’m not sure who the moderators are but they now appear to be acting against YC ethos
    - nathanaldensr 1y ago
underlipton 1y ago
Trump is going to screw around trying to rig markets to advantage his positions and his desire for "line go up", and accidentally expose that they're actually already rigged and incredibly fragile (because of all the measures taken to hide that rigging).
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair I suppose we could paraphrase that by changing "salary" to "retirement" or "national economic health".
  - underlipton 1y ago
    >Retirement Yup. Boomers be the death of all. So much of what's been done over the past 5 years-ish has been because a stock market crash would devastate the largest voting bloc at the worst possible moment; there would be no "just wait for the recovery." Ironically, many of those measures have made any potential crash much, much worse. Not just in terms of a general collapse, but with disproportionate impacts because of the nature of the interventions. Don't look into what's actually in those retirement funds.
akkartik 1y ago
https://archive.is/CjIdE https://archive.is/CjIdE
patrickhogan1 1y ago
AI, grounded in high-quality data, could run the Fed more effectively. We often over-defer to officials despite a mixed record on inflation control.
- scoliosis 1y ago
  > grounded in high-quality data Good thing we're replacing BLS staff with sycophants!
- dpc050505 1y ago
  Go feed some basic undergraduate economics/finance/accounting homework question into whatever cutting edge LLM you have access to and look at the results.
triceratops 1y ago
> Even if proven, the administration’s claim — that Cook violated the law before her time in office by designating two different homes as her primary residence when applying for mortgages — probably wouldn’t meet the test. Seriously that's the allegation? When I heard false information on a mortgage I assumed inflated income or assets or concealing the source of a downpayment. Is this even material? Can't a person have 2 homes and live in both?
- JohnFen 1y ago
  > Can't a person have 2 homes and live in both? One home is always the "primary residence" for legal purposes. You can have and live in as many homes as you want, but only one counts as your primary residence. That said, the allegation is just that, an allegation. Further, it's coming from people who are highly motivated to exaggerate or lie.
- vel0city 1y ago
  You can have two homes and split your time in both but in the end if you want these kinds of finance benefits you can only claim one home as your primary and actually live there most of the time otherwise you are committing fraud. The lender's risk models and expected loan lifetimes are probably radically different if a property is going to be used as someone's primary residence versus an often-vacant vacation home versus a rental property. They'll have offered a different rate and qualification requirements if she said it was going to be a rental apartment. It is still a pretty massive pot meet kettle argument though. Trump's a convicted fraudster. Let's remove everyone who has committed fraud from office. Can we add Ken Paxton to the list with Trump as well? Oh wait, not my guys... I was talking with a neighbor raging about how corrupt Lisa Cook is and how these people just think they should get away with anything and how these people need to be put in prison for a long time. After pointing out Ken Paxton (someone they hope runs for Congress) claimed three houses as primary residences, well, that's different see...
  - _mlbt 1y ago
    I’m all for the law being applied equally to everyone no matter which political party they affiliate with. To be honest it’s ridiculous that we all just accept that politicians get to play by a different set of rules and that your side is corrupt, but it’s different when my side does it.
IAmGraydon 1y ago
One of Trump's primary objectives is destruction of the Fed, which is what gives the US Dollar status as the world reserve currency. His objective is directly aligned with Putin's, which should come as no surprise. They both realize that the very source of the US's power is the Federal Reserve. Don't take his actions as misguided - they are malevolent and intentional, without a doubt.
- cpr 1y ago
  "Muh Russia". C'mon, that's such a cheap take. The Fed has done nothing but destroy the value of the dollar since its founding in 1913.
- jaybrendansmith 1y ago
  Agreed. Again I ask: How different are his actions from the actions of someone trying for the complete destruction of the United States of America as a world power?
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    This is a problem. I keep asking myself: "If I wanted to destroy the USA could I do worse?" and then I find the answer is no. And then they do find ways to make it worse, sometimes much worse. So I'm no longer even sure what the game plan is here, it looks like they are not only trying to destroy the USA as a world power but at the same time to set things up so that there will be far fewer inhabitants. That to me is a far more worrying thing than just the usual left-right power games. Concentration camps are a small step away from gulags. Wholesale deportation is a small step away from disappearing people. Wrecking the currency is a small step away from wrecking the economy in unrecoverable ways. This is not something subtle, this is something large, gross and horrendous. Call me alarmist if you want but in my wildest dreams prior to Jan 6th 2025 did I think that it would get this bad this fast. Things have already fallen off a cliff or they are about to and I'm not sure I will be able to spot the difference.

