[HN Gopher] How Covid brought the future back
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How Covid brought the future back
Author : furtively
Score : 106 points
Date : 2021-02-12 17:58 UTC (1 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (worksinprogress.co)
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > That's partly an artifact of how policymakers responded to the
| pandemic; pumping liquidity into the market
|
| I think he should say _mostly_. Fed balance sheet growth has been
| unprecendented and those folks who have not lost their jobs and
| are no longer spending on tourism are dumping their USG direct
| payments into Robinhood.
| _hzw wrote:
| For me the real "future" covid has already brought is contactless
| payment, as least in Germany. I know it is not a new thing, but
| before the first lockdown in March last year, some vendors I
| frequented didn't even have a POS terminals, some had one but
| without contactless function. Fastforward to present time, I can
| pay everywhere I go with just my phone. What a change!
| blackrock wrote:
| The only problem is that you must touch the grimy touchscreen
| terminal to give or deny a gratuity. The same touchscreen
| terminal that the last 500 people touched, and nobody has yet
| cleaned.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| No you don't. Not in Europe, mostly anyway.
| ls612 wrote:
| I loved when I visited Australia that literally everywhere took
| Apple Pay, I definitely hope that trend comes to America and
| the rest of the world
| Animats wrote:
| _In fact, some economists continued to argue after 2000 that
| "bubble" is a meaningless category._
|
| Uh oh.
|
| "Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau" - Irving Fisher,
| economist, early October 1929.
| anonisko wrote:
| There is something different this time.
|
| People en masse have started using the S&P 500 and other index
| funds as a long term store of value. Large amounts of money buy
| these stocks every pay period with zero regard to performance
| or current market conditions.
|
| As far as I'm aware, this has never happened before. We don't
| know how this experiment will change the market long term or
| whether it will eventually collapse.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > a long term store of value
|
| Or a short term way to escape moneyprinting and inflation
| until the rates become sane.
| pm90 wrote:
| You're absolutely right, its not the same and it will likely
| fail in ways we can't predict just yet.
|
| The 2008 crisis taught the US Federal Reserve how to respond
| to an economic crisis effectively, and they've been pretty
| successful at managing the current one. Note that Fed's main
| concerns are macroeconomic, so their assistance necessarily
| goes mostly to larger corporations and financial
| institutions, which seem to be doing OK (smaller businesses
| are suffering, but Congress stepped in for them... somewhat).
| I don't anticipate a liquidity shortage-triggered panic +
| recession like 2008.
|
| However, all asset prices seem to be inflated. Real estate,
| crypto, stocks... all going up and up. They can't do so
| forever, it will be interesting to see how it fails this
| time.
| Animats wrote:
| _You 're absolutely right, its not the same and it will
| likely fail in ways we can't predict just yet._
|
| Yes. We haven't yet had a bubble collapse in a time of zero
| or negative real interest rates. When it happens, cutting
| interest rates will not be an option. That option has been
| used up.
| anonisko wrote:
| Like a junkie chasing that first high. You keep needing
| more and more but never get close to the first, until
| suddenly you wake up and realizing your life collapsed
| around you and your drug doesn't work at all anymore.
| vmception wrote:
| When you tie pricing metrics to interest rates, they are
| either not inflated or not that inflated.
|
| You have to account for the amount of money in the system
| and how that money seeks to beat inflation.
|
| You can't just pick up 40-year old chart analysis books and
| say "aha the P/E ratio for this sector is higher than
| normal", it is all part of an ecosystem.
|
| The macroeconomic policy is going to be a greater influence
| than any chart-based psychology proxy or seeing how many
| essential workers are talking about investing their spare
| change.
|
| Right now, more money is going to be created or distributed
| in the trillions. If the Central Banks are instructed to be
| involved, or chose to be involved, their method of getting
| new money into the market will be by purchasing more bonds
| which pushes interest rates even lower.
