Let go of the finance hallucinations and keep logistics going. Let the fiat rich choke themselves out clutching their pearls

Nihilism is not lack of a philosophical framework, it’s awareness but not acting on it

SWEs could halt the fiat economy tomorrow through collective action, but FOMO on the latest in electron state management is too strong for the geniuses lizard brains I guess

From my experience SWEs are the workers' category least likely to get involved in any kind of collective action. They're too self centered and individualistic for that.

“What’s that? You made purpose built counting machines count? You’re welcome.”

The foot fungus eater and the latest DSL dealer can all pound sand.

I laugh at mathematically correct languages like Haskell. If mathematical correctness is a goal, may as well build it into the chip and leave a small programming environment to correct errors and give up on programming all together.

Not to mention way too well paid, comfortable and with lots to lose. Why risk a very comfortable lifestyle for some noble goal that barely concerns you unless you have tons of empathy?

In order to figure out what activities we ought to allocate resources to, we compare their present values as a sum of future cash flows, each period 'discounted' by a rate. The rate is calculated based on the activities risks + a 'benchmark' or 'risk free' rate. Basically "this activity is risky, how much more should it pay than something totally without risk?"

The closest thing we have to that is US debt. US bonds have a set face value and interest rate, but if you buy above/below the face value, the interest will be a higher or lower return on what you paid, 'yield'. US debt is the most active market in the world, so taking the 'yield' shows what rate the global market[0] is accepting 'risk free' investment.

If the market is nervous, more bonds get bought because everyone wants 'safety'. But this drives up the bond price and lowers yield. Lower yields create an incentive to consider 'hey maybe we do something a little risky after all, it pays better.' Vice versa: if the market is buying risky stuff instead of safe bonds, yields go up and people think 'why do something risky if I can get that return with no risk'?

BUT the Fed interferes in this market. They have unlimited power to buy/sell bonds and therefore establish price ceilings and floors[1]. For most of the past 20 years they created a high price floor, which means low yields. This forces society to allocate resources to risky activity with higher returns.

In particular, when rates go down, cash flows in the future relatively contribute more to present value. With higher rates you look harder at the next 20 years. With lower rates, you look more at years 20+[2].

In practice it made any business that can 'promise the future' an attractive investment. Think Big Tech, VC startups, Tesla, Wework, Theranos. Meanwhile, businesses that are less risky and make goods and services now have to compete with those guys for ROI. If you have little hope of growth, and your business is established you have to raise prices or reduce costs somewhere. You can't control what you pay for raw materials/inputs, but you can control what you pay workers.

To further illustrate: Google burns hundreds of billions on projects that never see daylight or get axed after a couple years. How did market forces decide that was a better use of resources than building (relatively) more hospitals and bridges? Fed yield interference.

I'm not saying high rates are good, or low rates are bad. I'm saying rates that don't match market conditions are bad.

[0] Explainer on the bond market for the uninitiated: Big companies can't safely keep a lot of cash as currency because FDIC insurance is meant for individuals and only covers 250k. Instead you buy something 'safe' and very easily tradeable or 'liquid'. In the past, this might have been gold. Now it's US debt, which works better than gold for this purpose (diff maturities, easier settlement, etc.)

[1] These are decided by a committee of 12 individuals, the FOMC.

[2]To see this for yourself, model out a dcf and then add a column where you divide each discounted cash flow by the present value

I'm even inclined to agree with you: inflation is better and healthier than the financial gimmickry we did in 2008-2010. But the pushback to that seems to be much broader than "Republicans." Biden's approval rating on the economy is at 36%, and it's just 52% among Democrats 18-44. Americans seem to really hate inflation.

Current wages are at the 1993 levels? That's just not true.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...

Averages also hide very real disparities: software engineers are much better off today than they would have been 30 years ago; truckers, on the other hand, are much worse off today.

When it comes to housing, it's pretty clear how the Fed's monetary policy drove those costs in areas where it is scarce. Luckily counteracting that is simple given political will, at least in principle.