[HN Gopher] What Makes Us Tick? (1952) [video]
___________________________________________________________________
What Makes Us Tick? (1952) [video]
Author : dragontamer
Score : 82 points
Date : 2021-11-22 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.loc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.loc.gov)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Watching this really drives home how much being a woman in this
| era must have sucked.
| tantalor wrote:
| Is eating bonbons on the chaise really so bad?
| gknoy wrote:
| It looks like you're getting downvoted, but I think it's
| clear that the woman's perceived role at the time was NOT
| just eating bonbons.
|
| I think the fact that the cartoon portrays this in comedy and
| exaggerated form (just as the man's car is comically Too
| Small, and his "built to last" house's door falls off)
| underscores that the woman's role was perceived to be
| _infinite housework_ (rather than, say, coming home from
| _her_ job). Consider that her "help" includes the man washing
| a floor. In contrast, the wife (now relaxing) has handled
| dishes, meal planning + prep, laundry, ironing -- and the
| appliances there are portrayed as making that all that work
| take less time.
|
| As someone with all those tools now, I can confirm that I
| have a hard time even keeping up with what housework I notice
| needs doing, let alone all the work that my wife does (and
| arguably should have to do less of). It feels like that
| implied portrayal of "wife sits at home goofing off all day
| because machines do all the real work" couldn't be the norm.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| > that implied portrayal of "wife sits at home goofing off
| all day because machines do all the real work" couldn't be
| the norm.
|
| The history of women's work is a history of unpaid labor.
| The reality maintenance machinery supporting this is
| powerful. From devaluing industries which see a change in
| gender participation, to not classifying certain tasks as
| labor, the mechanisms of maintenance range from insidious
| to ridiculous. Understanding what happens if that reality
| is not maintained is important to understanding why it is
| maintained.
| moskie wrote:
| The issue being that it isn't an accurate representation of
| the lived experiences of women at the time. It is my instead
| the perceived experiences of women from the perspective of
| misogynists.
| biofox wrote:
| Misogynist is a little anachronistic here, given this was
| the societal norm.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Kind of related: what was it in Hollywood that did away the old
| time-y presentations like this in animations? The grand
| orchestral music, the personable-but-still-authoritative male
| narrator, amazingly well-paced script. Was it Hanna-Barbera and
| how they commoditized animation?
| dragontamer wrote:
| The opposite. These presentations were 100% within the
| propaganda period of the USA. These sorts of cartoons were top-
| down funded by the US Government for WW2 and eventually, the
| cold war (well, this cartoon is 1952, well within the Cold War
| period).
|
| But all of these cartoonists were good at their job _because_
| of WW2 propaganda cartoons. US Government practically
| bankrolled Disney (and other cartooning groups) to ensure we
| had unity throughout the War.
|
| What changed is politics. We're no longer in a World War nor a
| Cold War... and propaganda techniques such as this cartoon are
| now frowned upon.
|
| ---------
|
| This is "good propaganda" though. I think our country needs
| more of it these days. But it'd be a difficult political battle
| to get people used to propaganda again, especially because
| there's no communist threat anymore for us to point to.
|
| If we were to ask the US Government to spend $50 million bucks
| making a similar production cartoon today on a variety of US-
| subjects (imagine an up-to-date version of this cartoon on the
| modern Stock Market), can you imagine how many people would be
| pissed off?
|
| --------
|
| In any case, as US Government propaganda money dried up from
| the post-war period (1960s), the quality of cartoons dropped
| down. People still agreed upon the commissioning of educational
| cartoons for children (ex: School House Rock), but not upon
| educational cartoons for adults.
|
| > Was it Hanna-Barbera and how they commoditized animation?
|
| Hanna Barbera needed to commoditize animation to save money.
| With less money flowing into the industry from the post-war
| period (much less propaganda being made), the quality of
| cartoons suffered.
