Stocks might go down if AI doesn't bring in enough revenue. The real risk seems to be currency depreciation though. The USD is already down 15% this year compared to the Euro. I'm worried about what the next FED chair appointee will do. JPow has stuck to his principles so far.
> The USD is already down 15% this year compared to the Euro.
It's down 12% since a year ago, but that's largely a reaction to the tariffs. It's been fairly stable since July or so and has only seen a small dip (and partial recovery) in the last couple of weeks.
The admin wants to cut rates drastically. But the FED policymakers just voted 10-2 to not cut rates. So I worry the admin will try something crazy to force a cut.
Is it really seen as “the real risk” if it is something the current elected president very explicitly said for decades he wants to do? He does want USD to go down in value. He said it, repeatedly, openly. He made very clear why he went after Powell (that he himself reappointed).
It’s more, exactly what we should expect than a risk no?
If you want to understand the goal of the administration, read Stephan Miran's 2024 paper titled "A user's guide to restructuring the global trading system" (the author is the current chairs of "Council Economic Advisers", the paper is casually called Mar-a-lago accord...):
The TL;DR is something like: use overvalued due to reserve status => devalue 40% via tariffs + threatening to withdraw military protection from allies who don't comply
You can find more sources and videos with fairly basic googling, such as multiple interviews from the 90s (or 80s?) with Larry king, Oprah, and way more, none of that is hidden
falling usd is a disaster in a consumption economy like ours. fuels inflation. makes investing in usd-denominated assets less attractive. it's not going to boost exports due to tarriff walls. there's no silver lining here.
> The USD is already down 15% this year compared to the Euro.
False in every sense possible. For starters, the year is only a month old. Second, it’s been pretty stable for the past 6-7 months, and is only down 12% from a year ago - not 15%.
Seems like the rest of the world is just signing new trade deals and continuing on as normal. I hope America returns to normalcy in the next election and everything settles down. Else it seems like back to the old multipolar world.
I don't see any way we're not heading back to the multipolar world. They've managed to burn almost all of the goodwill and soft power that took 80 years to accumulate in 373 days.
Even with a "return to normalcy", the trade and military agreements being forged are permanently diminishing America's influence. Especially given that we're never more than 4 years away from this happening again.
Objectively in the sense that there are actual causes in you life that distress you and cause your symptoms instead of thinking your life is shitty because you are depressed. Of course being able to determine if it is your depression talking or if things are objectively bad isn't easy and people often need outside help from a therapist for that. Plus it isn't really clear cut in practice.
On a sidenote, I know that knowing that it is "just your depression talking" is also a pretty hard pill to swallow and not always helpful. Personally I have a lot of fears that I know are irrational but that doesn't make them any less real.
And even if your problems are external, sometimes you need to focus and your inner self first, find some strength and help so you can tackle the external problems later. But for other people "working on yourself" can be avoiding the actual problems they need to work on.
I don't think that's true. I think that just shows how disconnected we are.
We tell ourselves that we must have "better lives" than say a native american in the year 1000AD, but there's no reason to think that.
I think odds are that maybe the native american was happier -- having a small group that you spend time with outdoors every day, getting extensive exercise, having a clear sense of purpose, eating healthy fresh food every day, never once thinking about politics or bills or global warming. I bet they liked their life more than a depressed divorced accountant in our modern society, even if we have more material wealth or health access.
I guess there are different types of "life sucks" that can or cannot contribute to depression, my current understanding is that a lot of it depends on whether you feel you have some control over the situation or if you think you have absolutely no power over it
According to Victor Frankl (psychiatrist concentration camp survivor, author of Man's Search for Meaning) being in a shitty situation without any control over it isn't necessarily bad. Humans can still be mentally okay in the face of extreme unavoidable suffering like in the camps. The key thing is that you need to have some purpose / meaning in life (often a loved one or dependent).
Isn't people in the past had less control? There were dying from infections and not only had no vaccines and drugs they didn't understand how infections are spread. They also suffered from various natural disasters not having a protection a modern civilization gives us.
