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If you really want to understand what's happening in the economy, with advance notice, read http://mises.org http://mises.org. That site has hundreds of econom

by MCRed 11y ago

If you really want to understand what's happening in the economy, with advance notice, read http://mises.org http://mises.org. That site has hundreds of economics books for free (great reading!) but also regular news articles. For instance, in 2001, before 9/11 (IIRC) there was an article there about how as a response to the DotCom boom the low interest rates plus changes in the CRA would be causing a housing boom and bubble over the next decade. In 2001 there was no boom, and after 9/11 the economy was bad. But that advice proved true, and gave me 6 years to time to invest based on the housing bubble hypothesis (alas I never found a way to short houses and wasn't the kind of person who could have bought CDOs against the foolishness) ... and I got out of the market very near its peak in 2007. Unlike what politicians would want you to believe, Economics is a science and the consequences of actions in economics are pretty close to those in physics. They can pretend like one president or another is responsible. (the Housing Bubble was the result of the actions of Clinton and Bush, and actually Obama who was a lawyer in the lawsuit that claimed "lending only to people who can afford to repay the loans is racist"... and like economics predicted (That banks want money and will disregard race) in the end it turned out that they weren't being racist but were lending based on likelihood of repayment... and the winners in Obama's class action lawsuit got their loans... and defaulted.) The consequences of the terrible actions in 2008- from the bailouts to the giving of one private bank (the federal reserve) the power to forcibly merge other banks (without regard to conflict of interest-- say one of the owners of the federal reserve wants to buy a smaller bank, he can just use the fed to force it to merge with him on terms he agrees to.... no way this will be abused, right?) .... these consequences are still playing out and have made the game much more dangerous than 2008. One thing I've noticed is that the "Black Swan" events-- like 2008 which people said "Tehre's no way you could see this coming" despite the popular sentiment in 2006 being "there's no way there's a housing bubble!" showing that people did, in fact, see it coming-- really are pretty predictable at least in terms of risk. And the risk of a Black Swan has only been going up given the past 3 decades of irresponsible governance (under congresses and presidents from both parties.) Don't look to VCs for economic perspective. They don't have it. All they know how to do is raise funds and collect a carry. Don't look to political hacks like "A housing bubble would be good for the economy" Paul Krugman, or any politicians.... look to actual economists. (Even Keyenes disagrees with the monetary policy we've been following for these decades, even though the politicians claim its his idea. IT isn't, it's not what he said at all.) The current bubble is the dollar, and they can't raise interest rates without popping it. Whether they intend to pop it I don't know.

acconrad 11y ago
> Don't look to VCs for economic perspective. They don't have it. All they know how to do is raise funds and collect a carry. Don't look to political hacks like "A housing bubble would be good for the economy" Paul Krugman, or any politicians.... look to actual economists. Agreed. I really like what's happening over at Calculated Risk (http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/ http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/). Bill seems to do a good job at taking macroeconomic information and distilling it into something understandable. The Fed has not shown any real interest in wanting to hurt this delicate (and booming) economy with an end to QE or by raising rates. But most analysts seem to point to Oct 2015 to mid 2016 as the point when rates will rise. But we also said that about early 2015 last year, so who knows what will happen, until it actually happens!
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Unlike what politicians would want you to believe, Economics is a science and the consequences of actions in economics are pretty close to those in physics. Huh. Austrian economics argues the exact opposite, which is generally correct for most things at a higher level than chemistry, especially something as stochastic as economic modeling. One thing I've noticed is that the "Black Swan" events-- like 2008 which people said "Tehre's no way you could see this coming" despite the popular sentiment in 2006 being "there's no way there's a housing bubble!" showing that people did, in fact, see it coming-- really are pretty predictable at least in terms of risk. Austrian economists are wary of making predictions in general, which goes hand in hand with their overall distaste for econometrics. Not to say that the more naive ones don't yell about incoming collapse all the time. Even Keyenes disagrees with the monetary policy we've been following for these decades, even though the politicians claim its his idea. IT isn't, it's not what he said at all. We've come a long way since Keynes. Like we've debunked the marginal propensity to consume since then, for instance, despite the fact that most laymen and politicians keep making the same fallacy.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  A lot of economists will be very surprised to hear that MPC has been "debunked." Last time I looked it's still considered a mainstream idea - mainstream enough to appear in introductory econ texts, anyway. Steve Keen makes the - IMO interesting - point that there are different kinds of consumption, and lumping consumption under a single Benthamite label is a gross oversimplification. But MPC is a simple measure of economic freedom. It's not what you spend your extra earnings on that matters, because - unless you're burning banknotes - it all goes towards increasing GDP anyway. Where things get fuzzy is a lack of appreciation for the fact that spending measures current economic activity, but savings, credit, and investment all measure faith in future economic activity. Because faith is based on an irrational thing called "sentiment", you have a huge chunk of the economy based on hope, fear, and desire - which is maybe not the most practical and useful way to make the economy work for everyone.

by MCRed 11y ago

acconrad 11y ago

> Don't look to VCs for economic perspective. They don't have it. All they know how to do is raise funds and collect a carry. Don't look to political hacks like "A housing bubble would be good for the economy" Paul Krugman, or any politicians.... look to actual economists. Agreed. I really like what's happening over at Calculated Risk (http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/ http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/). Bill seems to do a good job at taking macroeconomic information and distilling it into something understandable. The Fed has not shown any real interest in wanting to hurt this delicate (and booming) economy with an end to QE or by raising rates. But most analysts seem to point to Oct 2015 to mid 2016 as the point when rates will rise. But we also said that about early 2015 last year, so who knows what will happen, until it actually happens!

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

Unlike what politicians would want you to believe, Economics is a science and the consequences of actions in economics are pretty close to those in physics. Huh. Austrian economics argues the exact opposite, which is generally correct for most things at a higher level than chemistry, especially something as stochastic as economic modeling. One thing I've noticed is that the "Black Swan" events-- like 2008 which people said "Tehre's no way you could see this coming" despite the popular sentiment in 2006 being "there's no way there's a housing bubble!" showing that people did, in fact, see it coming-- really are pretty predictable at least in terms of risk. Austrian economists are wary of making predictions in general, which goes hand in hand with their overall distaste for econometrics. Not to say that the more naive ones don't yell about incoming collapse all the time. Even Keyenes disagrees with the monetary policy we've been following for these decades, even though the politicians claim its his idea. IT isn't, it's not what he said at all. We've come a long way since Keynes. Like we've debunked the marginal propensity to consume since then, for instance, despite the fact that most laymen and politicians keep making the same fallacy.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
A lot of economists will be very surprised to hear that MPC has been "debunked." Last time I looked it's still considered a mainstream idea - mainstream enough to appear in introductory econ texts, anyway. Steve Keen makes the - IMO interesting - point that there are different kinds of consumption, and lumping consumption under a single Benthamite label is a gross oversimplification. But MPC is a simple measure of economic freedom. It's not what you spend your extra earnings on that matters, because - unless you're burning banknotes - it all goes towards increasing GDP anyway. Where things get fuzzy is a lack of appreciation for the fact that spending measures current economic activity, but savings, credit, and investment all measure faith in future economic activity. Because faith is based on an irrational thing called "sentiment", you have a huge chunk of the economy based on hope, fear, and desire - which is maybe not the most practical and useful way to make the economy work for everyone.