Ask HN: Doom and Gloom but financial markets doing well?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39799406

by helij • 2 years ago

40 113 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

There's a lot of depression, people complaining, news all doom and gloom but financial markets are doing well. Can't really get my head around it.

Any financial experts here willing to chime in?

jjgreen2• 2 years ago

Peasant: Sire, how goes the war?

King: We're winning!

Peasant: But we are so poor!

King: You're losing!

some ancient strip cartoon the name of which I cannot recall

SideburnsOfDoom• 2 years ago

some ancient strip cartoon

That would be The Wizard of Id

https://chicagoreader.com/blogs/johnny-hart/

jjgreen2• 2 years ago

That was it -- thanks!

ghaff• 2 years ago

I guessed that was probably the source when I read the comment. Not really one of the great strips but pretty good.

ForHackernews10• 2 years ago

But you're not poor. Wages have risen rapidly for low- and middle- earners. In the United States, unemployment is at or near all-time lows.

Lacerda69• 2 years ago

Right, all humans live in the United States.

lukan• 2 years ago

The peasant/slaves of all realm were not out of work either ...

Also you don't know, where the oerson you replied to lives. In many places around the world inflation is rising a lot more, than the wages.

Symmetry• 2 years ago

On the other hand lower earners are more exposed to things like credit card interest rates. Which isn't to say that that swamps the wage increases, just that the picture is complicated.

wakawaka2815• 2 years ago

In the United States, unemployment is at or near all-time lows.

According to fake government stats that have changed drastically over time to sweep problems under the rug. If you believe the labor market is good, I have a bridge to sell you. Also, wages went up significantly for a bit, but nowhere near enough to match inflation.

nathias• 2 years ago

it's as if the interests of the financial sector and the common man are not in alignment...

but that would be impossible, right?

lotsofpulp3• 2 years ago

This is more relevant than a financial expert’s input.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Also,

financial markets are doing well

(presumably this means equity prices for shares of publicly listed businesses increasing at a sufficient rate)

and

depression, people complaining, news

are unrelated things (assuming you mean emotional depression, not economic depression).

T-A• 2 years ago

Look beyond the averages and you will see that it's not so much financial markets overall as a narrow slice of them doing well.

https://russellinvestments.com/us/blog/market-concentration-...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/peak-us-stock-concentrati...

Late stage bull markets tend to look like this: still going up, but mostly due to a shrinking number of stocks which benefit from mass reallocation out of everything else.

legitster4• 2 years ago

A trend people are missing out on - in 2020, we crossed an important milestone: more than half of the baby boom generation is now retired.

So we are seeing huge gobs of investments/pensions being pulled out of stock markets and being put into bonds or cash.

The expectation is to see a decrease in the amount of money in the stock market but better returns in the money that remains.

jrs235• 2 years ago

And with fewer people producing (but still consuming, they're retired...) we have less supply (and same or more demand) of goods and services also leading to continuing inflation.

garrickvanburen• 2 years ago

Some people have only experienced ZIRP. This is the post-ZIRP transition process.

spqrr2• 2 years ago

Historically, a recession follows shortly AFTER the fed starts cutting rates. See also: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y/ The grey areas are recessions.

fauigerzigerk2• 2 years ago

See also: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y/ The grey areas are recessions

This chart shows (part of) the yield curve, not the Fed funds rate.

Did you mean to show this?

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

spqrr2• 2 years ago

I guess that would have been more correct, yes. It shows the same pattern in any case.

wakawaka2815• 2 years ago

They often cut rates when a recession is in sight, and raise them when they think the market will handle it. I don't think cutting rates directly causes recessions. Interest rates are still too low but they are about to be cut to save the banks which invested in low interest bonds, presumably.

anotherhue3• 2 years ago

It's been said for fifty years but bears repeating: "The stock market is not the economy".

They say so themselves!

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/the-stock-market-is-not-the-...

ForHackernews10• 2 years ago

But it's not just the stock market: wages are rising (especially for low and middle income earners), in the USA unemployment is at or near historic lows.

anotherhue3• 2 years ago

I’m not an economist, so I cannot defend either of these points particularly well.

* Inflation has been rising for so long that wages would have to eventually follow.

