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Bitcoin just ended its worst-performing month in seven years in terms of month-over-month price declines. While this is comparing rate of fall and not absolute values, the world of economics is run on rate.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency began November at an average price across exchanges of $6,341, but as of 0:00 UTC on December 1 is trading at just $3,964, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index.
As it stands, the near $2,400 drop in bitcoin’s price has created a -37.4 percent monthly performance, which is its worst on record since August 2011, when it fell from roughly $8 to $4.80 to print a -40 percent monthly loss.
This may have some good impact for PC gamers:
Bitcoin miners hit hard by the cryptocurrency’s crash may be throwing in the towel.
The Bitcoin network’s hash rate, one way of gauging the computing power dedicated to mining the digital currency, dropped about 24 percent from an all-time high at the end of August through Nov. 24, according to Blockchain.com. While the decline may have partially resulted from miners switching to other cryptocurrencies, JPMorgan Chase & Co. says some in the industry are losing money after Bitcoin’s price tumbled.
A big miner shakeout could be bad news for chipmakers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Nvidia Corp. who supply the industry, along with mining-rig designers like Bitmain Technologies Ltd. that are pursuing initial public offerings.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @02:50AM (18 children)
When the federal reserve raises interest rates (ie increases the reserve requirements) banks need to hold more dollars, so the dollar becomes more valuable. The interest rates were kept ridiculously low from 2008-2016 which pumped everything into bubbles, only recently are they finally being raised again: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/fedfunds [stlouisfed.org]
That is why everything is dropping in price, gas is down 30%, S&P500 down 7%, AAPL down 20%, etc. The money gets sucked out of riskier, more speculative investments first.
This is a good thing for working class people since they have to spend less on stuff like rent and fuel and wages always lag inflation. Groceries should eventually drop too due to cheaper shipping, etc. Is this not obvious?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @03:07AM (2 children)
Is this not obvious?
For anyone who has taken a few macro econ classes, yes. Most people do not think of everything as a market (which is one of the lessons of macro economics). Money has a market, food, housing, employers, employees, etc etc etc. You name it there is a 'market' for that thing. But until you have 'run the graphs' and see how changing interest rates changes the way money is spent. Many people take 1 class of econ and think they 'got it'. So no, unfortunately it is not obvious.
Part of that bauble was access to 'cheap money'. Companies were literally borrowing money at 0% interest rates to pay out dividends and other things. This has made long term market investing 'interesting' as you can not tell which companies borrowed money to build things and which ones just borrowed to keep the dividend high. So expect a shakeout in the next few months of companies that were borrowing to stay afloat (the other I mentioned). I did not expect GM. But here we are.
Think of money as water sloshing around in a big bowl. As the bowl moves around it kind of sticks around something for a bit. Those we call bubbles. but eventually that money sloshes off the sides and comes back into something else. There will be another bubble. Should be interesting to see what it will be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @03:25AM (1 child)
My guess is education, but it will be in a long long time.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 03 2018, @04:38AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @11:43AM (1 child)
Not rents, since they're mostly linked to the mortgage rate, which in turn rises with the base rate.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday December 04 2018, @02:12AM
Yeah, but that's countered by rising mortgage rates usually causing a drop in real estate prices. Man, it's almost like economics is complicated or something.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @12:10PM (1 child)
Why are you confusing overnight interest rates with reserve requirements?? They are completely different things. Might as well start dropping other random words that make no sense together,
"The HIV infection rates is slowing down as the lactic acid production is lowered in the healthy tissue of African snails. Together with the global IQ dimness, the philosophy schema marches on."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @01:31PM
Its not confused, the fed does not directly declare interest rates. Instead they mess with the reserves available or reserve requirements to get banks to change the rates they use.
https://www.thebalance.com/how-does-the-fed-raise-or-lower-interest-rates-3306127 [thebalance.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 03 2018, @06:36PM (8 children)
Even if you use official inflation rates, which folks like ShadowStats think you shouldn't, working-class and middle-class people haven't gotten a real raise since approximately 1978, and the minimum wage peaked in 1968 at just under $10/hr in today's money. The fact of the matter is that the capitalist economy will find a way to ensure that working people's assets remain at or below $0, either by raising costs of basic survival or cutting back on pay.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @06:58PM (7 children)
Ok, but the various government meddling you just mentioned (fed reserve, min wage, 'official' inflation rates) has nothing to do with capitalism.