|
| The only thing this didn't predict were new ephemeral asset
| classes, crypto. That people are opting to buy.
| jasonkester wrote:
| _As far as I 'm aware, this has never happened before_
|
| No worries. We can fix that.
|
| I first heard the argument you made used to explain why the
| market would continue to go up indefinitely in the late 90's.
|
| But that's only because I was old enough to pay attention
| then. I don't doubt in the least that it was used in the 80's
| as well.
| ivanche wrote:
| > _There is something different this time._
|
| Do you know which are the 4 most expensive words in English?
| "This time it's different."
| rsynnott wrote:
| > There is something different this time.
|
| There always is. And then, abruptly, there isn't anymore.
| baxtr wrote:
| It's different every time, isn't it? World War II was
| different, the oil crisis in the 70s was different, debt in
| the 80s, doctom bubble in the 90s, the financial crisis was
| really different, and now this pandemic and the sheer volumes
| of money. It's different every time, but economic growth has
| been a constant and tied to this are ultimately the prices of
| securities. That's not gonna be different. So it's a very
| sane choice to invest in a broad ETF eg based on the S&P.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Index funds are a good, safe set and forget option. In
| boring times, the performance is not much worse and even
| sometimes better. In times of upheaval though, the high
| volatility makes active trading MUCH more profitable.
| baxtr wrote:
| Absolutely. At the same time it's also much riskier.
| jfengel wrote:
| At least, they always have been. With many people pouring
| money into them solely because they're "safe", it's
| possible that they have managed to turn a safe investment
| into a risky one,a la mortgages in the 2000s.
|
| Currently the S&P 500 has a P/E of 40, a number it
| historically hits before crashes. Of course the pandemic
| makes that figure less meaningful long term than it
| already is, but even before the pandemic it was well
| above a justified level.
|
| I have no better advice for people. I have theories on
| why it's overpriced, but I am also invested in broad
| indexes for lack of a better idea. But it may just be
| that the long-standing advice has become dated.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Equities are a good investment because that's where
| government bailout money goes. Until one day it stops or
| until enough rich/richish people try to sell equities for
| consumption it real assets (like building a house) and
| then the bottom falls out.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > high volatility makes active trading MUCH more
| profitable
|
| Or much more loss-making, depending how lucky you are.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I've been listening to people say this "uh oh" since 2009. I
| think literally every year. Not a single year has gone by when
| someone doesn't "uh oh" and post something about turkeys at
| Thanksgiving.
| shortandsweet wrote:
| The turkey is good for the Thanksgiving day host and guests.
| Just figure out a way to not be the turkey. There's always a
| winner or loser, rarely everyone loses. Diversity is key.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| That's the boom/bust cycle. Bubble inflates until it pops. We
| can't have 0 interested and equity prices growing faster than
| the underlying businesses. Once labor runs out of money for
| rent-seekers to extract without killing them, it's over.
| PixyMisa wrote:
| The people who predicted 17 out of the last 3 recessions are
| still less wrong than the ones who think there will never be
| another recession. Just wrong more often.
| ls612 wrote:
| They both have precisely the same amount of signal, ie
| none. One just unconditionally predicts a recession and the
| other unconditionally predicts good times.
| maxidog wrote:
| 6% return peak bubble to peak bubble is in no way reassuring.
| revscat wrote:
| This is trash. If there is a point, the author does not seem to
| know how to get to it, nor support it.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| > a striking rise in investor interest in electric vehicles,
| autonomous cars, AI, and software companies ranging from
| consumer-facing companies like Facebook and Google to complex
| enterprise products like Snowflake
|
| ... Or, a striking rise in investing in whatever the mob thinks
| will make money, even when it is not, from tesla to bitcoin. If
| they were investing in the future they 'd be investing in ModeRNA
| / Biontech
| starfallg wrote:
| I agree, that is such a bad take. And the reason we have a
| renewed asset bubble in the midst of a unprecedented economic
| contraction is purely because of stimulus and QE.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Well, they did that too...