* Unemployment figures can be gamed in various ways, especially in an election year, however the real question is "Are quality jobs being created or do we have a glut of open burger flipping positions"

candlemas• 2 years ago

Larry Summers and others say inflation isn't being calculated correctly:

Unemployment is low and inflation is falling, but consumer sentiment remains depressed. This has confounded economists, who historically rely on these two variables to gauge how consumers feel about the economy. We propose that borrowing costs, which have grown at rates they had not reached in decades, do much to explain this gap. The cost of money is not currently included in traditional price indexes, indicating a disconnect between the measures favored by economists and the effective costs borne by consumers. We show that the lows in US consumer sentiment that cannot be explained by unemployment and official inflation are strongly correlated with borrowing costs and consumer credit supply. Concerns over borrowing costs, which have historically tracked the cost of money, are at their highest levels since the Volcker-era. We then develop alternative measures of inflation that include borrowing costs and can account for almost three quarters of the gap in US consumer sentiment in 2023. Global evidence shows that consumer sentiment gaps across countries are also strongly correlated with changes in interest rates. Proposed U.S.-specific factors do not find much supportive evidence abroad.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32163

PaulHoule2• 2 years ago

What’s really so bad in the news?

abcd_f• 2 years ago

If you count reddit as the news, the whole world is pretty much on the verge of collapse.

PaulHoule2• 2 years ago

I posted once that “I read The Guardian and it seems like the UK is falling apart” and someone replied “Your problem is you are reading The Guardian”

lifeisstillgood6• 2 years ago

It’s fairly simple. In 2020 countries across the globe shutdown, and to keep economies “safe” governments printed money and handed it out more or less to people who were in economic danger - waitresses who could not work, though furlough schemes and the like.

USA printed basically 10 trillion (yes with a T). UK about 1 trillion. Germany, France, Spain, South Africa Japan and so on. Maybe 25 trillion? No one seems to have counted.

Under MMT (modern monetary theory) this is fine as long as government takes away the printed token (money) later on in form of tax

But they have not. The money has flowed from waitresses to landlords, to supermarket owners and their landlords and to share owners of supermarkets - basically it went from the poor to the middle class and then to the ultra wealthy.

The ultra wealthy now have an extra 25 trillion dollars. So they “invest”.

Real estate goes to stupid prices (see cost of a 4 bed house in London).

Stock market hits new highs.

But the rest of us have sold our nice middle class homes in suburbs for stupid amounts and moved … somewhere with less amenities.

Or are renting in cities at high rates and food prices going sky high.

The simplest answer is governments only did half the job - the next job is a uber wealth tax - holding of over say 20 million, 30 million, just get taxed, forcing sale of assets and return of assets to the flowing economy and then governments can afford things like welfare and investment again.

We should stop privileging the privileged.

486sx332• 2 years ago

I would argue a flat tax is the way to maintain prosperity to the middle class. Aggressively taxing everyone and redistributing only goes to benefit the lower middle class. Which then becomes the new poor and drags mid to upper middle class down.

dpflan• 2 years ago

Let's see, as arm chair economists, can we have an interesting discussion?

It could surely be a tax focused on ultra-rich, who have benefited from tax cuts by parties in power for years. Corporate and ultra-rich taxes are not insane concepts, what is the real difference in quality of life of $20M vs. $50M? What necessities of life are not met? Corporate taxes are even better, dodge those, issue large stock buy backs which will benefit largest shareholders the most -- Milton Friedman smiles from the shareholder value heavens.

Imagine the economy has a huge MCMC graph, potentially everyone is connected to each other, with edges of varying strength that correspond to possible outflows and inflows of money between people (and perhaps entities/institutions). It becomes clear that some nodes in the graph are connected to other nodes that end up keeping money in few places to "invest" and accumulate wealth, sitting there, doing nothing for anyone else, tremendous capital accruing more capital because that is how this game can work. Other nodes lead to money moving rapidly in the network and having affect on the lives of many nodes. The economy has to be movement of money among individual components of the economy, because money is the meta-resource, so just use that to stand-in for anything.

Bognar• 2 years ago

Flat taxes are inherently regressive as the poor have to spend a higher proportion of their money than the rich in order to live.

bryanlarsen3• 2 years ago

The Fed has been reducung the money supply since June 2022. i don't think we can blame the issues of 2024 on the actions in 2021.

lifeisstillgood6• 2 years ago

Yes, but not through tax which is the point.

