BSc, MSc
BSc, MSc
Mark Herschberg, author of The Career Toolkit
https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com/
BSc, MSc
Commentary From the Sidelines of history
Originally posted by Paul McKenna:
Mark,
Sorry to ask you such a rookie question, but since you are the genius around here.. what do you mean when you say "implosion of economy"?? Does it signal a depression?
Now look at the Dow and S&P 500. Did we really create that much value so quickly? I do believe value was created, but not as much as we think. Combine this with the globalization of certain industries leading to increased competition with the US (whether this is viable long term or not doesn't matter, money will be selected non-US endeavors in the short term), and the US is overpriced.
Originally posted by Robin Davies:
The US economy NO
The I.T Sector Yes
Don't believe everything you read, how would they know!
Often the most important part of the news is what they didn't tell.
Originally posted by Tim Holloway:
[QB]
I lost a lot of respect for Alan Greenspan the other day. One of the things he stated was that we need more education, especially math skills. I guess that that little stint I did right before being laid off for 2 years involving solving 4 partial simultaneous differential equations (Black-Sholes forward interest rate projections) wasn't math-skilled enough.![]()
The theory I have heard concerning increase in math and science skills goes something like this:
For a while, those of us in technology have benefited from the aversion to math and science by the general population of the US. Because the majority of young people don't like the subject, few major in it in college. The creates a situation where there are few american engineers, which results in our receiving a higher starting salary than the average college graduate. The downside to this is that as our salaries have increased, the incentive to offshore or import foriegn workers has increased. If we get a larger percentage of American children and young people interested in, and comfortable with, math/science you will see a greater number of math/science/engineering majors in college, and as a result, a greater number of mathematicians, scientist, and engineers entering the marketplace. This would result in a greater supply of engineers, thus a lowering of the average starting salary of U.S. engineers closer to that of the average college graduate. This would decrease some of the incentive to offshore work to other countries.
I know people will argue that we will never be able to compete with the $5 an hour Senior Software engineer in bangalore. However, I have been hearing from friends of mine in India how everything is getting so expensive and salaries are skyrocketing for developers. These two factors, our salaries going down and their's going up, would slow the offshoring process. Furthermore, our salaries don't have to reach their's. We have some additional padding in that there is an increase in cost and decrease in efficiency when a project is being done 10,000 miles away, in a place with a 12 hour time difference. Even now, certain companies are begining to see the scars from being bitten on the ass by offshoring. I don't know if it will play out the way I said, but it may.
Jon
SCJP<br/>
"I study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy in order to give their children a right to study painting poetry and music."<br />--John Adams
Originally posted by Robin Davies:
If there is a great depression what does that mean in general in relation to houses and jobs?
Originally posted by Paul McKenna:
Sorry to ask you such a rookie question, but since you are the genius around here.. what do you mean when you say "implosion of economy"?? Does it signal a depression?
Originally posted by Eleison Zeitgeist:
If there is an "implosion of economy" for the US, it will take everyone else down. I don't see it. I.e., no matter where you put your money, it will be screwed....
Originally posted by Don Stadler:
Mark, you are linking to charts which show the rises in absolute scale, not log scale.
BSc, MSc
Originally posted by Robin Davies:
John Mc Donald Quote
"We have some additional padding in that there is an increase in cost and decrease in efficiency when a project is being done 10,000 miles away, in a place with a 12 hour time difference. Even now, certain companies are begining to see the scars from being bitten on the ass by offshoring. I don't know if it will play out the way I said, but it may."
If a project is outsourced, it can be beneficial to many organisations, as it gives them the ability of having the project worked on in a 24 hour time frame!
Often the most important part of the news is what they didn't tell.
Originally posted by Chris G Lee:
Would it be too much to ask of you to share what your money manager says? I am also increasingly becoming aware of this and would like as much input as possible.
Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
Really it's more of a comparison to other crashes which is what scares me.
Originally posted by Robin Davies:
[b]If a project is outsourced, it can be beneficial to many organisations, as it gives them the ability of having the project worked on in a 24 hour time frame!
BSc, MSc
Originally posted by Robin Davies:
John Mc Donald Quote
"We have some additional padding in that there is an increase in cost and decrease in efficiency when a project is being done 10,000 miles away, in a place with a 12 hour time difference. Even now, certain companies are begining to see the scars from being bitten on the ass by offshoring. I don't know if it will play out the way I said, but it may."
Robin Davies Qoute
If a project is outsourced, it can be beneficial to many organisations, as it gives them the ability of having the project worked on in a 24 hour time frame!
SCJP<br/>
"I study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy in order to give their children a right to study painting poetry and music."<br />--John Adams
originally posted by Jon
A 24 hour time frame can cause major problems when the coders are working in one 8 hour block of that time frame, and the decision makers and users of the software are working in another. Problems that could be fixed in a matter of hours take days to solve. I've seen it way too many times before. The problems are magnified 10 fold when there is a single person acting as a liason between the 2 groups. I've seen situations where that liasion goes on vacation and some problem occurs with the system, and neither the liason, nor the programmers, can be contacted to resolve the problem. As a result the system must be shut down to prevent further problems.