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Saving the world economy from a pandemic and creating the
| equivalent of a vaccine printer = 2x their stock price. If
| anything i d say investors are being pessimistic
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Or they realize that the vaccine is temporary and vaccine
| companies aren't able to extract rent from saving the
| economy, due to either competition or government/social
| pressure.
| [deleted]
| Slartie wrote:
| But those stocks' rises pale in comparison to the rises of
| some of the aforementioned securities - particularly Tesla.
|
| BioNTech/Moderna are poised to income streams of billions of
| $ through guaranteed sales, with the very real possibility of
| more to come if either revaccination is necessary or there
| are more applications for the mRNA technology.
|
| With that in mind, they are quite conservatively valued by
| the market right now.
| A12-B wrote:
| Moderna has not been distributing its vaccines fast enough
| internationally. There is a timer to these things you know,
| because the virus can mutate more. For that reason I'd
| rather put my investment in 3D printing or something.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| OTOH the mRNA vaxs can mutate as fast as the virus.
| Slartie wrote:
| It's a weekend of work to change the spike mRNA in both
| mRNA vaccines to accommodate a new virus mutation. An
| additional 4-5 weeks for production to take this new
| formulation from code to finished vaccine. So in a matter
| of 6 weeks total, a variant can be countered by a new
| vaccine variant, if necessary.
|
| Since the results of the regulatory tests and safety and
| efficacy validations can mostly be transferred for slight
| vaccine modifications (at least that's my state of
| knowledge), a variation should not have to go through the
| entire chain of test phases again before it can be
| cleared for use.
|
| If anything, the prospect of mutations can only be seen
| as a significant moat for mRNA vaccine manufacturers,
| because their technology is the fastest when it comes to
| such adaptions.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > Since the results of the regulatory tests and safety
| and efficacy validations can mostly be transferred for
| slight vaccine modifications
|
| Is that kinda like saying the 737-MAX wasn't really a new
| type of plane?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| In fairness, electric cars are the future and everyone knows
| it. Sure, the company Tesla may not be the exact one to steer
| the ship in 20 years, but it's not like we're backing zeppelins
| here.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Electrification of cars does not justify trillion dollar
| investment. It's already a solved problem, it needs
| incremental investment to scale horizontally. Making the cars
| and the charger network is the kind of thing that is easily
| commodified and outsourced. The more challenging problem will
| be to provide adequate electricity for the cars.
|
| Self-driving is a pipe-dream and a marketing vehicle, not
| gonna happen anytime soon.
| fiachamp wrote:
| Maybe a solar and energy storage investment would help...
| 0x008 wrote:
| The biotech sector actually outperformed the tech sector last
| year.
| A12-B wrote:
| Why is everything a large group of people do collectively
| called a 'mob' these days, for everything? Is no one allowed to
| do things together anymore without being chastised?
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| >Why is everything a large group of people do collectively
| called a 'mob' these days?
|
| These days? It's always been thus.
|
| The Roman Poet Juvenal who said:
|
| "It is all too easy to fall from power - like Sejanus. The
| mob follows Fortuna and cares for nothing but bread and
| circuses." (Circuses can also be games, or in modern times
| TV, Games, Netflix, Reddit, etc...).
|
| You ever see Gladiator?
|
| Lucilla: "The gods have spared you. Today I saw a slave
| become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome."
|
| Maximus: "The gods have spared me? I am at their mercy, with
| the power only to amuse a mob!"
|
| Lucilla: "That is power. The mob is Rome. And while Commodus
| controls them he controls everything."
|
| We have a literal cult controlling at least 40% of the minds
| of the USA (QAnon). A literal mob almost led a successful
| insurrection. (If they were more organized, they would've had
| a higher body count).
|
| A literal mob, possibly manipulated by finance majors
| orchestrated a pump-and-dump under the guise of "stick it to
| the man", just disrupted wallstreet in a pretty spectacular
| way. Sure, they did stick it to the man, for a bit - but I'm
| sure a lot of people also lost their ass on this.