Quantative tightening just takes money from the fed/bank loop. It is real yes but it’s like thinking interest rates are a lever in the economy anymore.

Anyway the QT on M4 has only dropped M4 by a trillion which basically means 9T still out there on top of everything else

(#) ie they tried to suck it back out of banks but banks don’t have the wealth - the banks customers do.

In short, ultra wealth taxes will stop the ultra wealthy drawing more value out of the economy like a gravity well, and start a flow of wealth through the economy.

Imagine all the blood in your body accumulating in your ankle. Your ankle feels it’s rich in blood but you need transfusion after transfusion to keep everything else going.

croon• 2 years ago

Nitpick, The CARES Act [0] was early 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARES_Act

wakawaka2815• 2 years ago

You're wrong. Look at this graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL or https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1iSvr M2 isn't shrinking much, and it certainly increased throughout 2021. I would point you to M3 as well but that series was discontinued.

nradov• 2 years ago

A wealth tax sounds good in theory but no one has ever figured out a way to make it with effectively in practice. What do you do with illiquid assets such as patents or equity in private companies? Would owners have to pay for independent valuations every year as part of filing taxes? There's just no way to do it at scale. A wealth tax would also tend to cause people to hide their assets in non-productive things like physical precious metals instead of investing in businesses that grow the national economy.

lotsofpulp3• 2 years ago

A sufficiently high land value tax would filter through pretty much everything as a decent wealth tax, and would require no additional work since it’s already continuously appraised. Too low land value taxes incentivize hoarding.

Also, copyright should be reduced to 10 years, maybe 20 years at the longest.

ForHackernews10• 2 years ago

Just tax the hell out of land: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Very hard to hide acres of Earth.

scoofy3• 2 years ago

The best wealth tax is a periodic tax on unrealized capital gains. The fact that Jeff Bezos will likely never pay and capital gains tax on his share of Amazon is insane.

wakawaka2815• 2 years ago

Taxing wealth will make people not seek it. Why try so hard if it can evaporate in a couple of years anyway? Of course illiquid assets are also a major problem with the idea. But the main problem is that taxing wealth for no particular reason disincentivizes production.

ForHackernews10• 2 years ago

One theory: "It’s Not the Economy. It’s the Pandemic."

America is in a funk, and no one seems to know why. Unemployment rates are lower than they’ve been in half a century and the stock market is sky-high, but poll after poll shows that voters are disgruntled. President Joe Biden’s approval rating has been hovering in the high 30s. Americans’ satisfaction with their personal lives—a measure that usually dips in times of economic uncertainty—is at a near-record low, according to Gallup polling. And nearly half of Americans surveyed in January said they were worse off than three years prior.
Experts have struggled to find a convincing explanation for this era of bad feelings. Maybe it’s the spate of inflation over the past couple of years, the immigration crisis at the border, or the brutal wars in Ukraine and Gaza. But even the people who claim to make sense of the political world acknowledge that these rational factors can’t fully account for America’s national malaise. We believe that’s because they’re overlooking a crucial factor.
Four years ago, the country was brought to its knees by a world-historic disaster. COVID-19 hospitalized nearly 7 million Americans and killed more than a million; it’s still killing hundreds each week. It shut down schools and forced people into social isolation. Almost overnight, most of the country was thrown into a state of high anxiety—then, soon enough, grief and mourning. But the country has not come together to sufficiently acknowledge the tragedy it endured. As clinical psychiatrists, we see the effects of such emotional turmoil every day, and we know that when it’s not properly processed, it can result in a general sense of unhappiness and anger—exactly the negative emotional state that might lead a nation to misperceive its fortunes.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/03/covid-gri...

wakawaka2815• 2 years ago

What a bunch of gaslighting and political hackery. No way unemployment is "lower than ever"... The lockdowns were stupid, especially toward the end, and the bill for that has come due. People are not imagining that their money is worth less than ever, or that finding a job is increasingly difficult. I don't doubt that some people have lingering mental health issues to this day because of the pandemic. I see it almost every day when one or two random people are STILL wearing a face diaper over 2 years since the pandemic ceased being a real concern to practically everyone else.

