clutch

I'd actually welcome SF, of all places, to implement this as a social experiment and deal with the consequences.

@Gregmalas you alluded to earlier, they need to save their face from their earlier mistake when they waited too long on the "transitory" inflation. So, they probably didn't want to wait and see now in case they are called for not acting fast again. Again, their credibility is shot and a lot of their talks and actions are now more about restoring that credibility. But the SVB event has flushed any of their remaining credibility down the toilet.

I think Fed wanted to push the rates higher (perhaps irrespective of inflation) while they can so they could use rate cuts when things started to break... in the back of their mind, they probably knew that there'd be no soft landing and we'd have to face a recession. Now because something actually broke earlier than anticipated, they are now in a messy situation.

Just met someone at a Punta Cana resort while vacationing... I asked him why are you not golfing today and he said his son who came with him has a startup whose money is mostly with SVB so he is distressed... what are the chances.

I had AIMIA stocks before the Air Canada fall off. In the morning of the news, the stock began trading with some crazy amount of spread. I panic sold my shares, accidentally putting in a market order in the process. I think I lost about 50% of what I could have actually sold for (big loss either way). That was extremely painful.

Android was an acquisition. Chrome was built using a bunch of existing components, and a super simple application relative to typical software.

I'm almost 100% sure that whatever FB builds will fail. It's not just FB, but tell me the last time a big tech company was able to successfully build a new platform/product that's outside of their core competencies. Maybe AWS was the only one, and that was eat their own dog food situation. Unity will play a bigger role in the architecture and construction space. Designing living environments will become more and more like designing games and digital worlds. Many mundane things will be automated and a platform where people can quickly create realistic designs will win.

Seriously though, Unity is not just for fun. Their engine could be a major player in the Digital Twin space.

To make you feel better, I had bought NVDA at around $20 5 years ago. My work is related to high performance computing and deep learning so I knew GPU computing was ripe to proliferate at that time. Also, the moat of CUDA. I sold all of them over a 2 year period as the shares quadrupled... I got back in in March 2020, though. This time I haven't sold any.

A couple of my favorite clips:

I've watched JP's lectures before he became popular. They used to be shown on TVO (Ontario public TV). I even attended some of his lectures at UofT. They are really, really good. It's not some typical self-help stuff that people think he's marketing nowadays. Really goes into the fundamentals of human psychology, behavior, culture, religion, etc. He even changed my mind on religions and made me a strong believer of existentialism. My favorite rule: "Don't lie". You realize that it's not just about lying but it's about living the best life possible. You end up keeping your actions in check because you don't want to lie about them. For instance, you wouldn't do any debauchery things because you'd have to lie about them to your wife. So simple yet it really sets you straight. Unfortunately, he has now been politicized and therefore has become a polarized figure. It's rather unfortunate.

Unfortunately the biggest run ups we have seen in the greater Toronto area are in the suburbs, thanks to COVID. :-/

Buffett would never report anything like that... I used to like him but he has become a tool...

Snatched a lot of tech names during the sell-off today: AMZN, ABNB, NVDA, TSLA, SHOP also, COST.

Really? One investor might look at Google stocks as representative ownership of the business but another investor might look at it simply as a stonk that will go to the moon... What is a stock these days? Is it ownership in a company? Is it simply an investment vehicle? Is it a store of value? Is it an institutional reality? Most stocks traded are in electronic blips nowadays... So, is it in the form of a paper? is it just a data point? Does it even exist in reality? You can ask the same existential questions about stocks, bonds, money, ... Transaction fees. https://decrypt.co/33124/what-will-happen-to-bitcoin-after-all-21-million-are-mined