| jaypeg25 wrote:
| The US govt is certainly still involved in propaganda. For
| example, NASA helped with The Martian.[1] DoD released a
| game, America's Army, about 20 years ago with a total budget
| of $32 million over 8 years or so.[2] Also, Pentagon pays
| about $10-15 million annually just for the various pro-
| military messaging we see at sports events (salute to
| veterans, etc).[3] These are just some examples, but there
| are plenty more.
|
| [1]. https://www.popsci.com/why-nasa-helped-ridley-scott-
| create-m...
|
| [2]. https://www.wired.com/2009/12/americas-army-budget
|
| [3]. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-
| lead/wp/2015/11/04...
| dragontamer wrote:
| Its not quite the same though.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_World_War_II_
| p...
|
| >> During World War II, Disney made films for every branch
| of the United States Armed Forces and government.[13][14]
| This was accomplished through the use of animated graphics
| by means of expediting the intelligent mobilization of
| servicemen and civilians for the cause of the war. Over 90%
| of Disney employees were devoted to the production of
| training and propaganda films for the government.[13]
| Throughout the duration of the war, Disney produced over
| 400,000 feet of educational war films, most at cost, which
| is equal to 68 hours of continuous films. In 1943 alone,
| 204,000 feet of film was produced.[11]
|
| -------
|
| This is _JUST_ the cartoon propaganda. There's also
| posters, commercials, movies, documentaries, etc. etc.
|
| We don't do this today because we're no longer at a major
| war between world powers, and too much propaganda is
| probably bad for our brains and ability to think for
| ourselves.
|
| It was a different time that called for different measures.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Reading about the OWI is a good starting place to learn more
| about this stuff, by the by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un
| ited_States_Office_of_War_In...
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| Yes, because 50M is a huge sum. You have youtube content
| creators making similar cartoons for peanuts.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks, I learned a lot from that post!
|
| One minor quibble (which I don't think diminishes your main
| point at all):
|
| > We're no longer in a World War nor a Cold War...
|
| I don't think that's 100% correct. My impression is that PRC
| is waging a cold war against the U.S., but the U.S.
| government hasn't accepted that yet.
|
| I'm certainly no expert on the matter, though. I'd be very
| grateful for any correction.
| dragontamer wrote:
| A big component of the Cold War era was NATO vs Warsaw,
| which has no modern equivalent.
|
| China is trying to rival us economically, and at best is
| aiming to maybe increase its sphere of influence out into
| the Pacific Ocean a bit. But back in the Cold War,
| Capitalists and Communists were splitting the entire world
| into two spheres... a communist sphere and a capitalist
| sphere.
|
| China isn't trying to spread its breed of nationalism
| across the world. Sure, its picking up African influence
| and Asian influence, but not quite in the same manner as
| NATO or Warsaw was picking up influence back then. If the
| influence is "just" economic influence, I wouldn't really
| worry too much.
|
| Unfortunately, there's a degree of "hot" war and saber-
| rattling going on that I find dangerous. Its very different
| from the Cold War: its entirely focused on Chinese
| interests and not so much a battle of ideologies around the
| world.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks, interesting counter-points.
|
| I agree that it's unlike the actual Cold War in several
| important ways:
|
| - The two sides aren't engaging each other via proxy
| wars, e.g. Vietnam.
|
| - The two sides haven't formed clear multi-national
| alliances, i.e. NATO vs. Warsaw.
|
| Things that _do_ strike me as similarities:
|
| - Like the USSR, China's mood appears expansionistic.
| E.g., South China Sea, Taiwan, and (arguably?) Tibet.
|
| - Like the USSR, Russia also seems expansionstic. E.g.,
| Georgia and (maybe) Ukraine.
|
| - Maybe less relevant, but China and Russia are to some
| extent authoritarian (removal of presidential term
| limits) and seemingly use state-sanctioned violence to
| suppress political opposition. So as with the Cold War,
| there's some degree of ideological divide between the two
| sides.
| a-dub wrote:
| i've been pondering this notion of fractional shares that has
| become popular amongst retail brokers recently. i read some news
| about a stock split and it got me wondering how relevant that is
| now that shares are essentially divisible down to the penny. the
| fact that splits exist at all says that it's a knob that is
| intentionally turned at some point... but what did it do?
