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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   22029 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

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I don't have a sophisticated enough opinion on how GDP figures are collected and controlled to speak on them directly, but I agree that as an indicator they don't mean a whole lot for me as an individual citizen. Sure, overall the economy may be trending up, but it's clear that it's a tale of two cities. As far as I can tell, some sectors, mainly tech (AI) and finserv, are carrying the rest, and recent economic gains haven't been felt by most consumers. This year, the only sector to really gain jobs has been healthcare, which is hardly an economic engine more than it is an indicator of our aging population. Time will tell if these GDP gains are sustainable across sectors or just reverberations of the continued siren song of AI.

As far as I can tell, some sectors, mainly tech (AI) and finserv, are carrying the rest, and recent economic gains haven't been felt by most consumers.

In terms of GDP, consumer spending has increased in both Q2 and Q3. In Q2 it was finance and tech at the top, but nondurable goods increased by quite a bit as did professional and technical services and durable goods. In Q3 the top was health care services and recreational goods and vehicles, mostly "information processing equipment", but the detailed info won't be out until mid-January.

Gotcha, thanks for the extra detail. Interesting to hear consumer spending has had some gains despite the "vibecession."

The vibecession is mostly a vibe among democrats, indicating at the very least that it isn't a general poor economy- it might be localized or something, but you'd expect everyone to have a negative outlook if it there were truly broad-based economic problems the official metrics are missing.

I'm a rightwing chud who voted for Trump 3 times and I've got bad vibes about the economy too, but maybe that's because I work in tech and am waiting for the AI bubble to pop.

I feel similarly, but "bubble" always feels like a Russell's Conjugation: I am getting in on the ground floor in a promising new technology, you are investing, and that guy over there is inflating a bubble that is obviously going to pop and make a mess for the rest of us.

I'm a visionary, you're an early adopter, he's buying a lottery ticket.

Is that even irrational necessarily? If the 'fair value' of the opportunity is say $1 a share and the founder's getting in at 10 cents, the VC is getting in at 50 cents and the general public is getting in at $2 it can still be a good bet for the first 2 but also a stupid lottery ticket for the general public.

The idea of a Russell Conjugation is using words with different connotations to describe the same thing, which in this case would be using three different ways to describe overweighting one’s portfolio toward a new technology at the same stage of the investment lifecycle.

Differing equity valuations at different stages of the investment lifecycle is orthogonal.

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