Friday, April 29, 2022

Links — 29 Apr 2022 Part 2

The Vineyard of the Saker
Empire of Lies Eager to Receive Mr. Sarmat’s Business Card
Pepe Escobar
http://thesaker.is/empire-of-lies-eager-to-receive-mr-sarmats-business-card/

Michael Hudson, Katie Halper and Aaron Maté (video, transcript coming — this is linked to in a separate post with no transcript)
Sociopath Neocons Sacrifice Ukrainians and Global Poor – Economist Michael Hudson
Useful Idiots
http://thesaker.is/michael-hudson-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/

Sputnik International (Russian state-sponsored media)
No, This Is Not a Parody: Watch Unearthed TikTok Video of Biden’s New Head of Disinformation Bureau [Nina Jankowicz]
https://sputniknews.com/20220429/no-this-is-not-a-parody-watch-unearthed-tiktok-video-of-bidens-new-head-of-disinformation-bureau-1095155884.html

Mint Press News
The NATO to TikTok Pipeline: Why is TikTok Employing So Many National Security Agents?
Alan Macleod
https://www.mintpressnews.com/nato-tiktok-pipeline-why-tiktok-employing-national-security-agents/280336/

Defense One
The Backlash to DHS's Anti-Disinformation Board Shows How US Law Is Falling Behind the Problem ("falling behind" or unclear?)
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2022/04/backlash-dhss-anti-disinformation-board-shows-how-us-law-falling-behind-problem/366345/

AntiWar
Pentagon Official Says US Sees No Threat of Russia Using Nuclear Weapons
Dave DeCamp
https://news.antiwar.com/2022/04/29/pentagon-official-says-us-sees-no-threat-of-russia-using-nuclear-weapons/

The Silkworth Post
The West Misled the Public on Russia’s War Strategy, and the Results Are Starting to show in Donbass






14 comments:

Footsoldier said...

When you open up trading economics and chart SP500 for the last 50 years or even further back. What does the chart really look like from 2010 onwards and how would you rationalise what has happened ?

What would be the story be behind such a huge anomaly. Especially when up to 2010 all the same metrics were used to determine stock prices ?


There have been periods in history when there has been constant government spending before and it was more equally shared throughout the economy. The US ran trade surpluses. All things considered how many pockets has the increased spending since 2010 ended up in. When inequality has never been more rampant?


Part of that huge anomaly in the chart happened under Trump. The Trump effect. What did be actually do nothing special really a lot of it was a bag of wind?


Now chart the Fed Funds rate for the last 50 years or longer is that the reason for the huge anomaly?


Now looking at Japan's interest rate and stock market it showed the exact same huge anomaly between 1983 and 1990 and then over the next 20 years it ended up back were it started in 1983. Will that be the effect on the US stock market and what they call turning Japanese ?


Some people will look at the US stock market from 2010 to 2022 and say there isn't even an anomaly and that growth is completely normal and consistent with the history of the market. As financial capitalism has become so fraudulent and corrupt that will be the new normal.


However when I lay out the history of the market I get a twinge in my knee that says that is not normal. The time will come for traders to short it ?


Would anybody really be that surprised if over the next decade or so It ended up closer to 2010 levels than 2022 ?

Maybe not because it Trump wins again the market will continue to move in a very steep upward fashion all on a bag of wind.

So what is the stock market telling us, what does it reflect and is it telling the truth. Why does it look like nothing that has been see before in the complete history of the United States ?





Footsoldier said...

I don't have a dog in the fight when I look at the last 10 years of the market. I'd rather travel around America in a car for a year to get the true picture of what is happening in the country.


I'm just throwing things out there to try and find a convincing story for Mount Everest suddenly appearing out of no where and creating a shadow over the whole history of the market. Why it looks normal to them.




Peter Pan said...

Why don't you look at metrics that describe the life outcomes of ordinary people?

Peter Pan said...

But yeah, I suppose a road trip would be more interesting.

Footsoldier said...

The metrics haven't really changed, the data that is released on a monthly and quarterly basis has always been released.


Would you say America is in better shape than the 1950's and 60's ?



Yet, here we are with mount Everest looming large since 2010 nearly moving up in a straight line in the markets.


It doesn't look right never mind feel right in households.


Footsoldier said...

Is there a massive disconnect with reality or is there a real story out there to explain it ?


Especially when very similar stories could be told throughout American history that didn't have the Mount Everest effect on the market ?


Has the corruption and fraud now embedded in financial capitalism with more hedge funds than ever and tax avoidance than ever, more shadow banking than ever caused it and this is the new normal ?



Footsoldier said...

If Trump stands and wins he won't do that much different than any other Republican has done over the last 60 years ?


Yet the market will still zoom up in just about a straight line for as long as he is there. Households won't be any better off ?











Footsoldier said...

The profits are going into fewer and fewer hands as time passes by. The data shows this phenomenon.


Footsoldier said...

You could make a case in technology alone and the tech markets are driving it. A story could be told there ?


But again throughout history there has been many technological break through that didn't cause a Mount Everest in the history of the market ?


Peter Pan said...

Major parts of finance are an abstraction. Only good for making money.

Ahmed Fares said...

Footsoldier,

The profits are going into fewer and fewer hands as time passes by. The data shows this phenomenon.

Yes, this is because genius is now the scarce resource.

The paper defines genius labor as comprising the top 3 percent of all workers. Their model predicts that in 2012, this 3 percent commanded 25 percent of labor income from US non-financial corporations, a figure that was validated by empirical data. The income of the top 3 percent is likely higher now, given our continuing technology advances. This is evident in the large salaries and bonuses that AI experts are able to command.

The Productivity Paradox: Digital Abundance and Scarce Genius

This quote from an NBER abstract:

Digital versions of labor and capital can be reproduced much more cheaply than their traditional forms. This increases the supply and reduces the marginal cost of both labor and capital. What then, if anything, is becoming scarcer? We posit a third factor, ‘genius’, that cannot be duplicated by digital technologies. Our approach resolves several macroeconomic puzzles. Over the last several decades, both real median wages and the real interest rate have been stagnant or falling in the United States and the World. Furthermore, shares of income paid to labor and capital (properly measured) have also decreased. And despite dramatic advances in digital technologies, the growth rate of measured output has not increased. No competitive neoclassical two-factor model can reconcile these trends. We show that when increasingly digitized capital and labor are sufficiently complementary to inelastically supplied genius, innovation augmenting either of the first two factors can decrease wages and interest rates in the short and long run. Growth is increasingly constrained by the scarce input, not labor or capital. We discuss microfoundations for genius, with a focus on the increasing importance of superstar labor. We also consider consequences for government policy and scale sustainability.

Digital Abundance and Scarce Genius: Implications for Wages, Interest Rates, and Growth

Ahmed Fares said...

This just popped up in an RSS feed:

Although one person’s income may be a hundred or a thousand times greater than another’s, it is of course very doubtful that one person is a hundred or a thousand times more intelligent or works a hundred or a thousand times as hard. But, again, input is not the measure of value. Results are. In a multibillion dollar corporation, one person’s business decisions can easily make a difference of millions – or even billions – of dollars, compared to someone else’s decisions.

—… is from page 151 of Thomas Sowell’s 2008 book, Economic Facts and Fallacies (original emphases):

Peter Pan said...

J.K Rowling decided to write a book. A publisher decided to publish it. Cha-ching!

Peter Pan said...

Good managers cost a lot of money.
Bad managers cost you your business.