I don't know enough about how people lived in the past but I would tend to agree with you that they might have had less control than us on many things. But what I meant was that it depends on how much control you *think* you have rather than the control you actually have.
So I think a lot of it is about perception, in 100 years time people might wonder why we weren't all depressed because we had a life expectancy of "just" 80/90 years, but for us it's just normal and expected
He's described as a "permabear" on r/StockMarket and r/wallstreetbets. Common refrain is he could be right in principle, but getting the timing wrong can be the same as being wrong, for all practical purposes.
The timing matters if you want to make money off it. I'm just talking about how he was saying the US empire will fall a few years ago. Not the stock market.
I think it can also apply to how much credit we should give him if he ends up being right. If his predictions come true within the next decade, he'll be considered a prophet; if in the next half century, then not so much.
I don't have anything to go by for this, but I do wonder if there were any people who predicted the downfall of the Roman empire 200, 100, 50, etc years before it actually collapsed. I suspect all of them would have somehow based this on its decadence and excesses, but I also suspect none would have had a firm grasp on how it would play out.
I am similarly interested with such questions wrt to the US today.
The Roman Empire died in 1453 because the Ottoman Turks had gunpowder cannons. I am not anybody predicted that considering the Arabs could have likely finished off the Roman Empire immediately after finishing off the crusader states. The Mongols absolutely could have finished off the Roman Empire but just weren’t interested after bouncing off Palestine. Before that the early Muslims could have finished off the Roman Empire has Khalid Ibn Al Walid not been sacked by his cousin.
With so many near death experiences actually death was challenging to guess at.
1/3rd voted for this, 1/3rd voted against, and 1/3rd are complicit.
The fact that the US did this twice beggar belief. For those of us in the rest of the world who have no say but are bombarded by this shit daily, we hold you all responsible (no matter what 1/3rd you're in).
Practically it is the same. And this is not a US exclusive situation. We see the AfD and other far right parties gaining popularity. People can vote for bad things.
People can also vote against a consequence decoupled elite that rule by virtual signaling to each other which was okay in a resource binge, ignoring the results their previous choices had for the lower echelons.
To hit the captain with a shovel may look like mutineer madness on any boat, but maybe a sign of necessary changes and reality grounding on a ship called "titanic" where the captain yells "right on, right on" into a pipe that does gurgling sounds.
Choosing not to vote is implicitly voting for the status quo, whatever it happens to be. It's accepting fate.
If voters saw the first Trump term and knew about Project 2025 (which was public and publicly discussed) and didn't care enough to vote against the implementation of what was happening right under their noses then that isn't much different than voting for him.
If anything it's worse. At least the right is actively evil. At least voting third party, futile as it is, is making a statement. Seeing Trump's movement gain and consolidate power, listening to their beliefs, seeing the preparation of political infrastructure, January 6th, stacking the Supreme Court, the normalization of white supremacy, and knowing fascism could be a vote away and not giving a damn shows a depth of poisonous cynicism and cowardice that should brand a person for life. That will brand our entire society for a generation.
> It was the second highest voter turnout in US history.
My dude, you have seized upon a statistic that, while technically true, is also utterly-effing-meaningless.
To illustrate, I've calculated the headlines for other Presidential elections:
1936 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1940 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1944 SECOND HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1948 SECOND HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1952 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1956 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1960 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1964 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1968 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1972 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1976 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1980 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1984 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1988 SECOND HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1992 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
1996 SECOND HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
2000 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
2004 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
2008 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
2012 SECOND HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
2016 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
2020 FIRST HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
2024 SECOND HIGHEST TURNOUT IN HISTORY!!!
VAP = counts everyone of voting age including people on visas who aren't allowed to vote.
We moved to VEP because the % of total population who aren't citizens started to grow rapidly. eg. see 2020 vs 2024. The eligible VAP count increased by 12M but actual VEP count only increased by 2M.
The people having a terrible time with Indian contractors always deal with folks making 3k-10k USD/year. Of course the quality is bad.
