Only when the outrage gets loud enough to affect their chances for reelection (which happens with a lot of issues, just not this one).
Unfortunately, Hackernews seems to be the only place where security is taken seriously. Probably because we understand the severe collective risks involved to everything from banking to healthcare whereas most people as individuals don't care if say, their credit card number is stolen, since they aren't liable for fraud. It's hard to see the bigger picture if you aren't technical.
I don't think it's fair to say only this website takes it seriously, though perhaps this website is a good cross-section of people that do seem to take it seriously. You can also find those people on reddit, twitter, lesswrong, IRC, etc.
The question is, who's failing to make the whole WORLD care about it? Or at the very least, the politicians? I can count on shitty lobbyists at least ensuring that, like, the economy doesn't fucking burn us alive, because they lose money when that happens. Why aren't the fatcats also getting that about netsec? If the NYSE gets hacked, they stand to lose a lot of money. If someone opens the hoover dam gates through a hack, that's a lot of money lost. We can ignore the morality and privacy issues, and just speak their $$$language$$$ here, and it still doesn't make a lick of sense that politicians aren't eviscerating Equifax right now.
So, are we supposed to like, lobby sense into their heads? I mean, why? Because we're patriots? I guess?
Then again I've got motorcycle riding friends in Houston that don't wear their helmets, and I still have to force people in my backseat to buckle up sometimes, so I don't even know. Why don't people take any kind of safety seriously?
There literally are no similarities between what you described and the original topic.
There was no exponential growth or betting or downsides here. The Jr. bankers billed a metric-ton of hours and made their firms truckloads in fees. They're probably just disappointed all those late nights were essentially for nothing.
Saudi Aramco is still a 1.5 trillion dollar company. Just not a publicly listed one. A public listing wouldn't change the value of the company. This is not some hot high-growth tech IPO that retail investors would clamor over.
Except they weren't. If a junior banker was placed on the Aramco deal team, that tells you they're well regarded. You don't put your C team on the Aramco deal. Furthermore, a client of this calibre brings together powerful people from across the firm and industry. The juniors will have had a chance to network with them. That's huge. (Not to mention, everyone at these firms gets paid salary, benefits and bonuses.)
I'm not harping on this to be mean. Downside management matters. That seems to have gone out the door around cryptocurrencies. These bankers made something if the deal failed and a lot more if it went through. Cryptocurrency investors had no such levers with which to manage downside risk (apart from limiting exposure). Savvy investors (and bankers) get rightfully suspicious at all-or-nothing propositions like the one cryptos collectively pitched.
Certainly, the networking and prestige of being involved in that deal has value. But personally I'd still be disappointed having to stay up preparing a deck until 4am that ultimately led nowhere.
But, again, I'm still a little confused why we're bending over backwards to try to relate this back to crypto somehow? Are there not enough crypto discussions on HN already?
> I'd still be disappointed having to stay up preparing a deck until 4am that ultimately led nowhere
Disappointed but not devastated.
> I'm still a little confused why we're bending over backwards to try to relate this back to crypto somehow?
I think it's one commenter. Unfortunately, it reflects a prevalent (and wrong) hypothesis from the cryptocurrency community that the investment risks inherent to cryptocurrency are normal. They're not.
>A public listing wouldn't change the value of the company. This is not some hot high-growth tech IPO that retail investors would clamor over.
Why would that make a difference? Generally, an asset the same risk/return profile will be more valuable if it's highly liquid, right? Which an IPO would do.
Odd you would think that, considering the US dollar is extremely strong right now relative to other global currencies and has been for the last 5 years (save for last year).
I'd love to hear why you think this, and what information sources you're hearing this from? I've seen this line used equally by right wing political groups as well as left wing crypto anarchists who both seem to lack a basic understanding of how finance works.
Those are both problems that have nothing to do with currency or the economic concept of 'currency devaluation.'
Inflation has barely been present in the US for the last 10 years compared to historical levels.
The reason your healthcare bill and your rent have increased much faster than inflation (I'm guessing you're in the bay area) is because of US federal government failings in the case of healthcare; and in terms of rent the geographic limitations, rapid growth, and local government failings of the area you've chosen to live in.
This is the main issue that both the right wing gold bugs and left wing crypto anarchists don't seem to understand: Steady modest inflation is a good thing.
