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As if I need to make another comment about a, or multiple bubbles, but something has to give and here it's of course the consumer. New and used car prices are a

As if I need to make another comment about a, or multiple bubbles, but something has to give and here it's of course the consumer. New and used car prices are at all-time highs (nominal it sounds like, but tell that to someone whose wages haven't kept pace (i.e., almost everyone)). Housing prices are at all-time highs (in terms of price:income so no qualifier needed there). Tariffs are not being 100% eaten by the producers (duh), nor by the importers (double duh), and so the consumer is being hit by those. Health care costs are about to rise materially as we flip to 2026 for large swaths (all?) of the US population. Any tax relief seen by the average consumer is likely not even close to enough to counterbalance all the increased prices/costs. HN is fond of saying that the only thing propping up the US economy at this point is AI investment (not informed enough to know if that's actually true, but outside of equity prices it sure seems like everything else is blinking "this economy sucks."). So when will the music stop? Seems like it should've been "yesterday," but what's the argument for it to continue playing for the foreseeable future? The great wealth transfer? AI efficiency/productivity gains (without the vast elimination of jobs)? Something else?

ramesh31 1y ago
>So when will the music stop? Seems like it should've been "yesterday," but what's the argument for it to continue playing for the foreseeable future? The great wealth transfer? AI efficiency/productivity gains (without the vast elimination of jobs)? Something else? They seem to have figured out that you can just simply stop caring about the needs of 90% of your population if you systematically withhold any wealth from them and concentrate it to the 10%. The plan it seems is that the economy will increasingly be driven entirely by the upper middle class and above (who are all doing better now than they ever have in history), while the rest of us are left to rot and serve their drinks and clean their homes. The future for the average North American is starting to look a lot like our southern counterparts, where the wealthy elites in the cities rule over an underclass of destitute poverty everywhere else.
- JohnFen 1y ago
  Historically, this has ultimately led to revolutions.
  - ramesh31 1y ago
    >Historically, this has ultimately led to revolutions. Which is why they've spent the last 50 years pitting the lower classes against themselves with meaningless culture wars. In a world with F-16s, Apache helicopters, and panopticon digital surveillance, there will never be armed revolution again (nor would anyone actually want that); the only option is nonviolent resistance. But it'll never happen in the US since we have zero class solidarity, and are all just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
    - achierius 1y ago
      Haha, funnily enough they said the same thing before 1918. They also said a bunch of Vietnamese farmers could never beat a world class military. Have faith in your fellow workers and hold on to the hope that a better world is possible.
      - alephnerd 1y ago
        As someone who knows people who fought that war on the other side, the vast majority were professionally trained soldiers, not Huy the illiterate rice paddy farmer who took an AK-47 and took pot shots at Americans. There's a reason much of the older generation of Viet military and political leadership studied in Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, BSSR, and RSFSR and why both the Vietnamese Army and the MPS still send their officers and leadership track personnel to train in Belarus and Russia to this day. Heck, Russian is still an fairly popular language choice for Viet students targeting civil service or police careers. Furthermore, a ragtag army of farmers would not have been able to fight against the PLA in 1979 or overthrow the PRC's lackeys and backed by the US in Cambodia and Laos in the 1980s-1990s. It's also why you find so many Vietnamese in Prague, Warsaw, East Germany, Minsk, and Moscow to this day. The fiction of "illiterate paddy farmers pushed American soldiers out" is just a salve around the reality that the US abandoned South Vietnam in order to seal the US-China deal in the early 70s that helped contain the USSR in the late 20th century.
ookblah 1y ago
we learned our lessons from 2008 and 2020. my random thoughts 1) money has nowhere else go for now 2) great wealth transfer = really doesn't matter as long as the super rich can keep inflating their wealth faster than us peons. if you are above that curve just stay ahead of it at all costs. 3) prolonged pain can be extended indefinitely for most people by keeping them perpetual renters / extending loan terms. 4) all else fails print more money and i guess when it all does collapse doesn't matter, retreat to X country or bunker (lol)
- kristianp 1y ago
  > if you are above that curve Is it possible to know if you're above 'that' curve? Does above the curve mean your assets are increasing in value faster than inflation?
  - jrs235 1y ago