ForHackernews10• 2 years ago

I'm not even necessarily endorsing this theory, but if you won't accept any basic economic statistics and you use the phrase "face diaper", I confess my doubts you'll have anything worthwhile to contribute to this discussion.

legitster4• 2 years ago

It's a well known phenomenon at this point that social media exacerbates scepticism and pessimism. Which makes sense - busy people with a lot going on spend less time online than loners and depressed people. So using the Internet to gauge the economy or public sentiment is going to be increasingly disjointed.

Thing are slowing down but the economy is still flush with cash: starting wages are at an all time high, median household income is increasing the fastest it has in 80 years even adjusting for inflation, consumer spending is breaking records.

There are obviously people being left out of this but beware that you are not in a pessimistic information bubble.

Panzer04• 2 years ago

I agree with this answer the most. There's a vocal segment of society that are very active on social media and tend to dominate these sorts of discussions, while the bulk of the population is just living life.

I'm inclined to agree with the stats that show things are going well, and that crisis sentiment is just that - sentiment.

rvnx• 2 years ago

The reality is that there is much more cash in the market since the corona, which reduced the value of cash.

On the paper, the numbers look good, but the reality is shit due to underlying inflation because you can spend way less with the same amount of money.

As a result, valuations of companies also soars, not because everything is great, but because the cash is losing value.

wepple• 2 years ago

“It's a well known phenomenon at this point that social media exacerbates scepticism and pessimism. Which makes sense - busy people with a lot going on spend less time online than loners and depressed people.”

That does such a great job of expressing something I’ve intuitively “known” for a long time.

There are the people who do all the talking, and those who are doing - very few who are in both camps. If you’re busy making things happen, you’re less likely to be commenting.

Applejinx• 2 years ago

Doom and gloom also serves independent purposes and isn't just a signaling mechanism arising as a natural outcome of conditions.

Especially with social media, it's worth asking 'does anybody benefit from this particular doom and gloom being socially established and culturally adopted?'

The last thing you want to do is take such a thing at face value, and it's possible that financial markets might discount some such signals, especially if they're getting other signals that give the lie to the doom signals.

silverquiet3• 2 years ago

Deaths of despair are at an all-time high while fertility hovers at an all-time low. Are these merely artifacts of social media or is it possible that there is something going on beyond that?

And another question - if social media is so harmful, then what of all the people on this site who helped to build it? Are they villains of the modern era, magnifying unhappiness throughout the world?

legitster4• 2 years ago

I think the deaths of despair trend is much less related to the economy than people have postulated. But yes, a doomful online community seems like it would absolutely make this trend worse.

And another question - if social media is so harmful, then what of all the people on this site who helped to build it? Are they villains of the modern era, magnifying unhappiness throughout the world?

Does this not describe Zuckerberg? But yeah, I'm here. But I would argue HN in particular gives a much less strong "hit" of dopamine when doomscrolling.

swed420• 2 years ago

Each side (those using social media to highlight systemic failures / those too 'busy' contributing to said failures to use social media) thinks the other has their head buried in the sand.

It reminds me of how, depending on the type of person you ask, you'll get conflicting answers on who the 'parasites' are in the movie Parasite.

If you help enshitify the next Big Thing and get paid doing it, are you contributing to society? Or contributing to its growing problems?

MichaelMoser1232• 2 years ago

median household income is increasing the fastest it has in 80 years even adjusting for inflation

I am not sure about that, inflation was quite high during 2022-2023 and prices didn't go down. It is true that inflation is down right now - as this is an election year; however you still have to pay for current prices with what you get as your current salary.

ForHackernews10• 2 years ago

Psychologically, if prices go up, you think "oh no, inflation!" but when your wages rise concomitantly, you think "I worked hard; I deserve this raise for my great performance"

People think about prices in terms of macroeconomic factors, but their own income as the result of individual factors.

jl6• 2 years ago

These are not uniquely terrible times. It’s just that bad news and drama attracts more eyeballs than good news and harmony.

Think about who stands to benefit from making you feel bad.

lucidguppy• 2 years ago

The rich have finally won. What happens on main street no longer affects wall street.

fullshark2• 2 years ago

A lot of the good feelings in the boom times post WW2 were based on the idea that there was social mobility and opportunity. Pretty much the experience in America post Financial crisis in every industry except technology is that social mobility is dead, the middle class in this industry will be squeezed out of existence, and profit margins will grow by finding cheaper labor in another country.

