Global financial system implosion begins

[Idaho]

A bitcoin volatility index has been launched - so you can have all the fun of trading using a derivative based on a derivative based on a something that doesn’t exist

Can I bet on that through my CFD platform?

 

[mauvais]

also above 2008 levels of debt in the UK

What do you think this tells us? (my opinion: nothing)

 

[ska invita]

What do you think this tells us? (my opinion: nothing)

my opinion: high debt level is a bad thing, and the higher the badder, and the more fragile the economy, and the weaker peoples ability to defend themselves against the next system shock is, and the more the system is propping itself up on consumer debt, and there are limits to what debt can be taken on before consumer demand/capacity falls off and recession hits

 

[Crispy]

It makes fuck all difference really, when you zero the Y axis

 

[mauvais]

my opinion: high debt level is a bad thing, and the higher the badder, and the more fragile the economy, and the weaker peoples ability to defend themselves against the next system shock is, and the more the system is propping itself up on consumer debt, and there are limits to what debt can be taken on before consumer demand falls off and recession hits

Sure. But we will have a base level of household indebtedness in the UK for the foreseeable future, based on the average balance on a mortgage, and I challenge you to put a number on what's sustainable. The level doesn't tell you a thing about the quality of that debt, much less the risk management behind it. If it didn't include long term debt it might be more indicative, but not much.

We're also hearing that the latest subprime bubble isn't personal/household debt but is business/corporate instead, so even a calm situation here doesn't mean there isn't a crisis.

 

[ska invita]

Sure. But we will have a base level of household indebtedness in the UK for the foreseeable future, based on the average balance on a mortgage, and I challenge you to put a number on what's sustainable. The level doesn't tell you a thing about the quality of that debt, much less the risk management behind it. If it didn't include long term debt it might be more indicative, but not much.

Ive got no idea what a sustainable level is but if it reaches a historical high i err towards thinking, probably not good.
though as was pointed out on the last page it may not be a historical high after all.

Can you find a graph that shows historic uk personal/household debt adjusted for inflation and up to the present day? Id really like to see it! have googled but cant find, but maybe im not knowledgeable enough to search properly

 

[kabbes]

It makes fuck all difference really, when you zero the Y axis

View attachment 158776

It’s true enough except that cliff edges can mean marginal relative changes can have dramatic impacts

 

[not-bono-ever]

Relative rather than absolute / different tranches have different drivers and impact- not much time n that graph tells me anything tbh

 

[yield]

Davos Billionaires Keep Getting Richer
20 January 2019
The world’s elite have prospered since the financial crash.

David Rubenstein has doubled his fortune since 2009. Jamie Dimon has more than tripled his net worth. And Stephen Schwarzman has increased his wealth six-fold.

It’s a remarkable showing given the economic and political tumult of the past decade, from Lehman Brothers to Brexit to Donald Trump. The fortunes of a dozen 2009 Davos attendees have soared by a combined $175 billion, even as median U.S. household wealth has stagnated, a Bloomberg analysis found.

 

[teqniq]

The super rich at Davos are scared of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's tax proposal targeting the wealthy

Dow falls more than 350 points amid fears the global economy may be slowing down

 

[kabbes]

If reality was exactly reflected by all the stock market falls people have posted news about on this thread, netted off only by the posted-about gains, the Dow would be at about -10,000 by now.

 

[kabbes]

This is the Dow in the last month, by the way, notwithstanding today’s 1.59% drop



It took a tanking before Christmas, mind, but it’s still now only at about where it was a year ago even despite that. It’s way up on two years.

 

[TruXta]

This is the Dow in the last month, by the way, notwithstanding today’s 1.59% drop

View attachment 159460

It took a tanking before Christmas, mind, but it’s still now only at about where it was a year ago even despite that. It’s way up on two years.

So you're saying buy shares?

 

[Crispy]

So you're saying buy shares?

2 years ago

 

[ffsear]

The Dow's not really a good indicator, Its a weighted index of only 30 companies only and should not be confused with overall economic prosperity.

 

[TruXta]

2 years ago

Long term stocks outperform pretty much any other investment surely.

 

[kabbes]

The Dow's not really a good indicator, Its a weighted index of only 30 companies only and should not be confused with overall economic prosperity.

It’s the one people keep quoting as evidence of disaster though

 

[kabbes]

So you're saying buy shares?

Depends if you’re betting capital will continue to make profits.

Totally from memory, but ISTR dividend yields are typically c. 3% in the FTSE 100. That’s a decent level of income. Equity funds that concentrate solely on income can generate over 4%. If that’s your focus and you’re not planning to sell, who cares what the short term pricing ups and downs do?

 

[kabbes]

Long term stocks outperform pretty much any other investment surely.

If and when I have money to invest, I’m certainly planning to put it into stocks rather than getting 1% in a savings account.

 

[TruXta]

Depends if you’re betting capital will continue to make profits.

Totally from memory, but ISTR dividend yields are typically c. 3% in the FTSE 100. That’s a decent level of income. Equity funds that concentrate solely on income can generate over 4%. If that’s your focus and you’re not planning to sell, who cares what the short term pricing ups and downs do?

