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Comment by bamboozled | Hacker News Reader

No, the robots haven't taken over, at all.

The reason Apple's share price is booming is because "consumers" are buying their products so their earnings were great. Many of them probably spending printed stimulus money. Same for Amazon.

There is really no magic here except the illusion of unlimited money through quantitative easing.

The QE is the only thing holding things together, if that stops, everyone is going down the same drain to poop town.

Edit: I should also mention many investors are probably putting a lot of money into Apple as it's seen as a safe haven for equities right now.

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Apple earnings haven't really improved much in the past 5 years. Their EBITDA is essentially flat. They just buy back their shares aggressively and have a ton of cash. Also a lot of big holders (like Buffett) that aren't going to just drop the stock, so there is a limited supply with people chasing it.

Small businesses are getting killed because the government deemed most of them "non-essential" so big boxes and eCommerce were the only things available, so of course Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc are all doing incredibly well. Their small competition was killed off. This pandemic has definitely worsened the transfer of wealth from the small hands to the large hands, and it's 100% the government's fault.

side question , but do you happen to have any resources explaining what could be the limit to unlimited QE and what precise series of event will be triggered when that limit is reached ( knowing that everyone is doing the same at the moment, from us to eu to cn).

That's the thing, nobody knows. QE is just the end state for Keynesian economics, at least as far as I can tell.

I'd be amazed if it ends well, we haven't invented a perpetuum mobile yet...

Like the other poster mentioned, we don't really know.

I'm not an economist, just an interested investor and from my understanding, using QE on this scale is just an easy short term solution to a longer term, hard problem.

Printing money like this has never really been done before on this scale, but the fear is that "printing money" like this will potentially lead to very bad debt and hyperinflation inflation crisis (maybe already started).

The limitations of QE aren't entirely known, but will be known as more money is printed and money becomes more worthless.

Will having a lot of "monopoly money" in circulation be a problem? Time will tell; however there have been many examples where hyper inflation has caused economies to fail, such as Venezuela recently and the Roman Empire in the past.

The US Federal Reserve should probably be careful with their actions because they wouldn't be the first country to run into dire issues doing this.

What I fear is, the people at the top of the US are blinded by greed and the desire to be reelected and aren't concerned about the lessons of history.

QE isn't really the same as direct money printing. Most of the money seems to find its way into financial markets rather than directly into peoples pockets. So people will see their retirement accounts or stock holdings doing OK and maybe even cash some in to spend, or at a minimum make them feel comfortable with their current level of expenditure.

But we've had QE for over a decade in various amounts and it didn't lead to inflation, unless there's direct monetisation (the fed prints money and gives it to the government to spend in an unlimited fashion) I'm not sure why the situation would change.

Inflation has been most focused in assets and investments. The government has gone at great lengths not to count these in their inflation measures, but all that QE going into stocks and housing bidding wars can’t be a good thing in the long term.

Housing is included in CPI.

"Didnt lead to inflation"

You are kidding, right?

have you seen what is happening in healthcare? Do you have kids in college? Have you tried to buy a residence in a large urban area like seattle, nyc, miami? Have seen what is happening to food package sizes ij most american supermarkets? Do you know the increasing rate of us retirees is no longer flocking to fl, but abroad? Do you realize that it is no longer possible for a working class family to sustain itself with 1 breadwinner? Do you wonder why?

Just because tech , internet, and freight efficiencies are keeping in check in some sectors of the economy doesnt mean there is no inflation.

We are heading into the lost decades of japan

Welcome to salaryman life , where you live in a shoebox amd expect no asset accumulation for the rest of your life

I don't feel comparing modern US economy to Venesuela / Roman Empire, which has to import almost everything, is fair.

I tend to believe Ray Dalio's theory about the long term debt cycle but we will see how it pans out. If the oracle of Omaha is still of any value it also signals tough times ahead

I'm not sure there's a limit, it's just perpetual shifting of value from people with savings to the government and financial institutions.

> Many of them probably spending printed stimulus money.

$1200 issued months ago?

This. There is an election coming up, and (not trying to get political here, but) it is likely that a shift in power will occur. The current administration is trying to prop things up just long enough to set up a huge crash just after they lose power. It’s a fake recovery.

I don't believe the current administration are capable of mentally processing the prospect of losing, let alone that they want to lose.

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