A lot of Americans are in the labor class and don't own financial assets, what do they have to be cheery about?

blt• 2 years ago

The price of food seems to have gone up by almost 1.5x in a few years

13of40• 2 years ago

The relative value of money and goods is changing. It might be prudent to shift some of your savings from one to the other. Luckily we have a system available which abstracts that so you don't actually have to acquire a pile of corn and hide it in the basement.

486sx332• 2 years ago

A lot of money was printed / added to the system. It’s still working its way though. The stock market valuation is also subject to inflation. It might be “doing good” but in real terms compared to the money supply it might be just catching up. Real estate however is dropping very much in real terms. Wages going up you have to compare to inflation and the money supply. Just because a dollar is worth less than it was 5 years ago, can take your wage “gain” away pretty fast.

BlueTie• 2 years ago

The financial environment now is very different than even 2-3 years ago. Mortgages went from 3%->7%. Bonds/Treasuries actually pay a decent return. The most speculative investments are no longer running hot because they have to compete with returns elsewhere.

So 1. people around here tend to be in the speculative investment bubble and it is worse there than most other places right now and 2. any time there is change like this (esp. when it happens fast) - there are winners and losers and 3. Since 2007/2008 everyone has been trying to be the next Burry or Taleb and call the bubble.

traceroute66• 2 years ago

Also worth asking here is what are you measuring the financial markets by ?

If you're looking at the big brand shares like the FAANGs, or most recently Nvidia, then that is all meaningless nonsense. Never, ever, try to read something into the movement of those shares, its a fools game.

Second, but related to the first, don't forget that the NASDAQ is dragged up and down by the big tech brands, so take NASDAQ movements with a pinch of salt too.

There are also in general many sectors out there where valuations and expectations are unrealistically high. Its not all plain sailing.

latentcall2• 2 years ago

I guess the question is “who are the markets doing well for?”. If you own equity, financial assets like homes, you’re probably doing pretty good. If you’re a bartender renting in your city, a grocery store worker, bus driver, parks worker, etc things can be not so great.

Another commenter in this thread pointed out starting wages have been at an all time high. That might be true, but that doesn’t mean it’s enough to live comfortably. In my City you’d need to make a salary of about 165,000 in order to be able to theoretically afford the median home here. The two largest employers here have very few positions that pay in that range (mostly leadership roles or administrative) whereas most are 15-25/hr range.

So yes the economy is doing great if you’re rich. Never been better. It is in the best interests for news organizations right now to talk about how amazing it is doing in order to help suppress panic and keep afloat spending from the general populace. If the non-rich feel things are tightening (they are, just ask them) and they decide to stop spending that is bad.

Also keep in mind there is an election this year and a healthy economy as reported can equal votes.

randomsolutions2• 2 years ago

Why would you compare starting salary to the median home price? Are you suggesting every home below the median is uninhabitable?

The median home price would suggest that the median household income is at least $160k, which seems pretty good.

latentcall2• 2 years ago

The median income in my city is 70k.

ForHackernews10• 2 years ago

a bartender... a grocery store worker, bus driver, parks worker,

https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2022/

https://www.ft.com/content/f32d4927-a182-4d7c-bf2d-dd915ef84...

Low income earners have seen the most wage growth since the pandemic.

orwin• 2 years ago

You have to understand why though. Just saying it like this lack perspective. If you earned 100k, spent 100k in 2020, and now earn 110k, spend 60k a year, your wage growth over 3 year is 10%,while inflation was 20% (basically my situation). Your saving rate is lower than it used to be (45% vs 50%), but you're fine.

If you earned 30k, and spent 25k in 2020, and in 2023 earn 35k and spend 30k, the situation is worse, despite a superior wage inflation (16% over 3 year instead of 10%, for a cost of living inflation of 20% in both case).

And I'm not going into the case of people who don't make enough to save even 5k a year, for them, if the wage increases do not match the cost of living inflation, they have to downsize, and sometimes live in their cars for a while (those are often renters and inflation is worse for renters). Most of the invisible homeless in big cities are in that kind of situation.