Like there is nothing really wrong about your description except your need to randomly blame bad stuff the government has done on capitalism. You would be more effective if you kept that one to yourself.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 03 2018, @07:49PM (6 children)
During slavery, the net worth of a slave was nearly always zero. After slavery, but before the institution of the Federal Reserve, the net worth of a working-class person was often below zero and dropping. If they had any wealth, it was in land they'd succeeding in taking from the Natives.
Don't take that from me: Read up on what politicians like William Jennings Bryan and Teddy Roosevelt were saying in that era. Or if you're looking for something a bit more radical, read up on the early union activists, Emma Goldman, or Upton Sinclair.
The idea that it ever didn't suck to be on the bottom of the economic pile is basically a myth. The closest the US came to having real upward mobility was 1945-1965, and even then upward mobility was mostly limited to straight white guys.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @08:28PM (2 children)
Not sure why you care so much about net worth. I know people living very comfortable lifestyles with negative net worth. I live more frugally (in general) but have positive net worth.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 03 2018, @08:53PM (1 child)
Why I focus on net worth:
1. Net worth is an indication of whether people are earning more or less money than they need to stay afloat. If net worth is going up, that means people's standards of living are going up too - for instance, if you have a few months' salary in the bank you can weather a crisis much more easily than someone who doesn't have that.
2. It's an indication of whether personal debts are "good debt" where they get a durable physical asset out of the extra cost of the debt (e.g. a house or car, which counts towards your net worth) or "bad debt" where the debt is spent on stupid stuff or on just paying bills.
3. If you have substantial positive net worth, it can be used to earn more without working for it. If you have substantial negative net worth, then you're losing money with absolutely nothing to show for it. In short, it determines whether capitalism is working for you or against you.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @09:19PM
The 'bad debt' I see around is mostly in the form of student loans. I also wouldnt consider a mortgage or car loan to be a good thing but whatever. Anyway, at least amongst my peers, I see very little effect on quality of life by net worth. That metric is definately missing something.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 03 2018, @09:25PM (2 children)
That's obviously false. A slave had considerable net worth [measuringworth.com]. It was just owned by the slave's owner.
As for the "working-class person" of the Gilded Age, what exactly was supposed to make their value negative to themselves or others? Debt? That has to be borrowed against something and used for something.
It's worth noting that "net worth" which ignores future income is a silly notion for comparing peoples' wealth. There's too many people out who aren't interested in and/or competent in building up net wealth. When one chooses to be poor, that's a terrible reason to call them a slave.
Nor did the Federal Reserve have anything to do with making people's net worth turn out positive. It was never their job.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 03 2018, @10:30PM (1 child)
You are obviously using a different definition of net worth than I am. Net worth is assets you own minus debts you owe, and by your own admission slaves had no assets at all to their name. That would be like saying "I have no money in the bank, no home, and no car, and a payday loan, but my company's CEO has a big house so I'm really rich!"
Post-slavery, a lot of former slaves ended up as sharecroppers, and still owned very little if anything, and were constantly in debt to their landlords who were in many cases their former masters.
Yes, debt. Most farmers were in debt up to and beyond their eyeballs, borrowed against the future value of their crops, to pay for land, seeds, equipment, etc in addition to bare survival. Miners were in debt up to and beyond their eyeballs borrowing against their future work for the company to pay for housing, food, and other basics. Urban factory workers often owed money to landlords and retailers beyond their ability to pay for it, again borrowed against their future earnings and the fact that the landlords couldn't find a new more reliable tenant and/or kick them out just yet.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 04 2018, @02:31AM
Slaves aren't the only people in the world. I already mentioned the slave owner.
Notice that "future" shows up after "borrowed/borrowing". Remember my talk about "future income"?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 03 2018, @09:03PM (1 child)
Gasoline is down massively because of overproduction, particularly by OPEC. Sure, the increase in interest rates will, via the sort of mechanisms you describe, cause some modest decline in gasoline prices, but it doesn't explain a 30% drop. I suspect the same is true of AAPL. Seems too large a drop to explain away with interest rates alone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @09:43PM
The answer is in the next sentence. The things dropping a lot are 'high beta', they also got pumped more than other investments during the 8 years of zirp.