|
| In a mob there's a bunch of people who basically just are
| following a fluid current in history, most are unaware as to
| why and the best answer is probably: "I wasn't doing anything
| else, so why not?", or "So and so told me, and I trust them"
| and often that trust is mis-placed, like believing a
| highschool dropout's opinion on climate change instead of the
| consensus by 90%+ of the leading scientists across the globe.
| sawjet wrote:
| You really think that 40% of people are being controlled by
| an internet troll?
| alisonkisk wrote:
| 40% say that Trump won the election. It will take a
| couple of years to see how many people are QAnon/Trump
| zealots and how many are Republicans held hostage while
| waiting for someone to viably step up.
|
| But for now, it's 40% that's a mix of cultists and people
| who act like cultists for the time being.
| qanonta02512591 wrote:
| If you honestly think that Trump lost the election, then
| you're either not very bright, or you simply haven't been
| paying attention.
|
| QAnon has nothing whatsoever to do with this.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| because mobs act impulsively and blindly follow the leaders
| alisonkisk wrote:
| Not the leaders directly; the mob follows each other.
| DoctorNick wrote:
| If "The Future" is widespread poverty and massive inequality,
| then sure.
| etherio wrote:
| This article seems a bit disjointed and ambling.
|
| Can we also argue that this surge of investment is correlated to
| people staying at home and thus having more money to spend that
| would have been used on food, entertainment, etc... ?
|
| Im not sure whether or not this is correct considering the
| negative economic effects of covid for many people, but it might
| have caused a surge in investing for a certain deomographic.
| Izkata wrote:
| Consider the situation in the US:
|
| Unemployment spiked from 4% to 14% yes, but on the flipside,
| what about the 80% or so that didn't lose their jobs? We still
| got stimulus checks, while paying less for entertainment and
| transportation (if we could work from home). What else to do
| with that extra money? Put it in GameStop, perhaps?
| PeterWhittaker wrote:
| There seem to be three main hypotheses in this article, and all
| seem wrong to me.
|
| The first, raised in the context of development of the transistor
| and how it was stalled by WW2, is some notion of "future
| improvement motivation". The author suggests that the transistor
| came about because the people involved wanted to improve the
| future.
|
| I'd assert that the people involved wanted to improve switching
| speeds and reduce power requirements, and were driven by
| curiosity. That they changed the world was a side effect. A big
| one, but unintentional.
|
| The second notion is bound into the idea of people being
| optimistic about the future and taking as its evidence that
| people are "investing" for future growth.
|
| My take? A lot of people are afraid and uncertain and are looking
| desperately for a short term windfall, and some people fear they
| won't have a job in X years so they might as well plow their
| money into whatever is rising.
|
| The author's position requires rational investors. We know the
| rational agent model is bunk.
|
| The third questionable idea is that somehow the plague gave us
| usable time and that people are using this to their advantage.
| Sure, some may be, but most of us got anxiety, longer hours
| because work was more accessible (just down the hall) AND a
| refuge from plague fear and future fear and bad news, et al, etc.
|
| What the author writes may be true for a small fraction of us.
| But not for most/all.
|
| The term bubble may best describe where the author lives: in an
| optimistic, future-looking, rational place. Many of us may hope
| to live there, few of us do.
| TomMasz wrote:
| Post-WWII R&D was vastly different from what R&D is like now.
| No one is funding research that isn't directly product-related
| or with an unclear or long-term ROI like that anymore. There
| never will be a Bell Labs or PARC every again. Incremental
| improvements are the future now.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| COVID made people appreciate the value of technology.
|
| For example, autonomous vehicles, whether automobiles or drones,
| take on much greater importance when much of the population is
| restricted to their homes and needs goods delivered, preferrably
| without interacting with a human.
