4 ms·

The big question is “whose jobs”? If it’s federal government employment that is dropping, or illegal alien jobs dropping, then some will view it positively (I’

The big question is “whose jobs”? If it’s federal government employment that is dropping, or illegal alien jobs dropping, then some will view it positively (I’ve seen this perspective advanced on x.com).

whatshisface 8mo ago
These perspectives bother me a lot, because I want to invest passively, but if people are out there thinking like that, maybe nothing is priced right...
- 5o1ecist 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - whatshisface 8mo ago
    In the context of investing there is a correct price for financial assets that is given by trading everything back to dollars in the present. There is one remaining parameter (the exchange rate between future payouts on different dates, the "discount rate"), but all the subjectivity reduces to that one number. However if everyone is deluded about what the future payouts of different insturments will be, you can get $10 for $1 in one place and $0.001 for $1 in another (given that in both cases the influence weighted participants think they're selling you a dollar). That invalidates the picture of reducing the unknowns to the discount rate. In your examples, you're talking about goods and services, which have different values to different people. They have an equilibrium price but as you say, that's not the "right price for everyone," like there is for say a bond.
    - gpt5 8mo ago
      The reason the stock market is generally "priced right", which we see in the strong long term returns of index funds, is because the winners get more money and get more influence, and the losers get less. So you have a self selecting system, that have (over time) proved itself. Whatever you might think of the effect of certain effects (such as immigrant labors) you can end up reflecting in your investments, as others do - and if you end up being correct, you'll have more power to influence the price in the future.
    - xboxnolifes 8mo ago
      > In the context of investing there is a correct price for financial assets that is given by trading everything back to dollars in the present. This doesn't make sense though. The only reason I would buy an investment is if I believe it will grow in value from the point that I bought it. That means I'm pricing it at its future ccost.obviously other people are doing the same, so the actual cost of the investment will always rise above current value if people believe its a good investment.
      - whatshisface 8mo ago
        I didn't write out enough to fully explain the idea. Here is the wiki page where you can find the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_discount_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_discount_factor
- adrr 8mo ago
  Priced right if money is moving from the bottom 90% to the top 10%. Stock market growth is because theres excess money and people need to invest the money. Supply and demand. There's reason why you can buy any ultra luxury car right(look at ferrari's revenue growth) and private jet industry is booming.
- ambicapter 8mo ago
  The market is only "right" in the very long term, and probably not in a way that's useful (companies that die eventually price to 0...but not a useful signal if its riding high all the way before it crashes).
alephnerd 8mo ago
Mostly SWEs (especially the type who act pissy on HN).
FireBeyond 8mo ago
Ahh, yes, all the undocumented people working in tech...
gjlisjlrj 8mo ago
Well those are incredibly ignorant and mostly likely strongly biased beliefs. When I worked for NASA and the DoE, I was surrounded by the most competent, hard-working, productive people I've ever known. Silicon Valley engineers are a joke compared to government engineers. Silicon valley people have newer toys and more flexible funding and no oversight, but government employees have vastly more impact and actual measurable utility. Only morons born into enough safety and security that they can be completely ignorant of how the actual world works believe the government is unnecessary and as many government jobs as possible should be deleted. The owner of that twitter platform you linked to killed several hundred thousand people last year, and again this year, and again next year, through sheer narcissistic incompetence. Is that a good source for any information at all?
- raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
  The original roll out of Healthcare.gov is a counterpoint. Looking at salaries, senior developers working for the government get paid about the same as entry level software engineers who get return offers at BigTech. Well actually senior developers in government only about 10%-20% more. And even if you did work in pub sec, if you were good, why would you want to work for the government when you can get paid a lot more working in the private sector and consulting for the government? I know how much senior cloud consultants working at AWS make working in the WWPS. I was there as an l5. Amazon is a shitty place to work. But I doubt it’s any worse than the government right now. GCP and Microsoft (not just Azure) both also pay their consultants a lot more than government employees make. I’m not saying the government isn’t needed. But the best and the brightest aren’t going to give up the amount of money they can make in the private sector - especially now that government jobs are far from a secure paycheck
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - blackjack_ 8mo ago
    You are arguing that everyone is as money driven as you are. Plenty of people who are more altruistic people take employment based on non money factors all the time. Plenty of people will also earn their chunk of change as an l5 at Amazon or whatever, then transition to a lower paid job with more impact. In fact, I know almost nobody who makes their employer decisions based on the pay factor alone.
mcphage 8mo ago
The people looking to view this positively will find or imagine a reason to do so, regardless of which jobs it is.
hx8 8mo ago
Mostly Transportation, Technology, and Healthcare [0]. [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/layoffs-unemployment-jobs-economy-jobless-benefits/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/layoffs-unemployment-jobs-econo...
- mothballed 8mo ago
  As it turns out, no one wants to invest in infrastructure when all the inputs are going to be tariffed to oblivion. All else equal why invest in USA when you could invest somewhere where you can import the needed inputs much cheaper? Protectionism isn't enough to overcome losing access to world markets. Eventually the protected industries will be totally disconnected from global markets causing them to lose global competitiveness, to the point they cannot even compete with the black market markups. And then you are maga, er mega, fucked.
  - betaby 8mo ago
    > why invest in USA when you could invest somewhere where you can import the needed inputs much cheaper? What markets do you have in minds? Can retail investors invest there?
    - mothballed 8mo ago
      I foresee something closer to a proportional increase of investment in all the remaining accessible markets, as US relative attractiveness decreases, rather than it moving to a specific other place. So basically, everywhere else, proportionally. Even markets that have worse import/export restrictions, will still have relative changes in their attraction. For a rough approximation non-US world index ETFs, which are available to retail investors.
testing22321 8mo ago
You think illegal aliens working - by definition- illegally, show up on reports like this? sigh If only the department of education was as well funded as the department of war.
- spacebanana7 8mo ago
  It’s a non trivial question. Estimates of criminal activity, for example, are frequently counted as GDP in places like the UK. And even if you’re working in violation of visa rules, the IRS will still expect and enforce taxes.
  - testing22321 8mo ago
    These people don’t have an SSN. You can’t pay taxes without one
    - zzrrt 8mo ago
      They can and do pay taxes with ITIN instead of SSN, and some non-citizens are eligible for SSN anyway. Undocumented immigrants have paid billions in taxes annually. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/how-do-undocumented-immigrants-pay-federal-taxes-an-explainer/ https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/how-do-undocumented-imm... The larger point that they may be omitted on reports like this may still stand, but it’s not because every single one is unable to be tabulated in the count by definition.
    - shrubble 8mo ago
      There’s plenty of cases where illegal aliens are using the SSN of someone else, as reported by NYT, WashPost etc.
viraptor 8mo ago
Yes, the illegal alien jobs that are being reported to the government by big corps are dropping. You're spot on /s
offmycloud 8mo ago
A big part of the job losses were driven by Amazon and the end of their UPS contract.
esbranson 8mo ago
The Challenger report contains large companies' announced future cuts. Not government, not small and medium business, not actual job losses. So neither, really.

