The Tech Sector Is Leaving the Rest of the US Economy In Its Dust (theverge.com) 155
Yesterday afternoon, the S&P 500 closed at a record high, and is up over $1.5 trillion since the start of 2017. "And the companies doing the most to drive that rally are all tech firms," reports The Verge. "Apple, Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft make up a whopping 37 percent of the total gains." From the report: All of these companies saw their share prices touch record highs in recent months. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the U.S. economy, which grew at a rate of less than 1 percent during the first three months of this year. That divide is the culmination of a long-term trend, according to a recent report featured in The Wall Street Journal: "In digital industries -- technology, communications, media, software, finance and professional services -- productivity grew 2.7% annually over the past 15 years...The slowdown is concentrated in physical industries -- health care, transportation, education, manufacturing, retail -- where productivity grew a mere 0.7% annually over the same period." There is no industry where these players aren't competing. Music, movies, shipping, delivery, transportation, energy -- the list goes on and on. As these companies continue to scale, the network effects bolstering their business are strengthening. Facebook and Google accounted for over three-quarters of the growth in the digital advertising industry in 2016, leaving the rest to be divided among small fry like Twitter, Snapchat, and the entire American media industry. Meanwhile Apple and Alphabet have achieved a virtual duopoly on mobile operating systems, with only a tiny sliver of consumers choosing an alternative for their smartphones and tablets.
Bubble (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to cash out my stock options and ESPP as soon as they vested. Tax penalties be damned. I'd rather lose 20% of the value to taxes than 80% of the value to a crash.
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But it's different this time!!
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It sounds better in French.
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HOUSING BUBBLE REPLACED BY STUDENT, AUTO LOAN BUBBLES [infowars.com]
Dollar Slumps To 6-Month Lows As Stocks Do Something They Haven't Done Since 1969 [zerohedge.com]
...and so forth...
--Beau
Re: Bubble (Score:1)
Re:Bubble (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the above, Apple is the only company that actually manufactures, and can bring jobs back to the US. The others - Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook & Twitter, don't make squat (okay, Alphabet does a bit w/ the Pixel). And it's just as easy for them to offshore work as it is to hire within the US, since most software jobs now are remote jobs that can be done on 'the cloud'.
You could try shorting Snap, Inc stocks: those are definitely overvalued, and given that their main selling point is that kids love them, kids can just as easily do to them what they did to MySpace. But I thought that the value you'd lose to taxes would be more like 27% or thereabouts.
Re: Bubble (Score:1)
You didn't list Amazon, so you're clearly a moron.
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Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Xbox, etc. They also make products that could be manufactured in the U.S.A. like Apple. But they don't, because it's cheaper in Taiwan/China.
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Microsoft does have quite a bit of hardware.
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox... [xbox.com]
https://www.microsoft.com/acce... [microsoft.com]
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
Facebook also own Occulus.
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A related question is which of these companies is actually increasing the productivity of Americans. Several such as Facebook and Microsoft have simply achieved a monopoly position in their sector; this accounts for much of their success and employment growth. For society to benefit in the long term, worker productivity across the board needs to rise.
This is why the mantra that the tech industry means everything to the economy is bunk. Its purpose is to justify more visa programs. The real opportunity i
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> Of all the above, Apple is the only company that actually manufactures, and can bring jobs back to the US. The others - Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook & Twitter, don't make squat
You are implying that the only real jobs and value are through physical manufacturing as opposed to service work. In fact, services are obviously very valuable.
Re: Bubble (Score:5, Interesting)
Those types of jobs are in fact coming back, for good reasons - Apple wants somewhere closer to home to make more things so they can contribute leaks.
Apple may be at the forefront but MOST manufacturing is going to go local in the next decade or so.
How can it come back? Greatly increased use of automation means you don't have to hire nearly so many expensive U.S. workers, so automation actually makes more locally sourced manufacture more desirable again.
There will not be as many jobs, sure, but they will be there and they will be better than what came before.
Re: Bubble (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn't be so keen to see these jobs coming back. If unskilled jobs come back, it only means that the income situation is completely FUBAR in the US, because it means that wages in the US can compete with wages in a Chinese sweatshop.
And you don't believe that working conditions in the US would be any better than in a Chinese sweatshop if you can compete with it on salaries.
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Well. . . .
Considering that a ShitStorm with China is a real possibility in the near future over their " pile up dirt in the ocean, declare it sovereign territory and threaten anyone who comes near it " game, if all of your manufacturing is done in China, guess what happens when said ShitStorm becomes a reality ?
If ALL of your products are manufactured by what may be your future enemy, you're in a lot of trouble once they cease making your products for you.
Re: Bubble (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Bubble (Score:1)
I can tell you've never set a foot in a factory. Even the most advanced industrial factories that use robotic welding machines employ dozens of manual welders for every machine. So yes, actually.
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Now matter how much you automate, you'll require some labour - if only to feed the dog [brainyquote.com] - and it'll still be cheaper in China.
On top of that land is probably cheaper, and being able to chuck mercury in rivers and pump out smoke at will adds another cost saving.
It comes down to whether that's enough to overcome the cost of shipping.
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Land is cheaper in the US. Lower population and fewer deserts than China means land is more available. If the feed the robot jobs need a good technical education US workers can compete as the US education system is better. Shipping on the other hand is becoming cheaper. With more and more solar and EVs the demand for oil is going down so bunker fuel is getting cheaper. Only way to increase shipping costs is to reduce the US military footprint. Once the US is not keeping the peace on the high seas, piracy wi
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Manufacturing local isn't what makes manufacturing good for an economy.
