Process
Status Items Highlights Done See section below Claims None Questions None Output None
Highlights
id905746867
Since the 1980s, the state has deregulated finance and pumped money into the economy through cheap credit, tax cuts, deficit spending, and quantitative easing. But instead of triggering a wave of productive investment, most of that money flowed into speculation.
id905746863
many investors have turned toward capital gains. Their strategy is not to invest in something that earns money but to buy some-thing whose price will rise. Housing, stocks, land, companies — anything that looks like it might be worth more tomorrow than it is today. This sounds like a subtle shift, but the result is anything but subtle. You don’t buy an apartment to earn rent; you flip it. You don’t back a company because it’s profitable; you bet on its valuation exploding.
id905746857
This shift has profound consequences. It doesn’t just change what capital does. It changes what kinds of businesses get built, what kinds of risks workers are exposed to, and what kind of future anyone can reasonably plan for. In the old model, a company attracted investment because it sold a profitable product. In the new model, what matters is growth, speed, scale, and hype. Firms like Uber and WeWork weren’t valued for their earnings. They were valued for how much market share they could grab before anyone started asking questions. The hope was simple: dominate now, profit later. Grow big enough, burn enough cash, and eventually you’d become too essential to fail.
id905750117
this strategy shaped how a generation experienced the economy. Services seemed cheap. You could summon a car, stream endless TV, get meals delivered to your door, all for less than it cost to provide them. It felt like innovation. But it was really just a subsidy, a temporary gift from investors willing to lose money in the hope of a distant payoff.
✏️ The false performative environment we lived in.. services that seemed cheap/free but really was just bait to entrap is in their systems. 🔗 View Highlight
id905753734
If you can’t earn your way to a better life, maybe you can bet your way there. Retail trading, crypto, and sports betting have exploded. During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions opened brokerage accounts — not to save for retirement but to gamble on meme stocks like AMC and GameStop. It didn’t matter what the asset was, as long as someone else might buy it for more tomorrow.
✏️ With economy operating the way it was, we started doing the same individually. Think NFTs, bitcoin, etc. 🔗 View Highlight
id905755659
speculation isn’t about recklessness; it’s about survival. The system has taught people that risk is the only path to reward. For a lucky few, it works. Someone turns a Reddit post into a meme stock windfall and becomes a millionaire overnight. Yet most lose money and fall further behind.
✏️ Yes, this is the new modern economy model that we have to embody.. the old idea of working hard and saving money doesn’t matter when cost of living around us outpaces our income. 🔗 View Highlight
id905755765
t’s a rational response to a deeper economic failure, to a long slowdown in growth rates that has reshaped what’s possible for both firms and families. Investment in new industries has faltered, wages have lagged behind, and the kinds of innovations that used to drive long-term growth have become harder to find.
✏️ Is that what slow growth is then? Not just about more shit and more things being sold.. but quality of life really enters into it. well, maybe not that.. or not that simple. Need to read up more, but I assume you can have some form of reasonable growth where it’s focused on the living, not the profits.. right? Oh wait.. productivity growth is the thing about quality of life, right? There’s more than one kind of growth we’re talking about, but needs some heavy followup. 🔗 View Highlight
id905756797
Rich countries shifted from producing manufactured goods to services.
id905756790
productivity growth is what drives rising living standards. It allows wages to rise and prices to stay stable. In services, that engine sputters. Gains come slowly, and prices rise faster. As productivity has lagged, essential services have grown more expensive, with household budgets shifting toward health care, childcare, rent, and tuition. People didn’t stop buying goods, but they have less discretionary income left over to buy them. Gains that once went to a refrigerator or a car have been absorbed by tuition bills and insurance premiums.
id905757081
Slower population growth meant smaller future markets. Firms saw less reason to expand. Why build a factory if there won’t be enough buyers? The result was a growing mismatch: more capital, fewer profitable outlets. Financialization came in at precisely this moment. It was sold as a solution, a way to free up capital stuck in low-return activities and unleash it into more productive uses. Deregulate, cut taxes, and let markets work. In theory, unleashed capital would go hunting for opportunity. In practice, it kept circling the same small pool of speculative bets: real estate, tech platforms, asset bubbles.