|
| Machine learning goes from a technology that can make our lives
| more comfortable and improve the bottom line, to one that can end
| a global catastophe.
|
| Ending regulatory morass goes from a theoretical interest in the
| pursuit of abstract GDP growth statistics, to an imperative to
| prevent any future repetitions of the six week delay in COVID
| testing caused by the FDA at the outset of the pandemic in the US
| [1], or the regulatory delays in making available low-
| cost/makeshift ventilators, rapid at-home COVID tests, etc.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-
| de...
| croes wrote:
| Strange, I think the opposite. All this technology and obe simple
| virus brings the world to a stop. Yes, multiple vaccines were
| developed pretty fast but it remains to be seen whether we can
| vaccinate faster than the virus mutates. Not to mention that I
| underestimated the amount of idiots in humanity. Similar patterns
| to climate change deniers. There is no virus, there is one but it
| is harmless, it is not harmless but you can't do anything about
| it.
| gchokov wrote:
| This article is all over the place. The author starts with some
| history on how crisis and necessity for better life brings ideas
| to life, and then half the article is defending his view on the
| TSLA stock.
|
| Apart from this, yes ,it's cleat that a crisis is a terrible
| thing to waste, and companies are forced to innovate as the
| current struggles provide them opportunities to shine.
| baxtr wrote:
| So maybe a showcase that a great combination of words in a
| title is enough to generate upvotes?
| wyozi wrote:
| Interesting observation. I wonder if the number of upvotes
| depends more on the quality of the article or the quality of
| comments. I have to admit that even here, I personally didn't
| even open the article but rather went straight to the
| comments.
| netflixandkill wrote:
| Indeed. I mean, I own Telsa stock, so I'm not unhappy about
| what it's doing, but I'm not about to invent reasons why it
| makes sense. Eventually the major manufacturers like Toyota and
| VW are going to pivot and Tesla is going to be an entertaining
| footnote of daring that paid off ... in past tense.
| achenatx wrote:
| The brand is incredibly strong. It wont become a footnote. At
| this point they will make it standalone or be purchased by
| another company. I dont think fading away into obscurity is
| in the cards.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| That's fanboyism.
|
| Most places on the world dont have the infrastructure for
| electric cars yet.
|
| But I'll be damned if you won't find a Toyota Hilux in the
| most backwater village behind a mountain range.
|
| I know a vast majority of people of my friend group who
| aren't in tech have no idea about tesla and at best have
| heard the name _something something electric car something
| something Elon Musk_
|
| Compared to VW or Toyota - who shift millions of units in
| every concievable market - Tesla is just a cute curiosity
| like the carmakers of the 20s.
| hakfoo wrote:
| What's odd is that there's a fairly strong sentiment that
| EVs are the future, but some of the existing automakers
| seem to still be covering their ears and singing.
|
| If Tesla starts suffering mortal market-share wounds,
| they will still be a compelling acquisition target for
| one of the existing automakers who are late to the EV
| party-- you get a ready-made bag of patents, supply
| chain, and designs. You can immediately start building a
| Model 3 with an Acura or Chrysler badge, and you've got
| something to ship to dealers in countries with punitive
| tax regime or ban on gas cars, and a few more years
| runway to fully adapt the design into a full full own-
| brand EV.
| repsilat wrote:
| > _some of the existing automakers seem to still be
| covering their ears and singing_
|
| Some, but the more common story is "traditional automaker
| pouring billions into EV production to make up for lost
| time."
|
| > _If Tesla starts suffering mortal market-share wounds,
| they will still be a compelling acquisition target_
|
| More importantly they'd need to suffer mortal market
| _cap_ wounds. At anything like current prices they 're
| not only dreadful value, they're simply unaffordable. At
| the moment Tesla buying a large traditional automaker is
| more likely than the reverse (though maybe not likely in
| an absolute sense.)
| Hypocritelefty wrote:
| Wonder why anything and everything on tesla makes it to the front
| page.
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