If there was no inflation everyone would be incentivized to just hold cash under their mattress and not invest into the economy. When you put your money in a CD or money market account hoping to keep up with (or beat) inflation that money then goes to pay payroll for corporations via the commercial paper market. When you put your money into a savings account hoping to generate interest to keep up with inflation your money gets lent to local small businesses and other people to buy mortgages. Inflation creates inertia in the economy.
We don't have an inflation problem. What we have is a wage growth problem. Crypto nor gold bars will ever do anything to solve that. The issue has nothing to do with currency.
just because the USD is strong relative to other currencies doesn't mean there isn't devaluation. Cost of living has not tracked salary increases since 2008.
In Canada it is, yet shelter inflation numbers are almost exactly inline with overall inflation in all regions, regardless of whether prices are up over 100% or not. Reality has no effect on the printed number.
Oh sure, this is explained somewhere, but the point is looking at the numbers as a reflection of reality is a poor idea
Do you trust the inflation index (btw, inflation index != cost of living) which encodes choices by some very privileged people (and has questionable decisions, like hedonic adjustments that often have quite arbitrary factors use to periodically renormalize) to reflect the needs and worries of the median person? Go out onto the street and ask people, not even in SF or NY, and find out if they feel like they're doing better or worse, if they're struggling more or less to stay afloat.
Finally, even if inflation exactly tracks nominal wage growth, i.e. real wage value is zero, that's not enough. You would expect that there are real returns to technological advancement that are a tide that makes all boats rise. If that's not the case it is indicative that the structure of modern economy is such that that a very disproportionate amount of returns to global social and technical innovation are sent to the already-wealthy.
I trust the opinions of experts over anecdotes from random people on the streets. People always complain, no matter how good or bad things are. Ignoring it is always the best thing to do, and instead look at the numbers. Society is so complex these days that many people aren't capable of analyzing their problems.
Total compensation has been growing very steadily, but healthcare costs have been rising and eating much of that, so while compensation rises, much of it goes to healthcare and wage growth becomes anemic.
Real estate policy is the #1 issue in America in my opinion. We aren't building enough houses, we have too many policies designed to inflate home values (because for some dumb reason a house is considered an investment in america), we make rent seeking behavior too easy. This issue is politically unpalatable though, for both parties as it would require a shift away from the "house as an investment" idea that is doing so much damage to our country.
Keep in mind that while "the news" reports only a single "inflation" number, the available data is quite granular and is available for a large number of geographic areas[1]
If you ever find yourself questioning the validity of all the studies indicating how terrible retail investors are at investing...read r/wallstreetbets and realize you and your index funds are still in the minority.
>and realize you and your index funds are still in the minority.
Quite the opposite. Index fund are busy eating the world alive.
If you've got massive money flowing into the top 100 in the index thanks to ETFs the smart money is on companies 101 - 120. Similar risk profiles to the top 100 but their price earnings profile hasn't been distorted yet but the wave of incoming index wave.
Passive is indeed the truth but don't swallow it wholesale...you're just buying into a top 100 self-reinforcing bubble that has no economic backing without realising it.
I'd hardly call that "eating the world alive." The only thing its eating so far is the absurd wealth management fees old school financial advisors used to make.
Also there's about 200 different indexes all slicing up the marketplace in various ways. Not every investor is buying the large cap, cap-weighted index (although most are).
Ultimately, this idea of passive "distorting" the markets just isn't true (also I'm not sure what you mean by "earnings profile"...earnings are set by consumer demand for a company's product, not investor demand for company stock). Active traders set prices, indexes simply follow the prices set by active traders. We are no where near the point where distortions would happen, and if we ever got to that point, there would be massive incentive to profit off of a easily predictable mispricing.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. None of these assertions are wrong.
I have many family members who still have big company pensions from back in the day and also own target date funds in their 401ks so combined with social security income they end up being massively over-allocated to bonds (a pension & SS can be treated as bonds).
The reason value works isn't just behavioral mispricing. Numerous academic studies have shown there is an inherent risk component driving the persistently larger returns found in "value" stocks.
Behavioral mispricing can be arbitraged. Risk cannot be arbitraged away.
Value still works and will always work due to this added risk component.