|
| does it reduce volatility by requiring a larger outlay to
| participate? (a sort of requirement to put more skin in the
| game). if so, does its elimination increase systemic risk? does
| it mean that every stock becomes a penny stock- subject to
| unpredictable price moves as a result of cheap speculation?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > does it reduce volatility by requiring a larger outlay to
| participate?
|
| Yes. Absolutely. It also makes it less appealing to retail
| investors. Eg. Berkshire Hathaway A stock is 431,536.38 at time
| of writing. Amazon is 3,608.66, Apple is 163.27. Apple is
| supposedly the most popular consumer-held stock. It also makes
| it harder to use derivative products. eg. Options require
| buying/selling 100x shares, so Berkshire Hathaway would
| literally require millions of dollars for one option contract.
| That surely impacts trade volume.
|
| > Does [fractional shares] mean that every stock becomes a
| penny stock- subject to unpredictable price moves as a result
| of cheap speculation?
|
| Yes and no. Not all companies are available as fractions. Also,
| the Robinhood investor who is day trading from his phone at
| work is probably using fractional and driving price movements
| (eg. GME), but the day trading full time investor class is not
| using fractional shares nearly as much. A lot of more
| professional-focused platforms either don't allow fractions (or
| don't for pro users), or don't make full features available.
| Eg. IBKR is a common platform for Algo trading and their api
| doesn't allow fractional shares (but their manual GUI with app
| allows it).
|
| This is likely due to technical and liquidity reasons as much
| as pragmatic ones. When a fractional share is available, that
| basically means the broker owns the shares, and gives you
| partial ownership. They need to basically own n+1 across their
| platform for all users (round up). If you're doing large
| trading volumes, that's impractical to keep up with on their
| end - especially if you quickly buy a lot and sell back.
|
| > does it mean that every stock becomes a penny stock
|
| Just to repeat, usually brokers only support the most popular
| stocks as fractional, which already have high volume. This
| means it may not have a huge impact on the system - but that's
| just speculation, i don't know if it has had an impact on the
| stocks like you suggest.
| Kranar wrote:
| >Yes. Absolutely.
|
| There is no causal relationship between nominal price and
| volatility. There are correlations between price and
| volatility, but it's that cheap stocks (such as those below 5
| dollars) are usually much more volatile than expensive ones.
|
| The same goes for liquidity, there is also no causal
| relationship between nominal price and liquidity.
|
| You can verify yourself that Berkshire Hathaway's price has
| no effect whatsoever on either volatility or liquidity, just
| compare BRK-A which trades at ~300,000 dollars with BRK-B
| which trades at ~200 dollars:
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/BRK-B#eyJpbnRlcnZhbCI6IndlZW.
| ..
|
| As a quant it would be nice of this property didn't hold,
| would be an easy arbitrage... but alas no such arbitrage
| opportunity is readily available.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > You can verify yourself that Berkshire Hathaway's price
| has no effect whatsoever on either volatility or liquidity,
| just compare BRK-A with BRK-B:
|
| I don't think this is a good example, because Brk A/B are
| clearly related (same company) and so that presents a
| perfect arbitrage opportunity.
|
| I think a better test would be to compare a single ticker
| before and after a split.
| a-dub wrote:
| > I don't think this is a good example, because Brk A/B
| are clearly related (same company) and so that presents a
| perfect arbitrage opportunity.
|
| agree. what couples their prices is actually a bit of a
| mystery to me though, conversions from class a to class b
| are non-taxable so that keeps class b from mispricing
| above class a, but i think if you want to go from b to a
| you have to sell and then buy on the open market which
| then means that the misprice would have to be greater
| than any cap gains plus trading costs for an amount equal
| to one share of class a, which seems like, a lot.
|
| skimming the internet sure makes it sound like splits are
| associated with increased volatility and reverse splits
| are associated with decreased volatility, which seems to
| check out a bit with respect to the idea of increased or
| decreased minimum bets on the options markets.