In the long run, we are all dead. - John Maynard Keynes Clutch, I suspect Keynes would agree with your sentiment and belief. That being said, when we are investing, we are generally talking about events occurring in the next 5-10-50 years out at best. You suggested that these pieces of paper have no real ownership. Yet, we know that is not true. Stocks - Buffett would completely disagree with you here. They are pieces of businesses, including the underlying assets within those businesses. If you own enough pieces of paper, you directly control the assets. So, as long as the businesses are operating and generating cash flow, and the balance sheet is reasonable, the pieces of paper have some real value. Bonds/Loans - We've seen enough examples where owning the bonds of a business, mean you own the actual business...especially if it defaults. So they are backed. Currency - backed by nation state assets and tax revenues. Yes, a dictator could step in and change everything, but how often does that happen in stable, developed governments and economies...so while possible, the probabilities generally fall outside of the 5-10-50 year realm. Hard Assets - generally some utilitarian purpose supports the underlying value...whether it is land, commodities, etc. Bit Coin/Crypto in present form - nothing backing it in most cases. Hey Parsad...I repeat... those pieces of paper are worthless if some dictator or our society as a whole declare them to no longer represent ownership of companies. BTW such events happened before... In almost all communist states once the ruling party comes in they abolish private ownership so all your property ownership papers are now worthless... they are not backed by anything but our social agreements. We as a society has agreed to make certain pieces of paper to represent ownership in companies and therefore have value. In theory, we can decide to reverse this agreement anytime... And the nature of these social agreements are exactly the same whether they are for stock certificates or bitcoins. So fundamentally the only thing that's backing both stock certificates and bitcoins is our social agreement. It's just that one has longer history than the other so more stable.

Regarding the lack of discussion on the pandemic... It would have highlighted his mistakes during the March-May period...Selling the airlines at the bottom and not making any meaningful purchases. It was very un-Buffett like and he was obviously too pessimistic. I don't know if he is Intentionally avoiding to discuss his mistakes... or he is still thinking that was the best course of action to take and he doesn't want to sound like making excuses.

I have expressed this argument at length before but will repeat again much more directly. Money, stocks, bonds, loans, BTC.. basically all non-hard assets are massive fantasies. It's not my argument but of a renowned philosopher John Searle. And no, he is not some French postmodernist, he is as realist and naturalist as you could get as a philosopher. But basically, all these assets are forms of institutional reality that is created via a series of speech acts (nowadays "document acts"). You may argue... but some of these assets are "backed" by something else. My stock certificates represent ownership of the factory, the money is backed by the government, etc. Well how do you establish such backing? Document acts... but there is nothing tangible and physical about this backing. How do we know? Suppose a dictator comes along and instructs all financial records to be wiped out. All of the assets above will be worthless. So really, investing in such assets all require some level of faith. Now, the chance of US currency or treasury bills facing such events will be very low... at least compared to BTC. So you can estimate your confidence. Maybe I have 99% confidence in traditional assets and 1% confidence in BTC (relatively). So I decide to invest 99% in traditional assets and 1% in BTC. But then I realize the asymptomatic nature of that 1% in terms of the return. If BTC establishes itself as a stable store of value, my gain will be significant so I decided to invest a bit more. (As an aside... I have a feeling that many economists and those with the traditional business school mindset have a harder time grasping this "massive fantasy" notion... I think it's largely because they'd like to think of their discpline as scientific and objective... they want to treat things like money, yields, institutions as the same ontological category as molecules, chemical elements, and gravity... I'm sorry they are not. In a way, I think they are resentful of the fact that they are not scientists, engineers, nor doctors dealing with objective reality... and perhaps their discipline is not as important... so they need some ground to stand on and argue that traditional assets are backed by institutions as if planet motions are governed by gravitational forces.)

Blockchain Revolution is a horrible book. No depth at all and just a bunch of shallow stories and what if. More of a marketing tool for the authors.

I use mostly paper wallets. And smallish amounts in Coinbase. You mean seed phrases kept on paper (vs. actual private keys/address)?

How are folks here keeping their BTCs as they continue to grow? Do you "diversify" your storage with a number of hardware wallets/recovery seeds? Is there anything considered more secure than a hardware wallet these days?

I don't think looking at the value of BTC as a currency would give you any answers. The value of BTC is tied to its history, not on its utility. It's based on our social construct. You might think that's silly but the concept of fiat money is also a social construct. It's backed by a government, and has more utility and a much longer history than BTC. But intrinsically they are the same. Neither are material objects but rather created via a series of social acts.

How would that help with the rest of the inflated assets? It will create worse bubbles elsewhere.

How are you so sure? Sounds like someone who wants money tied to GME.

So the inevitable infighting begins.