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Comment by rawtxapp | Hacker News Reader

Pretty much all the markets are going crazy right now, people are getting 100+k all-cash offers on top of their asking prices on their houses for sale, sp500 p/e ratio average is at like 44, pokemon cards are increasing in value, etc.

What's happening is not specific to dogecoin/crypto in my opinion.

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In fact I just sold my house in SF Bay Area last month for $500k above listing price, all cash no contingencies. We are now renting in hopes that the market cools down but we are worried that this housing mania won’t stop and we will get priced out of the market. But for 500k above list, I couldn’t say no.

This is pretty much the gist of the article. People are worried about holding cash right now because they think it’s losing value. We’ve got trillions more about to be injected. All assets are priced high because of it.

If you can get a low interest mortgage right now you’re in a good spot.

Are you suggesting that buying a home right now is a good decision?

I’m suggesting buying a home at a record low interest rate is a good decision if you can afford it, especially with inflation on the horizon.

If you plan on staying there 10-15+ years and aren’t stretching financially I would buy.

Inflation doesn't make one investment opportunity more attractive than another.

inflation makes buying stuff on credit more attractive, especially when you can get it with really low interest rates which everyone expect to rise sooner than later

Not really... if everyone expects inflation to rise, it will already be priced in.

Priced in, in what? Assets prices? That would make for, inst-ainflation, I guess...

In any case, the thing is that cannot be priced into the rates of loans, because the same factor that will contribute to a rising inflation (increasing the monetary mass faster than real economic productivity) makes the loans very cheap by definition.

I for sure would get into all the long term fixed low rate debt I can handle to acquire assets that I think will not depreciate as fast

Not everybody is clued in. Average random person on the street can’t even answer the question of how does money supply and inflation interact?

Inflation does make long term debt with low, fixed interest rate very attractive

Only in retrospect, if inflation was unexpected. But if it was unexpected you couldn't have taken advantage of it, because, by definition, you weren't expecting it.

I don't see how the expectation change anything. Either inflation dilute the monetary value of your debt quicker than your asset depreciation or it doesn't.

So, any scenario were you bet (correctly) that inflation will rise at a higher rate than a fixed interest rate is very attractive

List price is meaningless. When I was looking at Bay Area houses plenty of realtor set the listing price intentionally low to drum up interest and a potential bidding war.

It’s like the house that went for $1M over list. Sold at $2.1M, just like the other comps in the neighborhood. The list price was $1M below comp.

Absolutely. There is an epic amount of cash floating around which can't be productively invested. So it chases trinkets instead.

Of course it can. People are just lazy and prefer repeating easy solutions that worked in the past rather than trying something that has real value but has inherent risks.

I don't get the 'can't be productively invested' part.

Why not?

Please no one-liner strawman explanations :)

Wages for the working are so low there isn't any demand because all of their money is spent on necessities.

The majority of the western world's economic output is collecting rents

Sure, so uh, there are many known ways to change this.

What's the hold-up?

You're describing what's been the case for quite some time, it doesn't explain why nothing's been done about it when just about anyone with a brain can see where it's headed.

People born between the 40s-80s saw the largest economic expansion in history resulting from a massive expansion of labor power and social spending and decided it was because they worked so hard.

The hold up is the mass manufacturing of consent by the media oligopoly.

I don't think anyone knows where it's heading. My bet is neo-feudalism

> The majority of the western world's economic output is collecting rents

Would love to read more about this, do you have any links?

Books: -Survalence capitalism -Rentier Capitalism -The Corruption of capitalism

Watch a YouTube video about 'Capital in the 21st century'

Wages are so low? Wages are up.

There isn’t any demand, it’s all spent on necessities. So demand for necessities.

Majority of economic output is collect rents. Huh?

Wages are up.

Please familiarize yourself with reality. Wages haven't been up in my lifetime. Capital has been beating labor for five decades, and now that there's a slight chance that labor might claw back a small portion of its massive losses, all the temporarily embarrassed billionaires are eager to cry about it.

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

Nope. Before Covid real wage gains weee being made in the US.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

The 2019 real median incomes of White, Black, Asian, and Hispanic households all increased from their 2018 medians [between 5.7% (Blacks) and 10.6% (Asians)] Percentage change in share of aggregate income was highest for the lowest income quintile (+1.8%). High income quintile saw decrease in share of aggregate income (-0.6%)

We need $2000 phones now.

Smart.

I pretty much think this is the case too, most of these things are soaking up excess liquidity that is leaking from the financial system. It feels more like every canary in the coal mine is going off, but people are focusing too much on the birds passing out and not the things that are causing them to do so.

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