| [deleted]
| dragontamer wrote:
| I'm not sure if the Library of Congress website can survive an
| influx of hacker-news traffic on their video streaming. So I'll
| leave a brief summary here.
|
| This 1952 cartoon is a very good explanation of the theory behind
| the New York Stock Exchange. The first few minutes are a bit of
| humor to set up Mr. John Q Public who is trying to save up his
| nest-egg for retirement (roughly the first 3 minutes). This
| naturally leads him to look into stocks, which the video then
| explains what stocks are.
|
| The remaining 8 minutes of the 11-minute cartoon then goes into
| the theory of stocks: how stocks raise money for a business (a
| hypothetical oil-barrel company). First, a private equity raise
| with a bank ($3-million), and then later, the company IPOs on the
| NYSE directly for even more money ($20-million). The numbers are
| small by modern standards (showing off the last 70 years of
| inflation), but the concept remains the same: investment banks
| get earlier rounds of investment... and eventually an IPO on the
| stock exchanges brings in even more money.
|
| There's also a good segment about what exactly goes on a ticker-
| tape, who looks at ticker tapes (the various partners of NYSE
| across the country), who places orders, and what happens on the
| NYSE floor (how buyers / sellers meet up). Modern computers do
| the same job and faster: broadcasting the last price sold on the
| exchange, and automatically matching up buy / sell orders with
| each other. As such, the ticker-tape analogy with humans is
| actually a very good mental model for what these computers are
| doing.
|
| Though many things have changed in the last 70 years, it seems as
| if the stock market still plays the same role and function today
| as it did back then.
| vannevar wrote:
| >Though many things have changed in the last 70 years, it seems
| as if the stock market still plays the same role and function
| today as it did back then.
|
| Does it, though? The cartoon (which was probably a little naive
| even back when it was made) presents a world where corporations
| have a duty to provide good jobs and to serve the national
| interest in times of crisis. It describes the stock market as
| the mechanism for these corporations to raise money for growth
| and to share their profits with public shareholders. It talks
| about how carefully the NYSE vets the companies going public,
| and how a company must have substantial real assets and profits
| to be considered.
|
| But I would argue that today, the tail is wagging the dog.
| Capital uses the market as a way to aggregate more capital, and
| if it happens to provide some money for growth and some of the
| wealth gets spread around, that's just a happy side effect.
| Those considerations are secondary to the game. Companies go
| public now with virtually no assets other than name
| recognition, and no profit in sight. There are public companies
| with billion-dollar valuations and less than 200 employees.
| There is no implicit or explicit expectation of social value, a
| company is judged solely on its return on capital, a judgment
| that will always be weighted towards those with the most
| capital to begin with. The idea that it contributes to the
| national standard of living, or can provide some value in a
| national emergency, doesn't enter into the discussion at all.
|
| The cartoon is goofy, but at least it has a notion of civic
| obligation that no longer exists.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The point of this cartoon is for the USA to puff out its
| chest about the benefits of capitalism in the age of the Cold
| War. Capitalism vs Communism is the underlying theme of this
| cartoon (though unspoken, we cannot ignore the timeperiod
| this cartoon was made in).
|
| ------
|
| That being said, the cartoon is correct about the
| fundamentals of how the stock market works, and its
| theoretical benefits. I'm sure companies existed back then
| that were terrible, but we gloss over those facts in
| propaganda to make the audience feel better about their
| society.
| vannevar wrote:
| True, I can't disagree. But I think it's an important point
| that when the cartoon was made, the people who made it
| expected that their audience would approve of a message
| that presumed a civil duty for America's biggest
| businesses. Whether they actually lived up to that presumed
| duty, at least they _acknowledged that the duty existed._
| Today, the average citizen no longer expects any civic
| obligation from business. In the years since this cartoon
| was made, they have been trained to accept profit as the
| only legitimate obligation of business.
| phnofive wrote:
| What's missing, in my opinion, is share dilution - do initial
| investors get a say, since they too hope for growth to
| compensate for the lost proportional ownership?