Yeah. I'd think that capital that isn't making a profit won't stay capital for very long.

 

[yield]

Redefining globalisation on the slippery slopes of Davos
FT. The editorial board. January 23, 2019 (paywalled Financial Times /content/a4a267e8-1e4b-11e9-b126-46fc3ad87c65)
Business and political elite should seriously debate the capitalist model

Though the snows of Davos may obscure their view, the political and business elite attending 2019’s World Economic Forum clearly need some visionary thinking. Gone are the days when the annual shindig in the Swiss mountain resort was a chance for self-congratulation. This year, the widely shared concern is that the system of globalised capitalism dominant since the Reagan-Thatcher years is on a steep and slippery slope.

The WEF has modestly adopted “Globalisation 4.0” as this year’s summit theme. Some may wonder how the world ever missed “Globalisation 3.0”. At any rate, Davos has rightly not given up on globalisation, even if this year’s attendees have a distinctly populist streak, such as newly inaugurated President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

The reality is that globalisation faces its most serious challenge in decades. The post-Lehman crash of 2008-09 shook capitalism to its roots. It is now under intellectual assault, with the figure who used to be seen as the leader of the free world, the US president, railing against it. The role of global corporations has come under special scrutiny. Mr Trump’s America First policies raise awkward questions about where their loyalties really lie.

Opposition to globalisation has gone from being a fringe phenomenon — violent protests at G8 meetings or the Occupy Movement — to a driving force of populism, from Mr Trump to Brexit to Matteo Salvini in Italy and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Policymakers and business leaders in Davos need to find ways of changing behaviour to address the concerns of those disadvantaged by globalisation. Yet they must also preserve the benefits it has brought, especially in raising millions of people in the developing world out of poverty.

The choice is not a binary one, between letting markets rip on the one hand and throwing up protectionist barriers on the other. Public policy has an important role. There is more that national governments, along with international institutions such as the EU, can do to make globalisation work better. Governments have plenty of scope to adjust tax policies to promote more inclusive capitalism. Recent decades have seen shifts towards indirect taxes, in taxation — cuts in top rates of income tax and corporation tax — which have greatly increased inequality. Shifts from income to consumer taxes have had similar effect.

Rootless corporations should be taxed at the point of economic activity to prevent them shifting vast sums of money away from the countries in which they operate. Encouraging signs have been seen recently at the international level, with the European Commission enforcing competition policy. In the US, the mood is ripe for antitrust and regulation reform with regard to the activities of Big Tech.

The multinational companies themselves need to recognise the backlash they have helped to generate. Technological change is today’s revolutionary force — and tomorrow’s. But its transformative impact on the global economy cannot be divorced from its effects on politics, society and human relations. It is, meanwhile, hardly revolutionary to urge multinationals to think local rather than global. It was long ago that one captain of industry came up with the term “glocal” to describe how best international bosses might think. Added to that, they need to revisit their assumptions that shareholder value should be the organising principle of the capitalist model.

In short, and to borrow the words of Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, in Tuesday’s FT, “we don’t need to start again, but we do need to change the way we do things.”

 

[grit]

Long term stocks outperform pretty much any other investment surely.

Not individual stocks, market indexes do though

 

[TruXta]

Not individual stocks, market indexes do though

Yeah, that's what I meant.

 

[yield]

Book Review: The Finance Curse: How Global Finance is Making Us All Poorer by Nicholas Shaxson
23/01/19

Until the Next Crash
18/01/19
Adam Tooze. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World. Viking, 2018.

The populist revolt is not against the crash, or even its immediate aftermath, but against the nature of the recovery.

 

[ringo]

Not individual stocks, market indexes do though

And some individual stocks, by a long way, but equally some go down in value dramatically too.

 

[grit]

And some individual stocks, by a long way,

Yes exactly it’s essentially immaterial as they are impossible to identify reliably. Technical and fundamental analysis of stocks have been proven to fail to beat the overall market. As bogle said don’t look for the needle, buy the haystack

 

[ringo]

Yes exactly it’s essentially immaterial as they are impossible to identify reliably. Technical and fundamental analysis of stocks have been proven to fail to beat the overall market. As bogle said don’t look for the needle, buy the haystack

I've been having a go over the last year. Done alright so far with individual stocks in areas/industries I know about. I may feel less smug if it all goes pear shaped and I lose the lot though

 

[grit]

I've been having a go over the last year. Done alright so far with individual stocks in areas/industries I know about. I may feel less smug if it all goes pear shaped and I lose the lot though

I play around with it generally most legal weed companies on nasdaq, it’s going well but I treat it like bookies. The novelty of weed stocks is fun

 

[Idaho]

Long term stocks outperform pretty much any other investment surely.

They do, but more reliably on the timescale of a big corporation rather than a single punter wanting a secure retirement.

 

[Ming]

Book Review: The Finance Curse: How Global Finance is Making Us All Poorer by Nicholas Shaxson
23/01/19

Until the Next Crash
18/01/19
Adam Tooze. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World. Viking, 2018.

Loved Treasure Islands. Quite an eye opener.