    I think to be above the curve requires being the first to receive the freshly printed money to buy more assets before they inflate further. You need to be first to benefit... So grift off the government contracts that lead/cause more printing.
dinobones 1y ago
On paper, nothing will happen. The wealthy in America will continue to get wealthier. Real estate and stocks will soar in value. In reality, the dollar's true value will plummet. The FED is starting to lower interest rates again. We are likely going to undergo brutal inflation. Crashing the economy is obviously very politically unpopular. The left/right will do whatever they can to keep this charade up, even if it means dooming the working class and throwing them some kind of bone to make them think they're ok. The COVID pandemic was a good example of this. The working class got thrown a $2,000 check while there was billions given to bail out businesses/lots of fraud. Not a lot of people cared because hey, we got a $2k check... Even though that $2k check was not even close to maintaining their relative wealth pre-pandemic due to all of the government's inflationary measures. There won't be a recession, it won't happen on paper. But the middle/working class will continue to be squeezed. And there will be programs to "rescue us." Maybe it's low cost home programs, maybe it's community college, I'm not sure. But I am sure it will never truly benefit the working/middle class, it'll just be a token to keep them from fully dying.
- epistasis 1y ago
  The value of the dollar has already plummeted, 10% or so this year. It's expected that 2026 will have an equal dollar devaluation. This is the best-possible interpretation of the goals of this administration, the so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord that is somehow supposed to help some part of the economy. It's unclear who or how, to me.
  - mgh95 1y ago
    > The value of the dollar has already plummeted, 10% or so this year. Compared to what? From Nov 3, 2024: the USD against: GBP (3)% JPY (1.7)% EUR (6.7)% INR 4.6% AUD 1.3% CAD .74% RMB .4% The EUR (if that is what you are going by) is unusually strong, and that's actually starting to cause issues. But the dollar isn't "collapsing".
    - epistasis 1y ago
      https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/us-dollar-declines https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/us-dollar-de...
carabiner 1y ago
We've got an insane bubble right now. Quantum computing stocks are valued at $50b market cap with 0 revenue and no substantial finished products. Just research.
- Ekaros 1y ago
  Remember when "unicorn" companies were a big deal. Billion was significant amount of valuation and money. Lately it really feels like billion is pretty much nothing anymore. There has been inflation, but not that much to really make billion to be small sum.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    The high end seems to be wildly out of control. We have $trillion+ companies now, and we are likely to see the world's first individual USD trillionaire within the next 12 months.
- the__alchemist 1y ago
  Oooh any public ones? edit: OMG. I will be shorting these.
  - carabiner 1y ago
    All of them: https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/10/17/ionq-rgti-qbts-qubt-875-million-warning-to-wall-st/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/10/17/ionq-rgti-qbts-qub... It makes no fucking sense for any of these to be trading above $10.
- Yizahi 1y ago
  Hey now, you can't say they don't have any product. We got a machine which can factor number 15 now. (with a preparation time for this calculation of only a few month) Isn't that amazing? We will be breaking RSA2048 any day now. Let's invest a few hundred billions into changing encryption everywhere! /s
ajross 1y ago
> New and used car prices are at all-time highs (nominal it sounds like Well, yes, nominal. But no, not really. Cars (and really this isn't surprising) have been getting steadily more affordable over time. They represent about half the fraction of consumer income that they did in the 80's. AS ALWAYS, please just go to FRED to ask these questions before announcing incorrect answers on the internet. New car price[1] expressed as a fraction of median income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1NbqH https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1NbqH [1] Actually it's new car CPI, so the values are unitless.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
The economy is a lie. There is no the singular, hive mind economy. There are several segments and it's growing ever lopsided and moving K-shaped. The so-called "precariat" are hurting very badly. It doesn't matter what sort of imaginary, incestuous valuations NVIDIA et. al. attain because it doesn't trickle down in any measurable fashion. There is an pervasive profit-price spiral of necessities is a huge contributor of ongoing and deepening inflation. And the random tariffs / punitive federal sales taxes are yet another inflationary policy. The ultra rich can and will deny technological un(der)employment is happening until the pitchforks come out, and then blame the poor for being lazy/stupid/slow/unfortunate/antifa/whatever.