85 points by petethomas 1y ago

The number of things ordinary people consider to be risks, but are nevertheless not priced in by the market, is rather high right now.

phendrenad2 1y ago

Obviously Trump wants more control over the Fed, but the backlash against this is also obviously propaganda. If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. All of the reporting saying that the firing isn't being done in the proper manner is just hiding behind technicalities. At some point people have to accept that throwing out all laws so your side "wins" just benefits wannabe-dictators, and I don't see many of those on the left.

thehoff 1y ago
"If" being a keyword here.
SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. Given the players involved, that honestly seems to be quite controversial.
xhrpost 1y ago
How is due process a technicality?
ahoka 1y ago
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. She should be the POTUS if she's really a felon.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  Having studied history a bit more than most people, I have a gut reaction to the kind of "lawlessness escalation vortex" where lawlessness by one group is used to excuse lawlessness of an opposing group. I've seen how this ends in history, and it's not good. Essentially, the strongest side wins, takes all of the power, and becomes totalitarian, because who wants to re-institute laws once you're king? Oh, it might be Trump. Or it might be some Bernie Sanders bro. Does it matter in the end, if the laws are gone and we all live as loyal subjects of the crown? But sure, downvote me, shoot the messenger. This is a lesson, I fear, we must learn at the point of the despot's guards spears every 200 or so years, so perhaps there's no avoiding it. But someday, you'll say "damn you phendrenad2, why couldn't you be more convincing, you tried to warn me but not hard enough!"
germinalphrase 1y ago
“If she committed a felony…” This has been asserted but not proven to be true. “…she shouldn't be in charge of anything.“ Even if sensible, this is clearly not a heuristic that is being applied universally.
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  I saw a video where someone visited a house she claims to live at, and there was a tenant there. Proven to be true yet? Or no?
nine_zeros 1y ago
> If she committed a felony, It is not proven. Trump is merely alleging - it is a manufactured allegation. > If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything Apply the same logic to the 34 count felon in the office of the President. Until you apply the harshest standard to the President, none of your other complaints hold any value.
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  If the allegation turns out to be true, which seems to be incredibly likely now, will you learn from this? Or will you continue to believe the news outlets that led you to this mistaken belief?
underlipton 1y ago
>If she committed a felony Big if, especially since she hasn't been formally charged with anything. In any case, even if she has, Trump and Pulte's authority to fire her is questionable. It would be like a mayor attempting to fire a private security guard that's contracted with the city, pending an investigation. A couple of points: if it were a LEO, they would generally be put on leave, not fired. But, again, officer of a private entity (which the Fed) is; the mayor/president's ability to influence that entity's activity ends at the contracts/relevant statutes's stipulations - and if there's a dispute, it gets hashed out in civil court. Of course, if a felony has been committed, one could just wait for the conviction, which would likely lead to termination by one of several exigencies. But, again, big if.
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  > Trump and Pulte's authority to fire her is questionable So you agree that if she did it, she should be fired, but not by Trump. But the effect is the same. Seems like you're making a mountain out of a molehill. And by the way, if she did it, and whomever is (in your eyes) responsible for firing her chooses not to, would you consider that a direliction of duty, I.E. would that person deserve to be fired? And would it eventually get to the president's responsibility to fire someone if people kept deciding no to, all theh way up the chain? I'm really curious to know what your thoughts are on this, if any.
orwin 1y ago
In my country, she would be put on leave, then investigated, then tried, then let go, then hidden away if the felony was big or forgotten if it was minor (because white collar crime almost always pays, it's better to go hard).
triceratops 1y ago
I heard "lawfare" a lot when allegations against prominent Republicans were proven in court.
ranger207 1y ago
> If she committed a felony, she shouldn't be in charge of anything. I don't think that's a controversial opinion. When Al Franken resigns because of allegations of sexual misconduct, it proves Democrats are evil. When Donald Trump is convicted of dozens of felonies, it proves Republicans are victims of politically motivated witch hunts. It shouldn't be a controversial opinion that being a felon should disqualify you from public service, but because of that very opinion, labeling someone as a felon as been weaponized to the point where the label can be dismissed by supporters
jacquesm 1y ago
What are the chances that suddenly half the people in power that Trump wants to get rid of have committed a felony? And what are the chances that the people that Trump has put into power have committed the same felonies (or much worse) and are getting a pass? If that doesn't worry you then you have to stop statements like 'having studied history more than most' or something to that effect and realize that you are in uncharted territory. You are still applying normal standards to a blatant power grab and slide into a form of government that does not have a happy ending.
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  > What are the chances that suddenly half the people in power that Trump wants to get rid of have committed a felony? What? Name three please. You're just needlessly generalizing because you don't know anything.