| Kranar wrote:
| Depends on the corporation's bylaws, but generally the board
| of directors issues new shares. Investors get a say in so far
| as they agree to the bylaws and elect the board.
| phnofive wrote:
| Appreciate the response! I was referring to the cartoon,
| though - it's clear why the president/board would want this
| (capital to expand), but less so why the existing
| shareholders would (presumably, in context, increased
| future value or dividends).
| quacked wrote:
| Portions of it are available on YT:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnJCOof2HJk&t=449s
| froh wrote:
| Thanks for the summary, which actually made me have a look.
|
| Regarding the Library of Congress website, it seems to me that
| leverages a well greased global CDN and will serve the video
| just fine.
| zinekeller wrote:
| > I'm not sure if the Library of Congress website can survive
| an influx of hacker-news traffic on their video streaming.
|
| Seems that they use Cloudflare for their video distribution,
| it'll be fine.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| Yup. Scam in plain sight.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >showing off the last 70 years of inflation
|
| Be careful with this point. Inflation is the value relationship
| between money and non-money.
|
| Part of the reason companies raise more now is because they are
| bigger and more profitable, not just because dollars are worth
| less relative to goods.
|
| For example, Ford went public in 1956 on a market cap of $3bn
| (one of the largest in the world at that time) on net income of
| c. $200mn, for a c. 15x P/E ratio.
|
| Today, Ford is worth c. $80bn and its net income is c. $4bn,
| for a P/E of c. 20x.
|
| The only inflation there is the move from 15x to 20x.
|
| EDIT: and to make this point more clearly, new cars have only
| inflated 3x since 1956, even thought Ford is 25x larger.
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=JbBS
| folli wrote:
| So the ticker-tapes (which I only know from old time movies)
| really reported on every single transaction that occurred
| within the stock exchange? I assume that's quite a lot of data
| that was processed, even 70 years ago?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > every single transaction that occurred within the stock
| exchange?
|
| Yes
|
| > I assume that's quite a lot of data that was processed,
| even 70 years ago?
|
| You can pull up daily trading volumes for back then. I'm sure
| they were tremendously less than now since there was no HFT
| and market making was done by human.
|
| EDIT: The New York Stock Exchange in 1954 had the most
| prosperous year since 1933 with its volume of business
| totaling 573,374,622 shares. This compared with 354,851,325
| shares traded in 1953
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/1955/01/01/archives/54-stock-
| market-...
|
| So I'm 1953, not even 1 million shares per day traded on
| average.
| [deleted]
| oliv__ wrote:
| I know they are always a bit naive and overly optimistic but I
| love these war-era cartoons, commercials and "propaganda" art:
| the overwhelming belief in America, capitalism and a better
| future is so contagious, it's like a breath of fresh air in a new
| spring
| quacked wrote:
| I hate the stock market almost as much as I respect it as an
| incredible tool. The further out you can guarantee future rewards
| in exchange for labor and materials, the more prosperous your
| society will be, and we've seen that in spades. The Dutch
| invented the concept of common-stock and became the masters of
| the sea in no time flat; I wouldn't be surprised if the progress
| (if that's what you believe it is) of the Europeans in philosophy
| and government was engaged in a feedback loop with the ability of
| the "common man" to tie his own fortunes into the engines of
| commerce, rather than into his own social status.
|
| At the same time, it feels infuriating that in order to afford
| medicine, clothes, food, shelter, and defense once you're past
| your working prime you must attach your fortunes to companies
| that have very little to do with the actual services you require
| in retirement. Personally, I think that the American middle class
| has been totally taken hostage by Wall Street via the 401(k) and
| the IRA; anything that threatens "market performance" (e.g. a
| series of metrics made up and owned by the market owners)
| threatens their ability to provide for themselves. In this way,
| any serious large-scale action that might mend a social ill is
| off the table if its implementation damages large-scale market
| performance.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| One big issue I have with the market - and not one that I
| really know how to address, is that it seems like it has
| provided an easy mechanism to launder wealth
| intergenerationally that was acquired through incredibly unjust
| means.
