Hacker News Reader

Comment by anti-shill | Hacker News Reader

but the casino aspect of the economy has grown stronger and more pervasive over time. Look at a chart of the 10 year US bond. The interest rates have plummeted over the last 30 years. These low rates have intensified the casino aspect of the stock market.

The rates were lowered after the crashes of 2001-2002 and 2008-2009. But the rates cannot be lowered any more. Why? They are at zero, effectively.

That is different.

View on HN

The point is that there are always differences - each recession is a snowflake, with distinct causes and circumstances. That doesn't impact the fact that they all behave pretty much the same way at the large scale, and it shouldn't affect your decisions about the market (unless you are an expert, and inordinately good at avoiding various cognitive biases).

Gloom and Doom sells papers, and it always has.

There is nothing about growth that is guaranteed. Perhaps thinking that the entire world can adopt western style institutions and would become good consumers was too optimistic.

> But the rates cannot be lowered any more. Why? They are at zero, effectively.

They could always go negative:

    http://www.global-rates.com/interest-rates/libor/swiss-franc/swiss-franc.aspx

Another example - Sweden's National Bank: http://www.riksbank.se/en/ (See the Repo rate).

>These low rates have intensified the casino aspect of the stock market.

So, are you making the claim that the stock market is less stable today than it was 100 years ago?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com