The longer I do this (and I haven't been doing this for very long ) the more I realize how critical it is to have open communication channels between the developers of software and those who are requesting it. If I have a problem with the system, I need to be able to walk to your desk and talk to you about it, or at the very least, call you on the phone to give you a discription, not send an email to some guy who will pass the messege off to you 12 hours later, when you get to work.
Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
Hi folks,
quoteriginally posted by Eleison Zeitgeist:
If there is an "implosion of economy" for the US, it will take everyone else down. I don't see it. I.e., no matter where you put your money, it will be screwed....
Try shorting. :-)
--Mark
Originally posted by Eleison Zeitgeist:
Regardless, if the economy goes bad, I think you will have a tough time shorting...to predict it correctly would be IMHO, tantamount to picking the correct numbers for todays lottery.
Often the most important part of the news is what they didn't tell.
Originally posted by Tim Holloway:
People generally don't like the idea of profiting at an innocent person's expense. To make money on a short sale, you and another person are betting on a security/commodity, whatever. The other person sees the glass half-full and ready to get fuller, you see a hole in the glass. So someone's going to lose, unlike many other investment instruments where everyone wins.
Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
This reason is only a psychological one and objectively isn't accurate. You are not profiting on another persons loss; or rather, you are no more profiting on someone else's loss than with long positions.
Let's suppose there's a stock at $50. If I think it will go up to $60, I'll buy it. The owner could have made $10 but instead took the cash. He sold because either he thought it wouldn't go up, or felt the money in hand was more valuable. (More generally, he felt that his personal ROI was better with a different allocation, perhaps in a savings account, another stock, or even in buying a new dress for his wife.)
In a second case, let's consider someone buying stock off me. I think it's going to down. I want to sell it. Clearly I think there are better investment opportunities, and we'll assume for the sake of simplicity that I keep it in financial instruments (which is what most people do most of the time). What I am effectively saying by selling the stock is that there is more money to be made elsewhere and this is not a wise investment. The buying disagrees and is betting otherwise. Also note that the reason I'm selling could be personal, to alter my portfolio, perhaps to rebalance it, or change my risk exposure.
Now let's suppose there's another stock at $50. I sell it short to a guy at $49. We have the same information. He buys it for the same reason the man in the first example bought it, he thinks it will appreciate. He knows that it may not. He also knows that I don't think it will. If it appreciates, he's made money off me. It could go either way. Perhaps I am placing a fair bet. Likewise, perhaps I am doing it to alter my risk exposure, such as if I were hedging. Maybe I spotted an arbitrage opportunity.
The point I'm trying to make is that in each case, it may not really be a zero sum game. That happens to be the simplest way of looking at it.
Tim, I'm not saying you're being simple. Most people without training/experience probably do see it that way. I'm just saying that's not the only way to see it.
--Mark
Originally posted by Bucky Dent:
"Of course the big problem with attempting to make money even short-selling in a deflating economy is that if the currency itself devalues, your profits are just numbers without real purchasing benefits."
This is not entirely accurate. Deflation means cash is king. .
Originally posted by Eleison Zeitgeist:
Just doesn't make sense. It riduculus. People, even with training, don't know when it is a good time to short, when it is a good time to buy
Originally posted by Rob Aught:
You've never done software development, have you?
42
Originally posted by Chris G Lee:
Would it be too much to ask of you to share what your money manager says? I am also increasingly becoming aware of this and would like as much input as possible.
Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
I don't think anyone said otherwise. I just commented that if you think the market is going down, you can make money by shorting. Tim and I were just debating whether making money on the short side is just as easy as on the long side.
--Mark
Often the most important part of the news is what they didn't tell.
Originally posted by Eleison Zeitgeist:
Sorry about that Mark. I though you said that it was as easy making money in a bad market as in a good market. I guess you agree with my previous mesg that making money in a bad market sucks and basically if there is going to be an implosion of the economy, we're all fuscked :-)
Originally posted by Tim Holloway:
Actually, my observation on the psychology of short-selling isn't my opinion. I'm barfing back commentary heard long ago from investment professionals. I'm too lazy to analyze it properly, but I think it goes somethings like this: I sold stock in Company XYZ which is currently selling at $50/share. Joe Sucker pays $50+fees&commissions for the stock. A week later XYZ drops to $10 a share. I buy the stock at $10 and pass it along to Joe S.
Obviously if both Joe S. and I had the same knowledge, he'd be a complete idiot to buy a stock for $50 when by wating a week, he could've paid 10.
Originally posted by Tim Holloway:
About all that's good for is collecting a loss for tax purposes, and I've never heard such a practice recommended.
Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
...
The only asymmetry is that in a rising market you can make money without much knowledge, you just won't beat the market.
...
--Mark
I miss the old days when I would think up a sinister scheme for world domination and you would show a little emotional support. So just look at this tiny ad:
We need your help - Coderanch server fundraiser
https://coderanch.com/wiki/782867/Coderanch-server-fundraiser
|