For reference:
Good Indian devs out of college make atleast 30k USD. Good senior devs make atleast 50k. The really good ones make much more. Most American companies outsource to bottom of the barrel contracting companies like Infosys.
> Good Indian devs out of college make atleast 30k USD. Good senior devs make atleast 50k.
1. How can you be a good dev if you've never developed professionally in your life?
2. I know Indian numbers and this is complete bs. Like complete.
Maybe there are extremely rare exceptions to it, but this is like claiming that good US devs out of college make 350k. That's beyond rare, may happen, but it's beyond rare.
1. "out of college". I'm sure you can figure out how to interview new grads and identify good devs.
2. They are not. FAANG in India pays higher than what I quoted. My senior numbers are especially on the lower end of the spectrum. If your numbers are lower then you aren't working with good devs.
These are the numbers for good devs. The ones who get into great startups/companies. 95% make less and it shows in the quality. Infosys pays new grads 4000 USD/yr.
No you can't. Because the real difficulty is not bullshit leetcode questions, but professionalism, ability to handle pressure, requirements collection and research, soft skills, design, etc. you can't interview for those.
You build these skills by writing good software under constraints not by building personal pet projects and farming leetcode.
I would expect it to be obvious that caring about making money above fixing a problem means the problem won’t be solved that well compared to the alternative.
Are you really going to claim you never encountered a startup that is obviously shitting on customers and degrading the experience to make a buck? Do you honestly believe all startups are created to solve a problem (the original claim I responded to) and none are created with the intent of being the next “unicorn” to make the founders rich? If that is the case, search the term “enshittification”. Surely you’ll have encountered it by now. Pick whatever example helps you understand the point.
I don't see how its "obvious" at all. I think most problems wouldn't be solved at all with this view because most problems aren't something people care about. Money gives people the incentive to solve every problem possible. Someone who "cares" is free to solve it even better and make even more money.
This is to some extent a false dichotomy. Generally speaking, products that prioritize fixing a problem “above” making money do not exist. There are no alternatives. Businesses can’t sustain that. Sometimes it happens for a short while, and eventually they reduce the level of service, or charge more money, or die.
I don’t know why you’re picking on startups. Big companies are where you see enshittification the most, and it’s because economies of scale require them to cut costs. Startups can often use VC fuel to offer delightful and unprofitably superior solutions to problems. That goes away after startups graduate to being real companies.
Read the thread. I’m not “picking on startups”, the conversation is about startups. Yes, Big companies do it too, that’s just not what this particular conversation is about.
I see, so no comment at all on the fact that caring about products and customers requires making money?
I have read the thread, thank you, and you certainly have been talking about startups and founders as if these issues are unique to them. It’s not just ‘yeah yeah big companies too’… if you actually care about and study enshittification at all, it is, by and large, entirely coming from big companies, and it isn’t new to software, it has always been happening. The only thing new is a cute term for it that got popular recently. Old business terms that mean the same thing include: loss leader, hook product, bait and switch, and plain old “promotion”. Regardless of what the topic here is, it doesn’t make sense to harp on startups over quality going down. For that to happen, it had to be higher at some point, and that point is: startups. VC funding might lead to some quality decline, but all companies trim and get worse as they grow, and always have. Startup is the phase when companies provide the highest level of product or service.
Sure, waste a decade or two and then live your real life.
FIRE is a nice idea, but in the pure sense it is really just the idea of deferring the life you really want to live. You might die before you get there.
The fisherman and businessman story come to mind here.
1. The life I want to live doesn't involve optimising for a salary. I want to fish for fun. Not fish for a living.
2. High earning SV engineers can easily build a substantial corpus in under 10 years.
3. Most people don't know what they want to do. That means experimenting till you find it.
4. Its the safest way of figuring out and following your dreams I can think of. Of course you may die before 30 but thats statistically less probable. I am optimising for the case where I do live to the median age. Optimising for the worse case scenario seems too pessimistic.
reply