You have to pay people enough for them to be able to go to work, so of course the wage inflation for lower salaries has to match the inflation for renters.

konschubert• 2 years ago

Three reasons:

In most western countries, salaries of low-skilled workers have grown faster than inflation, but salaries of high-skilled workers have grown only as fast or slower than inflation.

We (HN) live in a high-skilled bubble, and our food delivery is becoming less affordable because our door dasher is making more money.

Journalism is going through a structural crisis because ppl are addicted to TikTok and co.

So jounalists struggle a lot. From their point of view, the economy looks bad. That's what sets the tone in the news.

If you want to get a different president elected, a good economy is not what you want. So Republicans, Russia and China all want Americans to think that the country is going to shit, because then, they will vote in their guy.

Incidentally, the TikTok algorithm is controlled by a company that is controlled by the Chinese party.

meowfly• 2 years ago

Regarding your first point: I think you are correct. What we are seeing is something akin to a US elephant curve[1] but the chasm is widening to upper middle class professionals, while the trunk is pointing up more sharply.

When the US deindustrialized, the global poor got richer (manufacturing earns more than subsistence farming) and the rich got richer (it's cheaper to make things overseas), but the lower middle class got poorer. In aggregate it looks like the world got richer, so the Steven Pinkers of the world scold the complainers for not getting that we are living in the best time in human history.

I think the economy is turning against the kind of worker who gets a four year degree and might have a job title like, "data scientist", and everyone is going to tell them they should have known better.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elephant_Curve

fullshark2• 2 years ago

Your attempt to point low-skilled labor as doing great ignores that a lot of low skilled workers are just leaving the workforce, and that a low-skilled job is not a path to house ownership, in part because house inflation is heavily localized and not equally distributed. If you are a low-skilled worker in an urban environment that wage inflation maybe helps you keep up with rent and go out to dinner one more time a month.

Low-skilled labor in America is basically a temporary way to make money and offers no long term future. That was not the case 40 years ago. You have to use whatever opportunity a low-skilled job provides as a springboard to high skilled labor, otherwise you will tread water at best. In part cause you cannot use it to acquire financial assets (a house, 401k, etc) and the American economy is now built around ensuring financial assets appreciate (inflate in value).

skizm• 2 years ago

Moat people think their own financial situation is good while the economy everywhere else is bad: https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pret...

Which leads me to believe it is mostly the negative media hype which gets eyeballs. Also, given the election coming up it is good for the challenger to claim the incumbent messed up the economy and they’ll totally fix it if you vote for them.

udfalkso• 2 years ago

I’m currently reading Broken Money by Lyn Alden and it has given me a much improved perspective about why things like this are the way they are as a consequence of history and monetary policy. Very interesting.

piva00• 2 years ago

The whole world was going through an immense and generationally unprecedented crisis in 2020-2021-2022, still the financial markets were booming. That's the state of late-stage capitalism, finance is becoming more and more detached from reality. Bubbles also look like the market is doing well until it explodes, trying to derive any picture of the real world through the prices of stocks is an exercise in futility.

kevin_nisbet• 2 years ago

Please don't consider me an expert, but here's sort of the birds eye factors I've been reading or seeing over the last few months / my opinion on what seems to be happening.

Right now there does seem to be some interesting disconnects in some measures of the economy. I'm talking things like business revenues in financial results, compared to the various surveys that are done. One of doom and gloom measures is a survey that asks how people think the economy is doing. But where it get's interesting, is surveys that ask about personal finances appear to be showing fairly strong results. So there seems to be a broad sense that people as individuals are doing pretty good, but perceive the economy as bad for others or in general.

I think another angle and personal bias of mine, is Hacker News is a specific tech community with lots of exposure to only a portion of the economy. So we're seeing layoffs and difficulty in the labor market ourselves, and expect that to be happening across the broad economy, especially compared to 2 years ago. But I think there are a few factors that impact us differently. I think a primary one is going to be interest rates. For startups, which are going to light a pile of money on fire and hope they grow, there are other areas of the economy that are much safer to get those returns with current interest rates. Why fund a speculative startup when I can get 9% on a private loan to a business. Also you look at medium and big tech companies, those bonds (debt) are way more expensive competing for those same interest rates, so the investment into growth and expansion is way down compared to 1 or 2 years ago. And we get to perceive that through the big layoff announcements that seem to keep popping up, as interest rates have risen. So the B2B space, which eventually serves other non-tech companies and consumers, is soft on growth and expansion, which is often rooted back to funding through debt instruments.

