NullHypothesis
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User ID: 2718
NullHypothesis
10d ago
NullHypothesis
17d ago
One day you'll be old too, so I'd be cautious of discounting old people as mostly just a burden.
Funnily enough this isn't a new idea. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of the Futurist movement of the early 20th century asserted in his Manifesto of Futurism the idea that the old were useless and that it was the young with creativity, strength, and innovation.
The oldest of us is thirty: so we have at least a decade for finishing our work. When we are forty, other younger and stronger men will probably throw us in the wastebasket like useless manuscripts—we want it to happen!
He was 32 when the manifest was published. The guy lived to 68 and went on to fight in both world wars, enter politics, write books and poems, have a family, and continue to advocate for futurism. So doesn't seem like he upheld this portion of his manifesto... otherwise he would've stepped out of the way after he hit 40. Its easy to demand others do something until you also have to do the same.
Anyways if we want to actually tackle what utility old people can provide, I'm going to say the nuclear family structure has been detrimental to a role old people have played for most of human history. Older people in an extended family structure can provide support for the family through housework, taking care of the children, companionship, and yes, knowledge counts too. Also, it is older folk that is going to have the most knowledge of family history and pedigree. For a lot of people knowing their family and history gives meaning and a sense of legacy and purpose in context of the wider world. ChatGPT is not going to have information about your family history. It should also be the role of older people to act as a glue that keeps the wider family connected. They have the time and pre-existing relationships to maintain the network of family and having access to such a network provides value. ChatGPT is not going to provide that network. Older people can also fill less desirable jobs and roles that need volunteers.
Consider all the inventions, works of art and literature, businesses, etc that have been created and developed by people in their older ages. Is the rate lower than the rate at which younger people create these? Obviously yes, but your claim was that the elderly will never do anything for the human race. It's also likely the success of work produced by old people come from having many years worth of experience in life. Do you think JRR Tolkien was capable of writing Lord of the Rings in his 20s? If yes, why didn't he do it in his 20s? He began his most famous work at around 62. Also, the average age of a successful startup founder is 45. This is after filtering out small businesses with no intention of growing large. Should the group most likely to have a successful startup not reap the benefits of their risk and effort in their old age? Why would anyone bother taking that risk if they aren't allowed to do so?
Also, does legacy mean nothing to you? Would you not like to have grandchildren, maybe greatgrandchildren and see to their growth and success? You don't think you'll be able to provide them any value other than your previously accumulated material wealth? Do you believe that you would serve them better by dying and giving them an inheritance than guiding their growth?
I'm not fully discounting your complaints either, because things like advances in medicine has caused older people to live longer than they used to which has increased the strain on social security. Couple that with less people having children and this is one of the great pressing problems of the 21st century. Personally I'd restrict voting power to adults that pay taxes and that'll probably address a good chunk of the issues you point out. Maybe even have it proportional to the amount you are taxed up to a cap. But I don't think "clearing" out old people is the solution. What exactly do you mean by "clearing" out old people anyway? Make it illegal for everyone over 40 to have a job? Let them starve to death? Mandatory assisted death over 60? It's not like basic resources are an issue - we currently grow enough food to feed 10 billion people, and if people aren't having kids then eventually the population is going to start shrinking. You might think old people are getting the in the way of young people, and to an extent that may be true, but is that the main factor?
For example, lets consider the high price of housing and rent. A common sentiment I see online is that the boomers are hoarding all the property so young people cannot afford homes. But is that really the main issue? The cities with the worst housing markets are the ones that tend to have the most restrictions and regulations on housing and rent. In a city like New York, rent control leads to a lot of empty apartments because it's cheaper for the owners to leave it empty than to spend the money necessary to renovate it to a livable standard from updated codes in NYC. LA has restrictions on the size of apartments and in San Francisco you can spend years waiting for a permit because a study has to be done on the environmental impact your new building will have on the local bird population before you can begin construction. That's not really an issue with the existence of old people holding homes as much as it is an issue with government mandated regulations making it harder to increase supply of housing. The homes older folks tend to live in are also cheaper homes in LCOL areas where their money can go further, while young people are more likely to be competing for homes in more expensive cities where there is more opportunities in their career. I haven't crunched the numbers to see what has the bigger impact but my gut feeling is that the restriction on housing supply due to not being able to construct enough new homes is a bigger factor than the housing supply being constrained due to old people buying up all the homes.
NullHypothesis
18d ago
Do you engage in active trading, and if so have you consistently beat market average returns over a long period of time? How long have you been profitable?
If you do, how much time did you invest in learning before the effort was financially worth it? How much time do you spend now? At what size of your portfolio did it become an activity that became worth spending your time on (if we exclude it being an activity you do as a hobby).
Nobody would accept the possibility of performing surgery or any other skilled work without serious training, but people seem to expect to be able to do well in the markets without educating themselves and obtaining the tools.