ramesh31 1y ago

>So when will the music stop? Seems like it should've been "yesterday," but what's the argument for it to continue playing for the foreseeable future? The great wealth transfer? AI efficiency/productivity gains (without the vast elimination of jobs)? Something else? They seem to have figured out that you can just simply stop caring about the needs of 90% of your population if you systematically withhold any wealth from them and concentrate it to the 10%. The plan it seems is that the economy will increasingly be driven entirely by the upper middle class and above (who are all doing better now than they ever have in history), while the rest of us are left to rot and serve their drinks and clean their homes. The future for the average North American is starting to look a lot like our southern counterparts, where the wealthy elites in the cities rule over an underclass of destitute poverty everywhere else.

JohnFen 1y ago
Historically, this has ultimately led to revolutions.
- ramesh31 1y ago
  >Historically, this has ultimately led to revolutions. Which is why they've spent the last 50 years pitting the lower classes against themselves with meaningless culture wars. In a world with F-16s, Apache helicopters, and panopticon digital surveillance, there will never be armed revolution again (nor would anyone actually want that); the only option is nonviolent resistance. But it'll never happen in the US since we have zero class solidarity, and are all just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
  - achierius 1y ago
    Haha, funnily enough they said the same thing before 1918. They also said a bunch of Vietnamese farmers could never beat a world class military. Have faith in your fellow workers and hold on to the hope that a better world is possible.
    - alephnerd 1y ago
      As someone who knows people who fought that war on the other side, the vast majority were professionally trained soldiers, not Huy the illiterate rice paddy farmer who took an AK-47 and took pot shots at Americans. There's a reason much of the older generation of Viet military and political leadership studied in Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, BSSR, and RSFSR and why both the Vietnamese Army and the MPS still send their officers and leadership track personnel to train in Belarus and Russia to this day. Heck, Russian is still an fairly popular language choice for Viet students targeting civil service or police careers. Furthermore, a ragtag army of farmers would not have been able to fight against the PLA in 1979 or overthrow the PRC's lackeys and backed by the US in Cambodia and Laos in the 1980s-1990s. It's also why you find so many Vietnamese in Prague, Warsaw, East Germany, Minsk, and Moscow to this day. The fiction of "illiterate paddy farmers pushed American soldiers out" is just a salve around the reality that the US abandoned South Vietnam in order to seal the US-China deal in the early 70s that helped contain the USSR in the late 20th century.

ookblah 1y ago

we learned our lessons from 2008 and 2020. my random thoughts 1) money has nowhere else go for now 2) great wealth transfer = really doesn't matter as long as the super rich can keep inflating their wealth faster than us peons. if you are above that curve just stay ahead of it at all costs. 3) prolonged pain can be extended indefinitely for most people by keeping them perpetual renters / extending loan terms. 4) all else fails print more money and i guess when it all does collapse doesn't matter, retreat to X country or bunker (lol)

kristianp 1y ago
> if you are above that curve Is it possible to know if you're above 'that' curve? Does above the curve mean your assets are increasing in value faster than inflation?
- jrs235 1y ago
  I think to be above the curve requires being the first to receive the freshly printed money to buy more assets before they inflate further. You need to be first to benefit... So grift off the government contracts that lead/cause more printing.

