lottin

It could be compared to other assets in the asset class of assets that have no intrinsic value (e.g. other crypto-currencies). I think that would make sense.

Sorry to say, but you're deluded. A blockchain is made of "information". Information has no coercive power. A blockchain can't enforce laws. It can't stop illegitimate violence. It can't perform any of the functions of a state. Not even remotely.

Like bitcoin, gold is too a "bubble asset", but unlike bitcoin, gold is a physical object with use value and limited availability.

The thing about gold is that its price appears to to be negatively correlated with the economic cycle. Because of this some people argue that it makes sense to include it in a portfolio of stocks and bonds, so that the volatility of the portfolio is reduced, although personally I would advise against it.

Houses do generate income, called "rent". Either you rent out your property and get paid an explicit rent, or you live in the house in which case you get paid in kind. So, bad example!

Inflation and a rise in the cost of living are different things. Inflation means an increase in the (nominal) price level, whereas the cost of living is measured in real prices, specifically real wages.

Asset pricing theory is a well established field within economics. Of course it comes down, in the end, to the law of supply and demand, but that doesn't mean that we have to stop here. The law of supply and demand doesn't explain why there's a supply and a demand in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_pricing

You're vastly underestimating the complexity of these types of jobs.

A blockchain is not a state. A state is a political entity that rules a territory through the monopoly of violence.

Generally speaking it has been successful, more so than the gold standard. It's true that sometimes states fail, but that's not something a monetary system can prevent from happening, or insure against.

The expected discounted value of all bitcoin's future cash flows is zero. This is because the only cash flow that a bitcoin investor can expect from an investment in bitcoins is the revenue from selling the bitcoins in the market... and the market value of something that has no use case and is held for speculative purposes only (i.e. has no intrinsic value) will tend to zero in the long run.

A fiat currency that is issued by the government has no intrinsic value either, but there's one crucial difference compared to a cryptocurrency: in the case of a government-issued fiat currency the central bank will intervene the market, by making use of its prerogative to conduct monetary policy, to ensure price of the currency doesn't drop to zero.

I find it odd that someone would make a comparison between bitcoin and other financial assets, as if bitcoin was just another financial asset and its theoretical price wasn't zero... which is a pretty big market anomaly. Normally, when you find a market anomaly, you try to explain it. But these analysts, they pretend that there's no anomaly. They just don't talk about it, in the hopes that nobody will notice.

What does it even mean 'to want nothing more than to end the conflict'? As far as I can tell it doesn't mean anything. Everybody wants the conflict to end, including the Israelis and the Palestinians. They just want it to end differently, of course.

Exactly. A 'stablecoin' that is regulation-compliant is undistinguishable from a bank.

> Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut.

A critical aspect of crypto-currencies is sales. They have to sell a story so that investors keep pouring money into the system. Otherwise the whole thing would collapse very quickly.

I never understood the appeal of tidyverse. I have a colleague who, like you, thinks that R is tidyverse. He also has the nasty habit of starting Excel formulas with a '+' sign.

> If a company can purchase the same clothing from Chinese, Vietnamese, or Mexican vendors, a tax on China only could make the Chinese vendors lower the price or risk losing the business.

This example implies producers are already in competition with one another, so it's unlikely that any of them can lower the price much. On the other hand, if some producers leave the market due to the tariffs, then there's less competition overall and the other producers can charge more.

It's an absolute necessity. The US has lost all credibility as a deterrent.

The immediate conclusion is that if there's an excess demand prices will go up in order to reach a new equilibrium. And this exactly what seems to be happening in the housing market.

All the law of supply and demand says is that the market will reach an equilibrium where the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied, and that such quantities as well as the equilibrium price are determined jointly by supply and demand. It doesn't say that the demand and supply curves are unmovable or that they have a particular slope.

The question is: what makes a cryptocoin legitimate, in your opinion, considering that 'ilegitimate' memecoins are usually just a copy-paste version of a supposedly 'legitimate' cryptocoin?

As far as I know the only difference between these so-called memecoins and 'reputable' cryptocoins is that the former have a funny name. Other than that they're essentially the same product.

> memecoins and utility-free cryptocurrency

As opposed to what?

The only way of knowing whether such differences are big or small (or whether they exist at all) is by performing a scientific analysis.

To insist that nobody should look into it because what they might find could upset you is just bizarre.

Belarus is already pretty much a Russian puppet state.

Because I understand the process that I have followed to get to the solution.

But how do you know it's given you the correct answer? Just because the code appears to work it doesn't mean it's correct.

Would you say that a calculator is also self-aware, and that it must know its limitations so that it doesn't attempt to do calculations it isn't capable of doing, for instance?

He makes a good point. But then he jumps to "models will be self-aware". I fail to see any logical connection.

If you get 8% returns per year on average, the expected annualized return over a multi-year period is going to be LESS than 8%.

This is because you won't get exactly 8% each year. For example, suppose the returns over a 3-year period are: 20%, -10%, 14%. In this case, the return over the whole period is 23.21% (= (1 + 0.20) * (1 - 0.10) * (1 + 0.14) - 1). On the other hand, a 8% return each year would have resulted in a 25.97% return over the whole period (= (1 + 0.08)^3 - 1).

If that's the case, the savings are not 'spent' but are simply invested in the house. They should be able to sell the house for the net value (market value minus mortgage outstanding) which should be roughly equal to the down payment.