Ask HN: Do you feel like the world we live in is increasingly speculative?

ignore it. a single big correction will send all if this into a tailspin

A lot actually. I think it is human nature to want the easier and more lucrative route but we are reaching to some new levels. And I think the issue has gotten worst with these digital megaphones we have in our hands. A lot of people are just adding fuel to the fire of chaos by inviting anybody who can hear them to take easy routes, lose their hard earned money on silly investments.

I think the solution to this is to consume less content, only read the verifiable sources, think a lot, reflect a lot, change perspectives a lot, and act smarter. and that is definitely true for investments as well.

Two things drive up the price of investment assets. Crazy people who increase relative price to value in the short term but that usually tends to return to average in the long run; so in a sense anybody who stayed calm in crazy times and away from madness of crowd, will reap the benefits by actual economical and wealth output of their investments.

I keep wondering why I'm still working when money seems to flow so easily to some...

"The flagship industry of the definite optimism of the 1950s was engineering. The flagship industry of the indefinite optimism of the 2010s is finance. Finance is about “making money when you have no idea how to create wealth”. While the engineers plan out specific dams and rockets and so on, the more abstract levels of finance invest in “the market”, a vague aggregate of all economic activity which is expected to go up because Progress."

From Scott Alexander's review of Thiel's Zero to One:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/31/book-review-zero-to-on...

> Have you guys been thinking about this at all?

Yes, a lot.

Personally, I've been trimming my positions slowly over the last 3 months. And I will continue to do so. With basically every single day I can justify any of these prices less and less. We'll see what happens. Either it's gonna be hyperinflation, or it's gonna be a huge historical correction, for sure it'll be interesting (or maybe it'll just continue with slight hiccups and nothing of significance will happen within the next decade?).

I am not an economist, and really, I have no clue. But for sure I won't be fomoing into something that I can't justify price for.

I have often thought this, but what balances my FOMO is the old story about the stockbroker in 1929 who got a stock tip from his shoeshine boy, and immediately decided to sell all his stocks because if the shoeshine boy was into stocks even, that meant the bubble was about to burst.

I have no idea when the speculative bubble bursts, but I am pretty sure that I am the equivalent of the shoeshine boy. If I'm ready to speculate, that means we are very late in the cycle and a burst is coming. This helps me shrug off any FOMO; if I did decide to speculate, it would be a sure sign that the fall is imminent.

It's starting to feel like gambling is the bedrock of the economy, rather than a side show. Everyone has a 'portfolio' of stocks and coins that they in no way contribute any value to, but expect huge returns from. 'Net worth' has nothing to do with value created, only returns on bets.

Jobs are just an activity required to build capital for further gambling for yourself, and to pump the portfolio of those who own stock in your company.

Is anyone actually doing anything useful in 2021? (other than the people we pay like crap, including teachers, nurses, carers and environmentalists of course)

I just ignore it. Nature is thrifty in all its actions, so this current madness will eventually come to an end too. I like the attitude of Charlie Munger, and whenever I feel like my head is starting to spin too fast I think about the wise things he has said about the madness of crowds, keeping your head straight and focusing on your duties right in front of you.

This is a US centric answer. We were taught that retirement funds and portfolios needed to outpace inflation to increase spending power. But inflation is not the right metric to measure against. Maybe the right metric is the percentage growth of the federal reserve balance sheet. Since it has recently inflated at a rapid pace, people are left with relatively much less purchasing power and facing economic uncertainty. We can not rely on conventional investments like real estate or the stock market to keep pace so you need to allocate a larger portion of portfolio towards more alternative (read: risky) investments.

Not too long ago the conventional wisdom was to stick your money in S&P 500, or a mix of stocks and bonds and forget about it. Bond real yields went negative. Bank savings rates are a pittance. While all that happened, indexers lost out on all the gains from TSLA until the end of 2020. More people are catching onto this regime change. Growing piles of money are chasing smaller pockets of growth in the same way the pool of well paying careers is drying up.

You can't get by with an average portfolio unless you have an above salary with above average savings. Stay tuned for more creative destruction ahead.

People live in the now less and less.

Hence they buy products and services less and less...it's only natural that they'd look to do something with their money because interest rates have been at 0% since 2008 now.

You can see this everywhere.

People drink less and less, they smoke less and less, they have very few sexual encounters etc.