[deutschew]

They've printed their way out of a recession since '08 by kicking the can down the road, and we can't kick it any further without creating a large number of losers.

IMHO, it's a sign that American innovation has peaked. It's also reflected by the markedly decrease in intellectualism (as if American culture wasn't anti-intellectual to begin with). When I see young students from other countries and compare them to Americans, there is very little valuing education in fact the antagonism is occurring.

For example, math is being scapegoated as systematically discriminating against the lowest performers while the highest performers are being subject to the equivalent of forced confessions, guilt and pushed ridiculous theories about race. Yet despite that camp's calls for equity, it is still okay for Asian Americans to be discriminated at academic institutions and various other fields while there are increased calls for virtue signaling towards other groups who do not get the same scrutiny and insanely high standards. Meanwhile the lowest end of the society are allowed to steal (as long as its under $950), commit crimes without consequences (take a trip to SF to see thanks to calls for community patrols post-Floyd) and descend into the inhumane (mental health issues from drug addictions and poverty being normalized) because there is now a sort of compassion industrial complex armed with the loudspeaker that is social media to manipulate opinions while cancelling out the rational as the enemy.

Meanwhile, the military are increasingly spending large amount of money in video games, making young Americans idolize military & war, if not evident from the war mongering cries out of America for a conflict that they largely put in the groundwork to trap their old enemy, censoring, cancelling any opposing view to their narrative. We are all confused, angry, quick to point fingers at one another, instead of nuanced takes, whatever narrative invokes emotions strongest drowns out other side, regardless of whether they are grounded on reality or outright fabrication.

This is the trickle down effect I notice also at YC, I see increasingly bad ideas being pushed like blockchains without any real adoption, trading of unregistered securities, and SaaS companies without real revenues raise ton of money but with no real business plan or use case. It's clearly a race to IPO and find exit liquidity. ex) Coinbase

This is all a giant mess and I ponder, how did America stoop this low, where did it all go wrong?

[dustingetz]

A lot of the problems of focusing on equality can be connected to internet media making visible a tremendous amount of previously hidden inequity, (literacy rates are highest ever right?), I don't see what it has to do with interest rates

I do see a separate parallel problem of too much dumb capital chasing returns that are in the past not the future, but that can also be connected to the maturation of internet/web platform and the rollout of 2010s web tech to legacy industries; applying web tech to healthcare and like Africa is low-risk high reward ... capital floods the low grounds first

also see "diffusion of technological revolution" installation/deployment model https://i.imgur.com/BLVTqo2.png

[deutschew]

My point was that wealth gap increased due to QE and a class war masked as racial equity is being waged amongst the 99% as a result (without any net benefit to society since the 1. source of wealth come from excess supply of money which makes debt cheap for those in position to take advantage of it vs those who are oppressed by it 2. increasingly diminishing to non-existent value added widgets and services being sold, see my coinbase example above), not between the actual winners or losers of the system but rather the professional advocates from both ends who are seizing the narrative to push their political views in all spectrum of American society, culture and individuals through that tiny screen we carry in our pockets.

[boppo1]

It's over man. Just sit back and watch it hit the wall. Anyone who has never sat down and modeled out a DCF in excel can't tell the difference between your argument and the crackpot ones on 4chan about jewish illuminati. Half of the people who have modeled out a DCF have enough assets to maybe have a chair when the music stops, and they won't risk it trying to explain how the game works to anyone who doesn't already know.

[dustingetz]

For others- https://www.wallstreetprep.com/knowledge/dcf-model-training-...

[dustingetz]

"source of wealth come from excess supply of money which makes debt cheap for those in position to take advantage of it vs those who are oppressed by it"

what do I need to read to understand this

[alexb_]

You have to remember - someone who can make money at a risk is much more appealing if you can't make any at a low risk via bonds. Even people who have no business speculating on things get money thrown at them because borrowing money to fund these is also cheap, so there's two seperate forces squeezing a lot of money being thrown around. This can sometimes be a good thing - interest rates fell to these levels during 2008, because we desperately needed something to incentivize people to move money around and boost the economy. But we never raised it from those 2008 lows, kicking the can down the road - and cheap lending has made rampant speculation on both assets and securities much more common. This drives up the prices of both, leading to higher rents, impossible to buy cars, jobs at companies that are artificial pumped up by debt (think Silicon Valley stupidness, where money is being thrown at practically anyone who can breath), riskier and riskier business practices and investments (crypto!), and a lot of other really bad things. The Fed was too slow to raise interest rates and slow growth before it got out of control, and it's lead to very few people getting much richer off the ability to properly leverage these low interest rates, and that money has to come from somewhere - so it comes from the people too poor or unwilling to speculate on the price of houses or large companies.

[sfblah]

https://i.redd.it/mfw55duw9h971.jpg