whatshisface 8mo ago

These perspectives bother me a lot, because I want to invest passively, but if people are out there thinking like that, maybe nothing is priced right...

5o1ecist 8mo ago
[flagged]
- whatshisface 8mo ago
  In the context of investing there is a correct price for financial assets that is given by trading everything back to dollars in the present. There is one remaining parameter (the exchange rate between future payouts on different dates, the "discount rate"), but all the subjectivity reduces to that one number. However if everyone is deluded about what the future payouts of different insturments will be, you can get $10 for $1 in one place and $0.001 for $1 in another (given that in both cases the influence weighted participants think they're selling you a dollar). That invalidates the picture of reducing the unknowns to the discount rate. In your examples, you're talking about goods and services, which have different values to different people. They have an equilibrium price but as you say, that's not the "right price for everyone," like there is for say a bond.
  - gpt5 8mo ago
    The reason the stock market is generally "priced right", which we see in the strong long term returns of index funds, is because the winners get more money and get more influence, and the losers get less. So you have a self selecting system, that have (over time) proved itself. Whatever you might think of the effect of certain effects (such as immigrant labors) you can end up reflecting in your investments, as others do - and if you end up being correct, you'll have more power to influence the price in the future.
  - xboxnolifes 8mo ago
    > In the context of investing there is a correct price for financial assets that is given by trading everything back to dollars in the present. This doesn't make sense though. The only reason I would buy an investment is if I believe it will grow in value from the point that I bought it. That means I'm pricing it at its future ccost.obviously other people are doing the same, so the actual cost of the investment will always rise above current value if people believe its a good investment.
    - whatshisface 8mo ago
      I didn't write out enough to fully explain the idea. Here is the wiki page where you can find the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_discount_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_discount_factor
adrr 8mo ago
Priced right if money is moving from the bottom 90% to the top 10%. Stock market growth is because theres excess money and people need to invest the money. Supply and demand. There's reason why you can buy any ultra luxury car right(look at ferrari's revenue growth) and private jet industry is booming.
ambicapter 8mo ago
The market is only "right" in the very long term, and probably not in a way that's useful (companies that die eventually price to 0...but not a useful signal if its riding high all the way before it crashes).

alephnerd 8mo ago

Mostly SWEs (especially the type who act pissy on HN).

