BF2S Forums Investment

How do you feel regarding inflation? There has been some news articles that inflation is taking place. I think the inflation has less to do with the U.S. making the money printer go but is probably the result of stimulus. Almost as far as I can remember people have been crying wolf about inflation so I wanted to see if anyone here has actually seen it take place in the real world.

I have noticed inflation in regards to MTG and other collectables. Economically secure people drop their stimulus on collectables and create inflation. I saw my MTG collection rise in value 6.5% in the last month. One MTG card that was selling for $89 is now listed for $170 at the same reseller. Real inflation.


Also interesting article on the Dispatch regarding businesses "CaNt FiNd WoRkErS".

Article wrote:

“I’ve been in business for 33 years—10 years here, 33 years in Maumee—this is the absolute worst it’s ever been,” says Bill Anderson. It’s primarily back-of-the-house employees he needs—dishwashers, managers, cooks. “Usually, we’ll put ads in in different locations to get people and we’ll get anywhere from six to 12 applications in the first week or whatever and we’ll get to take our pick—we’ll get to pick the best of that bunch. …Within the last couple of months, we don’t even get a call—we don’t get anything.”

Oh no! People don't want to washdishes for minimum wage!

The Dispatch bills itself as a conservative opinion and news site that was created by conservative refugees that got ran out of National Review and other places by the Trumpist. Despite that the articles and commentators are actually very good. Top voted comment on the article is also very unsympathetic to the angle of the writer.

Would have been helpful to talk to people who were employees at these jobs and, I don't know, *ask them* why they're not returning to the job.

The business owners, like all people, will always place blame for their problems externally. There are other explanations for why people aren't applying - perhaps the job is terrible, perhaps the managers are awful, perhaps the pay is inadequate and they can find better work elsewhere. There's no hard economic data either to support this theory - as the article notes. The unemployment benefits may be the reason, but this article is one-sided anecdata - that makes it interesting but not dispositive.

I have been having the wage argument with executive management for over 6 months now. Our HR person even chimed in that the del taco drive thru down the street is offering a higher starting wage than we are trying to fill temporary warehouse positions for. I've made many many arguments about wage increases, general hiring guidelines, a fucking strategy around pay rates, etc. but I'm just a stupid American living and working in Orange County for all my life, and a financial person in Taiwan has a much better pulse on the employment landscape in Southern California.

Bought World War 2 memorabilia from a British website (don't ask). Pretty amazed that the pound is still more valuable than the dollar and the Euro too. I was expecting the dollar to be have overtaken the pound the same way the Canadian collar collapsed in the last 10 years. The pound has actually gotten stronger than the dollar since the pandemic has began.

2008 is 13 years ago. There were times over the years where the dollar got close to matching the pound but never did. I just expected with Brexit that the dollar would be closer instead of tending toward pre-Great Recession.

I'm wondering when tech stock will start to implode, they're such an enormous part of stock market share it in no way reflects actual underlying value at all.

or just put money into meme stocks like TSLA

Musk didn't even form the company or come up with the idea. He is a hypeman. Flava Flav for the tech bro crowd.

So what's people's opinions on the crypto market? There's another boom going on that has piqued people's interests again.

Personally I've now read a book and some articles about crypto coins and like following this stuff, but I can't get past the conclusions that it's all pure speculation and that the underlying blockchain 'revolution' is actually not very useful tech at all. The amount of capital in the crypto market just seems to be hordes upon hordes of people falling over eachother to make a quick buck first, with the concepts behind crypto trading a distant second.

I'm sure bitcoin is here to stay for quite a while longer as an investor item, but there seems to be a real likelihood the trading platform as a whole will go the way of the dodo at some point. All the more because the dominant use for real-world crypto payments remains criminal/illegal transactions.

Despite stating the above, after standing on the sidelines for a while I've decided to invest a small sum in the crypto market (few hundred €) - just for fun and a little gambling.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-04-27 11:35:22)

I agree that a correction will have to come at some point, but the tricky part is knowing when. I was hesitant about this too for a while but honestly I'm not seeing any obvious signs right now; national policies in both the EU and the US seem to be to invest themselves out of the cost of the pandemic. Several countries here have set up very large multibillion investment funds to further stimulate emerging technologies & scale ups. On your end the rates remain low and money is still being printed. In the US, banks and the big corporations aren't in dire straits or in need of bailouts, and the economic philosophy in the EU is the opposite of the 2008 austerity. it's also likely that after the pandemic is really over in the west it will usher in a period of investor euphoria. I can't reference the article I read top of mind but there's a trend of rapid growth after a crisis and then an eventual correction, with several possible outcomes, most indicating minor/temporary dips.

Besides not seeing the signs now it's up in the air how far the markets will dip when it crashes again. Will it go even below the feb/march 2020 dip? I don't think so. Apart from that due to the amount of money being printed, large amounts of inflation might be an added consequence or even the cause, which means holding cash might also mean you're fucked.

Personally I'm 70% in a world market tracking ETF with a very diverse portfolio for long term (retirement money), 20% in sector specific ETFs for "short"-medium term and 10% room to fuck around. I also have some money in a cash account but only to a certain amount. Any more I rather invest in my main long-term ETF. I'll add bonds when I get older.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-04-27 12:09:54)

I think the crypto market still has a good few years left in it. As far as overall market value goes it's still definitely in a growing phase.

At some point I expect a government crackdown of sorts, that'll probably be the end of it.

Larssen wrote:

At some point I expect a government crackdown of sorts, that'll probably be the end of it.

unlikely considering major financial institutions and traders are taking a big interest in it.

uziq wrote:

Larssen wrote:

At some point I expect a government crackdown of sorts, that'll probably be the end of it.

unlikely considering major financial institutions and traders are taking a big interest in it.

Unlikely as long as bad actors don't (ab)use the underlying technology to fund their activities. Had 9/11 happened today rather than in 2001, I'm fairly sure that in the evolution of the terrorism scare, crypto transactions would've been a core part of operations funding on the part of AQ and its offshoots. It allows the movement of vast amounts of money and its transaction in ways that authorities just can't trace or respond to currently.

The absence of a stable coin in the crypto market is one of the biggest issues in its further deployment, and I'll eat my own words here for a minute on the uselessness of the tech and will state that I don't consider it impossible that at some point such a currency will be introduced, there already are several attempts. The most interesting use-case for the technology and associated currencies is in the developing world and specifically poorer african nations. In places where currencies are unstable and where centralised authorities are too weak to control the entire state, or where the authority itself is untrustworthy or even corrupt, blockchain and crypto currencies can be a massive game changer.

--

As an aside I find the cultish, technological utopianist counterculture underpinning the whole crypto/blockchain movement to be very amusing. It's a rather large group of bright developers, computer scientists and mathematicians completely retreating into cryptography and coding/engineering to solve or answer perceived societal flaws, chiefly in their minds the existence of (centralised) authorities and hierarchies upon which society's functioning depends. It's intriguing really. Hopelessly naïve in many ways, but intriguing.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-04-28 11:58:40)

The fact that its been a tool of crime so long but still allowed should be informative.

What is the benefit to various govts to allow it to continue?