But if you look at the broader economy, for the average worker in North America, wages are going up at or faster than the rate of inflation, the unemployment rate is low. We're probably sitting around full employment, which actually can be it's own problem. The inflation took a shock but is trending back towards norms. Consumer spending even with current inflation rates hasn't really stopped, purchases don't seem to be getting deferred all that much. So companies where there was an expectation of a pullback in spending haven't really seen it in their financial results, maintaining their value on the open markets.

Another angle for people to perceive doom and gloom is also affordability factors in some segments of the economy. Where I am housing is a disaster for many reasons, so I'm sure many people see being unable to buy the same quality of living as their parents as part of the doom and gloom. But the overall financial markets aren't reacting to this, because enough people still have those mortgages, and with the rise in interest rates, defaults don't appear to have meaningfully risen. Overall debts are getting paid, even if they're more expensive.

And another angle I want to tread carefully into, is the politics and policy angle. With an election going on, as I understand it one of the most correlated factors to a change in governance is the health of the economy. So there may be some motive to color financial data or results through a lens to try and produce a political outcome. I have no idea what overall impact this might have, but some of those surveys I talked about above when divided by political lines or where people receive their information get very interesting. I'm not trying to have the political discussion or take any side, I'm just saying watch out for motives in your sources of information.

And there are just overall expectations, inflation has been difficult, interest rates have risen, so we just expect things to be bad. Also keep in mind one of the disconnects in the financial markets is where would someone put that wealth instead, what in the current situation would be driving people to exit the market and try and park cash for example?

So this is probably a very long way to say, from what I've seen, when you try and measure peoples perception of the economy, those measures appear to show the economy in poor shape. But when you look at other measures that influence the overall markets, like sales, defaults on debt, consumer spending, those measures don't seem to paint the same picture.

Avtomatk• 2 years ago

I don't understand why you can't understand it, the 1% are accumulating endless wealth, while the 99% are working for the richest 1% of people. The 1% believe they are a kind of avengers who can solve the world's problems, they even believe that they are above intellectuals and scientists to solve the world's problems, but they only solve their own problems, not the world's problems.

JojoFatsani• 2 years ago

“When your friend gets laid off, it’s a recession. When you get laid off, it’s a depression.”

The loud protestations of people caught in the correction from overhiring are just drowning out the many many people who are still happily employed and not complaining about it online.

npoc• 2 years ago

Devaluation of the unit of account is the main factor behind the confusing signals.

If the thing you're measuring value with halves in value, all the measured values will double.

If we take the dollar as an example, there's around twice as many dollars in existence as there were 10 years ago, halving the value it would otherwise be, and so doubling all the dollar-denominated figures.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2

There's certainly nothing healthy about doubling the money supply - this means that there is double the total debt (the mechanism by which new monetary units are created) - but it will cause figures like GDP, share prices and even wages to a degree to increase, even though they haven't gone up in actual value (in the case of wages they've gone down in value)

lamontcg• 2 years ago

1. "Don't fight the Fed"

Recessions usually follow the Fed raising interest rates. There's a roughly 6-12 month lag after the fed stops raising interest rates for them to bite. There are short term effects from what the Fed says in public which affect markets on closer to a day-to-day basis which are all emotional (including the FAANG layoffs starting in summer 2022). There are medium term effects from the rate-of-change and absolute levels of actual interest rate hikes which evolve fairly quickly (SVB/FRB). But there are also area-under-the-curve effects which are an integral of the level of the rate hikes which just take time and those are the most punishing.

Most corporate debt hits maturity dates after several years at which point the debt needs to be repaid or else it needs to be paid back. These loans are still considered fixed rate in most reporting but in actuality they're more like an ARM which adjusts. We have a lot of zombie companies and properties which have been financed by cheap debt over the roughly 14 years of ZIRP that are now rolling over into a higher rate environment. We also have a slow rolling commercial real estate disaster caused by online shopping and remote work. That all comes under stress slowly because those businesses which are going to fail will do everything they can to kick the can down the road as far as possible, hoping to survive into the next low-rate environment beyond these rate hikes. It takes time for them to be boxed in by financial realities and fail.