|
| Just as a single example, many of the descendants of the
| merchants who made their wealth off of even something as far
| back as the Middle Passage [0] or supporting slavery in the US
| are often in elevated status today (both politically and with
| wealth). Wealth diffuses with time and transactions, but still
| - it spreads outwards from social proximity.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Passage
| Kranar wrote:
| How was the stock market involved in this laundering? At any
| rate, today's markets are quite rigorously monitored so that
| the provenance of any single share is reasonably well
| established.
| AlanSE wrote:
| > At the same time, it feels infuriating that in order to
| afford medicine, clothes, food, shelter, and defense once
| you're past your working prime you must attach your fortunes to
| companies that have very little to do with the actual services
| you require in retirement.
|
| This feels like the worst possible argument against public
| corporations. There's a whole sector of the stock market for
| health care, and you can easily buy funds that only invest in
| that. What other services to retirees need? You will be able to
| find listed companies providing all of those services.
|
| There are some technical imperfections in a basket of equities.
| If your intention is to exactly hedge living costs, then you
| would also seek to own bonds from those companies, much of the
| economy is not public, and so on. There are valid points to be
| found, I don't think these are what you're concerned about.
|
| In the big picture, owning the means of production is the only
| game that makes sense. What's the alternative? The best store
| of value is a collection of things that people are paying for,
| because that's central to the economic definition of value.
| Otherwise, everything is gold or bitcoin.
| ff317 wrote:
| Part of the problem is that most 401Ks have a very limited
| set of investment options. You get a short menu of choices
| arbitrated by a clueless HR person at your company and the
| self-interested financial company that manages the 401K plan:
| a bunch of standard mutual funds and index funds, some are
| semi-targeted (e.g. large-cap vs small-cap, whole-market,
| foreign-vs-domestic, target-date, tech?). If you're lucky,
| there might be a couple of different bond funds, and maybe a
| money market option to park cash temporarily. There's not
| often the flexibility of a regular investment fund (e.g. an
| etrade account) to go after other specific options or
| individual stocks and bonds, or especially any kinds of
| commodities, futures, options, etc.
|
| I get the rationale: it's set up that way so that it's a
| "safer" investing option, because they're afraid people will
| make bad choices and lose their 401K balances. But the
| flipside is you don't get much flexibility in making the
| wisest or most self-interested investment decisions. The 401K
| -managing firms love it though, as they get to sell a bunch
| of funds that are often in-house and have fees, and the real
| free-market-trading investors like it because the 401Ks put a
| bunch of very predictably-timed money into predictably-common
| choices, and they can rely on this to gain a little
| advantage/arbitrage.
| quacked wrote:
| Related: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
|
| That site gets tossed around like candy and I don't think
| every graph they throw up is perfectly explainable by their
| central point, but what the invention of the 401(k) and
| IRA, both of which were released to the public only after
| the gold standard had finally been abandoned, _really_ did
| was to allow wealth managers to pump completely
| unimaginable quantities of money into abstractions of value
| that are not actually related with physical wealth that
| materializes for Americans in the form of skills, a strong
| manufacturing industry, and robust supply chains. Michael
| Burry (Big Short guy) notes that the amount of money stored
| in indexes and funds tracking the S &P 500 are many orders
| of magnitude larger than the money that actually moves
| around between the shares of the S&P 500 companies
| themselves.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > it feels infuriating that in order to afford medicine,
| clothes, food, shelter, and defense once you're past your
| working prime you must attach your fortunes to companies that
| have very little to do with the actual services you require in
| retirement.
|
| This seems like an incredibly weak argument for an incredibly
| good point. Its crazy that you must attach your fortune to
| companies that have very little to do with _you_ in general. A
| wealth manager, or annuity or other similar service (pension)
| seem like a very reasonable (conceptually) place to attach your
| wealth - their job is to provide for your retirement. Saying
| "buy stock market indexes and government debt" seems like a
| very indirect way to hedge your retirement.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-11-22 23:00 UTC)