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by DickingAround 1471 days ago
We did that in Q4 2021/Q1 2022 amongst my friend group. Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending among us in land, tools, etc. Stock market looked high, don't want to stay in the dollar.

It's not a complex economic environment out there. You can look at a very small set of numbers and get the picture; buffet-index (total market value to GDP) and GDP growth in dollar terms says the market is high. CPI, M1 money supply, and debt-to-GPD says the dollar will reduce in value. So where else you going to park your money? If there's machines you can use, that was a good time. Most people don't need machines so it's all about houses and land and anything not showing as much peak. Not academic; critical to maintaining the value a person has put into savings from all that labor.
2 comments
Ericson2314 1471 days ago
> Stock market looked high, don't want to stay in the dollar.

If you are looking to cache out of the stock market, that's quite different: you were worried about both inflation and the stock market falling after a bubble.

Most people have negligable liquid savings. Even if they wanted to, they lack the means to do what you did. Your behavior is anomalous and not representative of a broader macroeconomic trend.

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SantalBlush 1471 days ago
There is some evidence that spending habits during high inflation do vary across incomes and between durables and nondurables. Believe it or not, people actually study this sort of thing.

As your post highlights, it gets more complicated the more factors one considers, like disposable income, stock ownership, etc. What you're describing here is rudimentary, not some groundbreaking, econ-slaying assertion.

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Ericson2314 1471 days ago
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/why-do-we-think-...

I would say it is pretty damning.

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SantalBlush 1471 days ago
That is a working paper written in casual form that isn't vetted. I could probably cherry pick a better paper to support your case myself.

Moreover, even if we had a good paper that corroborated what you have here, I'm sure you probably realize that it takes more than a single paper, or even a handful of papers, to declare some truth finalized. "Pretty damning." Come on, dude.

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Ericson2314 1470 days ago
I picked it because it is someone who wasn't taught this sort of thinking, and who took a job where they didn't until recently do this sort of thinking on the main.

Yes, the paper itself isn't a turning point, but the claims of the paper, if one chooses to accept them, are damning. A science should never confuse theoretical prediction and empiric evidence.

Indeed, other agencies like the FDA make the opposite mistake e.g. insisting on endless RCTs for e.g. JJ + mRNA booster vaccine when the theory-based extrapolation from other evidence is simple, and the opportunity cost of waiting non-negligible.

It is bad and quite odd given the overall trend of science towards "mindless empiricism" that Econ has the opposite problem!

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AnimalMuppet 1471 days ago
Generally an interesting and thoughtful post. But:

> Most people don't need machines so it's all about houses and land and anything not showing as much peak.

You didn't see housing as showing as much peak?

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