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Re:Asking rents in San Francisco continue to slip, but… by nostrademons on Monday April 26, 2021 @07:10PM (#26949495)
It's a bet on the inflation rates not being accurate, or at least not staying at "low inflation" levels.

Personally I would take their side of the bet. I think that inflation rates are going to be extremely high over the next decade, exceeding the 1970s and potentially flirting with hyperinflation, and that folks who are betting on status-quo inflation are about to get screwed the same way folks who didn't see globalization coming in the 90s or Millenials who bought the "study whatever you want and the money will come" line got screwed. But that's why we have financial markets, so each firm can bet on the version of the future they think is most likely, and ultimately one side makes a lot of money and the other goes bankrupt.

Re:Asking rents in San Francisco continue to slip, but… by imtringued on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @06:51AM (#26954268)
I would like to see the collapse that you guys are seeing, I'll repeat this over and over again, the economic strength of the US is exceeding what should be possible under current economic conditions. For the last two decades the Fed was trying to "beat up" the US economy to "teach it a lesson" but it never even bothered to wake up as financial nukes were being detonated instead of using an alarm clock. Now we have Godzilla (corona virus) and the US economy is barely responding after it has been bombarded with stimulus checks.

Lots of things were done to "intentionally destroy" the US economy. The only way the US economy can fail from hyperinflation at this point is by physically destroying it and causing the production capacity of the US to go down, which means the US won't be able to meet foreign obligations denominated in foreign currencies.

The reason why I put the Feds actions in quotes is that its mission is not to destroy the economy, merely kick it out of bed.

Re:Asking rents in San Francisco continue to slip, but… by dcolkitt on Monday April 26, 2021 @08:50PM (#26950351)
I’m not saying that hyperinflation can’t happen. But if you really believe in that hypothesis, you’d do much better to buy deep OTM call options on TIPs and gold instead of real estate.
Re:Asking rents in San Francisco continue to slip, but… by nostrademons on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @12:34AM (#26952046)
Yeah, as someone else mentioned, TIPS are terrible investments for actual hyperinflation. In other instances of hyperinflation, "official" inflation estimates (which is what TIPS are benchmarked on) seriously lag the actual inflation rate on the ground. Most layperson financial assets aren't secure investments in this case, because their value depends only on what you can sell them for and it's far from guaranteed that you'll be able to sell them for anything in a crisis.

Your strategy for preparing for hyperinflation is to lever up on debt and then buy controlling interests in real assets that people need to live - real estate, food suppliers, weapon/ammunition suppliers, energy, utilities. When hyperinflation hits the debt inflates away to nothing and then you can name your price in the black market that inevitably ensues. Then you use the profits from your control over essential supplies to hire mercenaries to protect and enforce your rights to them, because hyperinflation is very frequently followed with a collapse of state control along with lawlessness, anarchy, and civil disorder. (See eg. Russian oligarchs.)

Note that folks who are buying up real estate with debt are following part of this playbook. Folks buying up gold and Bitcoin are following another part of it: their buyers expect that those will be the currencies of choice in the black market. I have no intel on whether gun & ammunition manufacturers are also getting bought up for outsize prices, but would be extremely curious if they are.

Re:Asking rents in San Francisco continue to slip, but… by imtringued on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @07:13AM (#26954409)
Come on, you must be aware that the risk with this strategy. Asset prices could just as well go down, especially if PCE/PCI inflation goes up, which will cause the Fed to stop fighting deflation and then it will start fighting inflation and the tools for fighting inflation have had far better track record than the tools for fighting deflation.

If you must get into debt, then buy assets that net a future return based on productive investments. If you were to buy real estate, you would have to buy it because you are expecting to receive enough rent to pay the mortgage back based on current rents.

If everyone gets into debt and uses it for speculation then we would probably get to see the opposite, an even stronger deflationary wave than what we have had so far.

Re:Asking rents in San Francisco continue to slip, but… by KirillPanov on Monday April 26, 2021 @11:59PM (#26951852)
The TIP "inflation rate" is a total farce. Hedonic mumbo jumbo, etc.

Also, it is far from clear that TIPs would be honored in a hyperinflative scenario. I can easily imagine a "100% windfall profits tax" on TIP gains.