But the market in the real world is increasingly divorced from actual profits from the company actually making stuff and selling it to actual customers And the less connected real profits and stock prices are the more likely it is we're in a bubble
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Replying to @arthur_affect @chton and
That's why the Bitcoin boom is so upsetting, because Bitcoin actually is like what Ellie is saying, it's like Dutch tulip bulbs, expensive only for being expensive without actually producing anything
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Replying to @arthur_affect @chton and
And the fact that investors jumped on Bitcoin and made it into a bubble is a sign we may be in a bubble economy generally
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I agree on this, but that's sort of the point, too. The difference between bitcoin and stock isn't that big, they're both pure speculation markets, and unrestricted speculation leads to bubble and pop cycles.
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Replying to @chton @arthur_affect and
Even beyond Arthur's point about how stocks are supposed to pay dividends over time, they're also worth something more concrete than bitcoin - namely, some infinitesimal fraction of the company's assets, which are physical objects for many companies
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Replying to @LizardOrman @arthur_affect and
That's true, but that's the part that's impossible to cash out on. A share represents ownership, but ownership can't be exchanged for those goods so the worth isn't defined by that. The worth is defined by "how much money would people give to be the owner of a bit of Amazon".
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Replying to @chton @arthur_affect and
It would be cashed out like that in the case of bankruptcy, after all the other secured creditors are paid back, AFAIK
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Replying to @LizardOrman @arthur_affect and
That's true, but that's basically the failure state of the system, and you'll only be getting a fraction of what the share was considered to be worth, especially with overvalued stock. I wouldn't call it cashing out if you can't control when it'll happen.
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Replying to @chton @arthur_affect and
Sure, I'm just saying that stocks have some larger "intrinsic value" - being representative of slices of the value of physical objects - compared to bitcoin being completely ephemeral and fiat
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Replying to @LizardOrman @arthur_affect and
I'm not sure I fully agree, but I see what you mean. Overall though, we're perfectly happy using fiat currencies in daily life anyway. There's nothing backing the USD or Euro either. They're ephemeral too. (For clarity: I'm not defending bitcoin. fuck that noise.)
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Even physical objects only have value if you could eventually use them for *something*, or sell them to someone who would get some use from them Nothing actually has "intrinsic" value when you get right down to it, philosophically
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