Buttons840 1y ago

Politicians want to control the Fed so they can drop interest rates and cause a short-term economic and stock market boom, followed by really bad things in the long-term. How are markets supposed to react to that? If markets are going to go up, and then down, do you buy or sell? If Trump is going to take over the Fed, the smart move is to buy. If there's going to be a huge party before the world ends, you go to the party.

dizlexic 1y ago
Audit the fed?
- akkartik 1y ago
  The point of GP is that market-external mechanisms like that will only affect the price when they seem likely to happen.
- Buttons840 1y ago
  I don't know what you mean. What would an audit check for? What would be the goals of an audit?
  - dizlexic 1y ago
    The downvote because you don't understand is a bit silly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Transparency_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Transparency_A...
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
MattPalmer1086 1y ago
But the cost of borrowing will go through the roof because the market knows the bad stuff will happen. So nobody is going to buy treasuries without a significant increase in return.

xhrpost 1y ago

This post went from mid 20s on the front page to 37 on 2nd page in a matter of less than 5 minutes. What would cause that? Total points didn't go down. It isn't flagged.

c22 1y ago
Other posts going up? HN is very active in the morning.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
It probably hasn't had enough flags to be marked as "flagged", but likely it has been flagged by several users. IIRC, flags below the threshold still act as downranks, but they don't kill the post until there are enough flags.
ahoka 1y ago
There are much more important pop science articles that need the well deserved publicity. Nothing to see here.
layer8 1y ago
Moderators sometimes demote submissions they deem shouldn’t be ranked that high. From https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html https://drewdevault.com/2017/09/13/Analyzing-HN.html: “Of these four interventions (deleting, killing, burying, and downweighting), the only one that moderators do frequently is downweighting. We downweight posts in response to things that go against the site guidelines, such as when a submission is unsubstantive, baity or sensational. Typically such posts remain on the front page, just at a lower rank.”
- mountainriver 1y ago
  This seems to have gotten a bit out of control. I’m not sure who the moderators are but they now appear to be acting against YC ethos
  - nathanaldensr 1y ago

underlipton 1y ago

Trump is going to screw around trying to rig markets to advantage his positions and his desire for "line go up", and accidentally expose that they're actually already rigged and incredibly fragile (because of all the measures taken to hide that rigging).