I'd say that the 12 month lag is also just a heuristic and given the quick rate hikes that it won't be surprising that it takes a little longer for the rate hikes to bite this time. The start of the rate hikes also matters and for example they started hiking back in 2004 before the 2008 recession. We also don't know when the rate hikes are done. Everyone expects the Fed to cut in June and do 3 cuts by the end of the year, but with the services inflation readings being up the Fed could also hike again -- which resets the counter on the heuristic.

2. AI Bubble

AI is almost certainly in a bubble right now. That doesn't meant that it is worthless like bitcoin, but that it is like the 1999 pets.com era of the Internet. It is mostly hype combined with a lot of hallucinations and not a lot of profitability (outside of NVDA). The real payoffs right now are going to be in things like medicine which don't involve LLMs and that will stake an enormous amount of capital to develop the drugs and protocols that machine learning helps to design. LLMs are mostly going to be used to put tech support people and relatively unskilled graphic design jobs out of business and flood the internet with bullshit--which won't be good for the human jobs market. At some point we're going to hit the era of LLMs that corresponds to the birth of AWS and the cloud and stuff like that, but that's still in the future and it looks more like the hype bubble is about to pop. At some point everyone will get tired of shipping more of their capital off to NVDA and start using the TPUs that they've got more efficiently.

3. Unemployment is Rising

86% of states have unemployment above their 1-year average, 75% of states have unemployment above their 2 year average, 26% of states have unemployment above their 3 year averages and all those numbers are increasing. Temp employment is off its peak 13%, full employment is of its peak 1.3%. None of this means we're in a recession, but all of it is consistent with a recession on the horizon.

4. Personal Savings has been Drawn Down

There was a massive spike in personal savings due to the pandemic which is the direct cause of the inflation that we saw. People put money in the bank as they weren't taking vacations and spending as much money (the spending for home renovations and lumber during the pandemic when everyone was home didn't make up for it at all). When the pandemic largely ended in 2022 (certainly by people's behavior, which is literally all that matters economically) that money re-entered the economy and naturally bid up prices turning into price inflation. Corporations are pretty much done having confiscated most of that from the bulk of middle class (upper class earners of course still retain a good chunk of it because the rich always get richer). The result though is that we're now seeing a lot more companies starting to cut prices and seeing reduced sales.

Looking at personal savings is much more important to understanding immediate inflation/recession dynamics than looking at the Fed balance sheet and screaming about money printing.

5. Everywhere Else Is In Recession

Economics in Europe and China are bad. Ukraine having hit Russian refineries and stuff like that is rolling over into oil price spikes which should have some inflationary shocks which should hit the markets when they start doing the math on how it it will affect the promise of future rate cuts in the US.

The counterpoints right now:

6. The Fed Is Playing Politics To Not Be Seen As Playing Politics

It is an election year and the Fed is being unusually soft since it doesn't want to be seen as influencing the election, so they are aggressively not giving any fucks about what looks like double bubble in crypto and the stock market. It isn't that they particularly favor Biden, they're all Republicans and would just roll with a Trump 2nd term and discount everything going on in Washington DC as just politics which is beneath their institution. But they don't want to be seen to aggressively pop a bubble in any election year, which is how they play politics in order to not play politics.

7. The Market Always Climbs A Wall Of Worry

All booms/bubbles are characterized by the market shrugging off all the reasons why it can't be going up and going up anyway. This phenomenon of all kinds of bad headlines about the market combined with new all time highs week after week is entirely normal going back decades. And another aspect of this is the saying that perma-bears on the stock market are the "broken clock is right twice a day" kind of people. This always happens.

Summary

I don't think the economy is remotely bad right now, but we're heading for a showdown at some point soon. None of this is sustainable. I didn't quite call this right, I was expecting more of a double-top formation, and it looks more like we're heading into an actual bubble. I'd consider it a very dangerous game to play around with this market, though. The personal savings rate that was all the fuel is gone, and at some point the market is likely to wake up and get very grouchy. Don't fight the Fed.

Ask HN: Doom and Gloom but financial markets doing well?

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