FireBeyond 8mo ago

Ahh, yes, all the undocumented people working in tech...

gjlisjlrj 8mo ago

Well those are incredibly ignorant and mostly likely strongly biased beliefs. When I worked for NASA and the DoE, I was surrounded by the most competent, hard-working, productive people I've ever known. Silicon Valley engineers are a joke compared to government engineers. Silicon valley people have newer toys and more flexible funding and no oversight, but government employees have vastly more impact and actual measurable utility. Only morons born into enough safety and security that they can be completely ignorant of how the actual world works believe the government is unnecessary and as many government jobs as possible should be deleted. The owner of that twitter platform you linked to killed several hundred thousand people last year, and again this year, and again next year, through sheer narcissistic incompetence. Is that a good source for any information at all?

raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
The original roll out of Healthcare.gov is a counterpoint. Looking at salaries, senior developers working for the government get paid about the same as entry level software engineers who get return offers at BigTech. Well actually senior developers in government only about 10%-20% more. And even if you did work in pub sec, if you were good, why would you want to work for the government when you can get paid a lot more working in the private sector and consulting for the government? I know how much senior cloud consultants working at AWS make working in the WWPS. I was there as an l5. Amazon is a shitty place to work. But I doubt it’s any worse than the government right now. GCP and Microsoft (not just Azure) both also pay their consultants a lot more than government employees make. I’m not saying the government isn’t needed. But the best and the brightest aren’t going to give up the amount of money they can make in the private sector - especially now that government jobs are far from a secure paycheck
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- blackjack_ 8mo ago
  You are arguing that everyone is as money driven as you are. Plenty of people who are more altruistic people take employment based on non money factors all the time. Plenty of people will also earn their chunk of change as an l5 at Amazon or whatever, then transition to a lower paid job with more impact. In fact, I know almost nobody who makes their employer decisions based on the pay factor alone.

mcphage 8mo ago

The people looking to view this positively will find or imagine a reason to do so, regardless of which jobs it is.

hx8 8mo ago

Mostly Transportation, Technology, and Healthcare [0]. [0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/layoffs-unemployment-jobs-economy-jobless-benefits/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/layoffs-unemployment-jobs-econo...

mothballed 8mo ago
As it turns out, no one wants to invest in infrastructure when all the inputs are going to be tariffed to oblivion. All else equal why invest in USA when you could invest somewhere where you can import the needed inputs much cheaper? Protectionism isn't enough to overcome losing access to world markets. Eventually the protected industries will be totally disconnected from global markets causing them to lose global competitiveness, to the point they cannot even compete with the black market markups. And then you are maga, er mega, fucked.
- betaby 8mo ago
  > why invest in USA when you could invest somewhere where you can import the needed inputs much cheaper? What markets do you have in minds? Can retail investors invest there?
  - mothballed 8mo ago
    I foresee something closer to a proportional increase of investment in all the remaining accessible markets, as US relative attractiveness decreases, rather than it moving to a specific other place. So basically, everywhere else, proportionally. Even markets that have worse import/export restrictions, will still have relative changes in their attraction. For a rough approximation non-US world index ETFs, which are available to retail investors.

testing22321 8mo ago

You think illegal aliens working - by definition- illegally, show up on reports like this? sigh If only the department of education was as well funded as the department of war.

spacebanana7 8mo ago
It’s a non trivial question. Estimates of criminal activity, for example, are frequently counted as GDP in places like the UK. And even if you’re working in violation of visa rules, the IRS will still expect and enforce taxes.
- testing22321 8mo ago
  These people don’t have an SSN. You can’t pay taxes without one
  - zzrrt 8mo ago
    They can and do pay taxes with ITIN instead of SSN, and some non-citizens are eligible for SSN anyway. Undocumented immigrants have paid billions in taxes annually. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/how-do-undocumented-immigrants-pay-federal-taxes-an-explainer/ https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/how-do-undocumented-imm... The larger point that they may be omitted on reports like this may still stand, but it’s not because every single one is unable to be tabulated in the count by definition.
  - shrubble 8mo ago
    There’s plenty of cases where illegal aliens are using the SSN of someone else, as reported by NYT, WashPost etc.

viraptor 8mo ago

Yes, the illegal alien jobs that are being reported to the government by big corps are dropping. You're spot on /s

offmycloud 8mo ago

A big part of the job losses were driven by Amazon and the end of their UPS contract.

esbranson 8mo ago

The Challenger report contains large companies' announced future cuts. Not government, not small and medium business, not actual job losses. So neither, really.