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair I suppose we could paraphrase that by changing "salary" to "retirement" or "national economic health".
- underlipton 1y ago
  >Retirement Yup. Boomers be the death of all. So much of what's been done over the past 5 years-ish has been because a stock market crash would devastate the largest voting bloc at the worst possible moment; there would be no "just wait for the recovery." Ironically, many of those measures have made any potential crash much, much worse. Not just in terms of a general collapse, but with disproportionate impacts because of the nature of the interventions. Don't look into what's actually in those retirement funds.

akkartik 1y ago

https://archive.is/CjIdE https://archive.is/CjIdE

patrickhogan1 1y ago

AI, grounded in high-quality data, could run the Fed more effectively. We often over-defer to officials despite a mixed record on inflation control.

scoliosis 1y ago
> grounded in high-quality data Good thing we're replacing BLS staff with sycophants!
dpc050505 1y ago
Go feed some basic undergraduate economics/finance/accounting homework question into whatever cutting edge LLM you have access to and look at the results.

triceratops 1y ago

> Even if proven, the administration’s claim — that Cook violated the law before her time in office by designating two different homes as her primary residence when applying for mortgages — probably wouldn’t meet the test. Seriously that's the allegation? When I heard false information on a mortgage I assumed inflated income or assets or concealing the source of a downpayment. Is this even material? Can't a person have 2 homes and live in both?

JohnFen 1y ago
> Can't a person have 2 homes and live in both? One home is always the "primary residence" for legal purposes. You can have and live in as many homes as you want, but only one counts as your primary residence. That said, the allegation is just that, an allegation. Further, it's coming from people who are highly motivated to exaggerate or lie.
vel0city 1y ago
You can have two homes and split your time in both but in the end if you want these kinds of finance benefits you can only claim one home as your primary and actually live there most of the time otherwise you are committing fraud. The lender's risk models and expected loan lifetimes are probably radically different if a property is going to be used as someone's primary residence versus an often-vacant vacation home versus a rental property. They'll have offered a different rate and qualification requirements if she said it was going to be a rental apartment. It is still a pretty massive pot meet kettle argument though. Trump's a convicted fraudster. Let's remove everyone who has committed fraud from office. Can we add Ken Paxton to the list with Trump as well? Oh wait, not my guys... I was talking with a neighbor raging about how corrupt Lisa Cook is and how these people just think they should get away with anything and how these people need to be put in prison for a long time. After pointing out Ken Paxton (someone they hope runs for Congress) claimed three houses as primary residences, well, that's different see...
- _mlbt 1y ago
  I’m all for the law being applied equally to everyone no matter which political party they affiliate with. To be honest it’s ridiculous that we all just accept that politicians get to play by a different set of rules and that your side is corrupt, but it’s different when my side does it.

IAmGraydon 1y ago

One of Trump's primary objectives is destruction of the Fed, which is what gives the US Dollar status as the world reserve currency. His objective is directly aligned with Putin's, which should come as no surprise. They both realize that the very source of the US's power is the Federal Reserve. Don't take his actions as misguided - they are malevolent and intentional, without a doubt.

cpr 1y ago
"Muh Russia". C'mon, that's such a cheap take. The Fed has done nothing but destroy the value of the dollar since its founding in 1913.
jaybrendansmith 1y ago
Agreed. Again I ask: How different are his actions from the actions of someone trying for the complete destruction of the United States of America as a world power?
- jacquesm 1y ago
  This is a problem. I keep asking myself: "If I wanted to destroy the USA could I do worse?" and then I find the answer is no. And then they do find ways to make it worse, sometimes much worse. So I'm no longer even sure what the game plan is here, it looks like they are not only trying to destroy the USA as a world power but at the same time to set things up so that there will be far fewer inhabitants. That to me is a far more worrying thing than just the usual left-right power games. Concentration camps are a small step away from gulags. Wholesale deportation is a small step away from disappearing people. Wrecking the currency is a small step away from wrecking the economy in unrecoverable ways. This is not something subtle, this is something large, gross and horrendous. Call me alarmist if you want but in my wildest dreams prior to Jan 6th 2025 did I think that it would get this bad this fast. Things have already fallen off a cliff or they are about to and I'm not sure I will be able to spot the difference.