dinobones 1y ago

On paper, nothing will happen. The wealthy in America will continue to get wealthier. Real estate and stocks will soar in value. In reality, the dollar's true value will plummet. The FED is starting to lower interest rates again. We are likely going to undergo brutal inflation. Crashing the economy is obviously very politically unpopular. The left/right will do whatever they can to keep this charade up, even if it means dooming the working class and throwing them some kind of bone to make them think they're ok. The COVID pandemic was a good example of this. The working class got thrown a $2,000 check while there was billions given to bail out businesses/lots of fraud. Not a lot of people cared because hey, we got a $2k check... Even though that $2k check was not even close to maintaining their relative wealth pre-pandemic due to all of the government's inflationary measures. There won't be a recession, it won't happen on paper. But the middle/working class will continue to be squeezed. And there will be programs to "rescue us." Maybe it's low cost home programs, maybe it's community college, I'm not sure. But I am sure it will never truly benefit the working/middle class, it'll just be a token to keep them from fully dying.

epistasis 1y ago
The value of the dollar has already plummeted, 10% or so this year. It's expected that 2026 will have an equal dollar devaluation. This is the best-possible interpretation of the goals of this administration, the so-called Mar-a-Lago Accord that is somehow supposed to help some part of the economy. It's unclear who or how, to me.
- mgh95 1y ago
  > The value of the dollar has already plummeted, 10% or so this year. Compared to what? From Nov 3, 2024: the USD against: GBP (3)% JPY (1.7)% EUR (6.7)% INR 4.6% AUD 1.3% CAD .74% RMB .4% The EUR (if that is what you are going by) is unusually strong, and that's actually starting to cause issues. But the dollar isn't "collapsing".
  - epistasis 1y ago
    https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/us-dollar-declines https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/us-dollar-de...

carabiner 1y ago

We've got an insane bubble right now. Quantum computing stocks are valued at $50b market cap with 0 revenue and no substantial finished products. Just research.

Ekaros 1y ago
Remember when "unicorn" companies were a big deal. Billion was significant amount of valuation and money. Lately it really feels like billion is pretty much nothing anymore. There has been inflation, but not that much to really make billion to be small sum.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  The high end seems to be wildly out of control. We have $trillion+ companies now, and we are likely to see the world's first individual USD trillionaire within the next 12 months.
the__alchemist 1y ago
Oooh any public ones? edit: OMG. I will be shorting these.
- carabiner 1y ago
  All of them: https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/10/17/ionq-rgti-qbts-qubt-875-million-warning-to-wall-st/ https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/10/17/ionq-rgti-qbts-qub... It makes no fucking sense for any of these to be trading above $10.
Yizahi 1y ago
Hey now, you can't say they don't have any product. We got a machine which can factor number 15 now. (with a preparation time for this calculation of only a few month) Isn't that amazing? We will be breaking RSA2048 any day now. Let's invest a few hundred billions into changing encryption everywhere! /s

ajross 1y ago

> New and used car prices are at all-time highs (nominal it sounds like Well, yes, nominal. But no, not really. Cars (and really this isn't surprising) have been getting steadily more affordable over time. They represent about half the fraction of consumer income that they did in the 80's. AS ALWAYS, please just go to FRED to ask these questions before announcing incorrect answers on the internet. New car price[1] expressed as a fraction of median income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1NbqH https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1NbqH [1] Actually it's new car CPI, so the values are unitless.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

The economy is a lie. There is no the singular, hive mind economy. There are several segments and it's growing ever lopsided and moving K-shaped. The so-called "precariat" are hurting very badly. It doesn't matter what sort of imaginary, incestuous valuations NVIDIA et. al. attain because it doesn't trickle down in any measurable fashion. There is an pervasive profit-price spiral of necessities is a huge contributor of ongoing and deepening inflation. And the random tariffs / punitive federal sales taxes are yet another inflationary policy. The ultra rich can and will deny technological un(der)employment is happening until the pitchforks come out, and then blame the poor for being lazy/stupid/slow/unfortunate/antifa/whatever.