Yes, but we can see clear evidence that people do put in the effort and become actual doctors and surgeons. I haven't encountered in my personal life anyone that day trades for a living. The previous VP of tech at my company did day trade, but considering he was still working as the VP of tech I get the feeling it was more of a hobby for him than anything else. Amongst the people who that maintain an online presence related to some form of active trade I found their success dubious or shady (often their online presence is a funnel to some sort of course which is their actual wealth generator). Cameron Ross is a name that gets thrown around as someone who successfully day traded but he engages in very risky trades and I haven't found evidence of anyone being able to replicate his success after taking his courses. On the contrary he had to settle with the FTC after they got sued for misleading his students about the success of following his courses.
Of course since trading is something so easy to get into the failure rates are highly inflated. I'm willing to accept that at certain markets and with enough retail investors playing the field you could get some sort of advantage by being more intelligent and disciplined, and that there could be retail investors with strategies that only work at a small scale that allow them to making a living off of trading. I'm looking for some actual stats on success rates though since there are plenty of other ventures, careers, side hustles etc that have more concrete evidence of success for a given level of effort. Some people have told me it takes on average 2 years before day trading becomes profitable but they didn't provide me with any evidence and the fact that they weren't day trading full time doesn't instill much confidence in that number.
Since we have this weekly thread now and the Motte has a lot intelligent autists I figured I might be able to get some actual perspectives from successful active traders (if there are any here).
Just saying put in more effort if you want to get good at something doesn't mean much, that's just obvious. Becoming a surgeon takes 13 to 15 years. A lawyer takes 7 years. You can land an entry level software engineer role if you dedicate 6-24 months of intense study. What's the average effort threshold for active trading, to say, beat the minimum wage if you had a portfolio of 1 million dollars compared to just passive investing? Last thing I want to do is spend 1-2 years on something that won't yield good results.
NullHypothesis
20d ago
Has anyone here had any success actively trading over a long period of time (at least 10-15 years) and beat the average market return of 10% to 11.5% over that time period? Do you have confidence you will continue to beat market, and how much time and effort do you spend actively trading? If you are making a living actively investing (off your own portfolio, not managing other peoples money, what was the approximate size of your portfolio where it was feasible?
If you do active trading, do you also active trade in your IRA?
My thought is that for most people, active trading is an exercise in futility, and the data seems to back it up. Nearly all retail investors that actively trade don't beat the market average (or even lose money), and even like 70-90% of professionally managed funds don't beat the S&P 500 each year. Over a longer period of time, the percentage drops even more suggesting those funds were just lucky.
Every other week I hear coworkers/friends/people in discord servers I'm in talking about stocks, but I can't help but feel like they're mostly gambling rather than having a system that actually works. Some of them have had successes beating the market but they've also been only trading for like 2 years. I'm always wondering if it's like a gambler bragging about his wins but never sharing his losses (but at least in the stock market the expected returns are positive). Comparison is the thief of joy as the sayings goes so I guess it really doesn't matter how other's are doing on their finances as long as you personally are doing okay, but every once in a while I can't help but feel like maybe I ought to take some time to look more into individual stocks and see if I could do better. But at the same time, for someone in my age bracket I'm doing fine, so maybe I don't need to try to do better in this area, and I can put my mental effort towards other things.
Personally I have about 6% of my portfolio in individual stocks, 1% in crypto and the rest in various index funds. I'm thinking of just selling all the individual stocks and then not having to worry about my stocks ever again, the only reason I haven't sold them is because a good chunk of them are in SAAS and security tech companies who's valuation is lower because of the AI boom, and I'm hoping they recover since my belief is that AI has not yet provided meaningful advantages in those areas.
NullHypothesis
20d ago
My first thought was inflation might explain a good chunk of it but the chart on wikipedia indicates the increase in USAID outpaces inflation (11.8 billion in 2001 should be equal to $21.13 billion in 2024), and also seems like USAID funds really started increasing in 2021. Also that 23 billion is the average after accounting for inflation in 2023 dollars. Wikipedia also says 2023 was an exception year with $16 billion in funds for Ukraine but even accounting for that 2023 had 43.79 - 16 = 27.79 billion which is above the average of 23 billion.
Considering under which admin USAID funding really ramped up I think it's fair to conclude it would've likely kept going up if Kama was president.
I don't think this is a great example, because Charles E Little John harmed members of both parties, and the stated reasoning for his conviction is not because he leaked Trump's tax records, but because he leaked the tax records of thousands.
If a member of government controlled by party A does something that harms both members of Party A and Party B (which includes many of the wealthiest members of both parties), then party A convicting that person to me doesn't seem the same as party A convicting someone that did an action that mostly harms members of party B with little harm to members of party A.
If Charles had only leaked Trump's record, would he have received the maximum penalty? Would he have even been prosecuted during the Biden era? Would he have been pardoned by Biden if he did face any penalty?
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