It is the lots of middle class jobs that manufacturing employs. If you pay 10,000 people decent wages. Then you have. 10,000 people or more buying things, going to the movies, eating out etc. If you can do the same manufacturing output with just 2,000 people and robots the economy then can only have 2,000 people going out, etc.
Which is greater for the economy? 10,000 people or 2,000 people spending money.
What is going to happen to the
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Those types of jobs are in fact coming back, for good reasons - Apple wants somewhere closer to home to make more things so they can contribute leaks.
Apple may be at the forefront but MOST manufacturing is going to go local in the next decade or so.
How can it come back? Greatly increased use of automation means you don't have to hire nearly so many expensive U.S. workers, so automation actually makes more locally sourced manufacture more desirable again.
There will not be as many jobs, sure, but they will be there and they will be better than what came before.
Production is coming back. The jobs, they aren't. A very important distinction that goes over the hoi polloi's collective heads.
Some jobs are (Score:2)
Not as many but jobs ARE coming back. You also forget all of the jobs around keeping a factor running independent of the production that are good as well.
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Not as many but jobs ARE coming back. You also forget all of the jobs around keeping a factor running independent of the production that are good as well.
Still, we are just talking a fraction of the jobs that used to exist. Moreover, the "newer" jobs are outside the reach of those who originally lost their jobs (due to skill mismatches.)
It's not a situation where "100 people loose their jobs, but 20 get them back". It's "100 people lose their jobs, and 20 new jobs are opened and filled mostly with people."
Whether we blame the original 100 for not having the skills, that's another conversation. I'm partly in the "people should build their skills continu
Re: Bubble (Score:1)
"No, they're not.", is your argument? Do you work in manufacturing? I do. Guess what, things are ramping up like crazy. The media is lying to you. Tables and graphs can be made to prove anything. Meanwhile, a ridiculous number of factories are gearing up to start production in the next two years.
There are many investor sellouts who have extensively invested in overseas production and they have entire fortunes to lose. These are the assholes who think getting you to repeat that manufacturing is not coming b
Re: Bubble (Score:4)
Microelectronics have more than just labor cost blocking their resurgence in the US, so automation is only part of the solution. The biggest issue is the location of the resources used for manufacturing. Unless Apple decides to spend its cash hoard on vertical integration and starts mining and producing the components in the US, they aren't going to save any money producing here. The components will still need to be shipped from China where they're produced, near the resource mines which avoid environmental regulation and cost significantly less than domestic.
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I am certain that Apple does not expect to save a dime with local manufacturing, and knows it will cost them more than a few dimes in the short run. What they hope to achieve is the saving of time in development feedback loops, and getting to final product to the most valuable market sooner. That will make Apple more profitable, even if it will not save them money per se.
Once you get past the business of running scared that a competitor will steal your customers by charging a few pennies less, you will no
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The components will still need to be shipped from China where they're produced, near the resource mines which avoid environmental regulation and cost significantly less than domestic.
Last time I saw information on this, the components were actually produced in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea and the shipped to China for assemblage. Some raw materials also came from China, but overall, all three of those countries ended up each getting more of the percentage of manufacturing costs than China. So, what we're really talking about here is moving component fabrication back to the us. This was from The Economist breakdown of where all the cost of Apple products were going, but it was from a few year
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And hopefully those guns and bullets will be proudly made in the U.S.A.!
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At least they'll be losing their jobs to American robots.
Re: Bubble (Score:2, Informative)
I assume you are saying so for political reasons? Perhaps you are merely repeating a mantra espoused by a certain ideological subset?
Do you work in manufacturing? I doubt it. I do as a welder. No problems finding work. In fact, certain manufacturing companies in my city are expanding their production. One is set to become the second largest employer in the state once they are at full production capacity. That is currently projected in about 1 year.
But keep on repeating your mantra. It's just another reason
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Why? We already have a TV buffoon playing a president, do you need one from Hollywood to complement it?
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I am a simple mind of simple tastes, I can't complain about the current president sitcom. Every week a new blunder and hilarious cover up, it's like Spin City never got canceled but instead got more budget and was pumped from NYC mayor to US prez.
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Don't be silly. The party's gonna last forever, see? President Coolidge said so!
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Then you're an idiot. What makes you think it's going to pop right now or even any time in the next 10 years?
How can you possibly say he is an idiot without knowing any details about his ESPP? If for instance he bought $1000 in stock which had an immediate value of $1100 because the stock went up during the purchase period, then he is only going to be taxed on the $100 in gains. Lets assume the 28% tax bracket, so he pays $28 in taxes instead of $15. It would only take 1.2% drop in stock value to wipe out the savings from waiting until his gains are considered long term capital gains.
Obviously I just made those nu
Digital advertising (Score:4, Insightful)
Digital advertising isn't an industry.
At best it is a digital parasite.
Re:Digital advertising (Score:5, Funny)
If you would stop clicking on the spam mail promising to increase your penis size by taking a pill, a pump, or a secret diet then they'd stop. I blame you for all the crappy digital spam.
Re:Digital advertising (Score:4, Funny)
We should be fine as long as the advertisers never realize that no one has any actual money.
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I have money. The problem here is more that I intend to keep it rather than throwing it at the parasites.
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It's my money, stolen at gunpoint by jackbooted goons. Give it back or I'll shoot you.
What a coincidence! I was robbed by jackbooted goons as well. Those Russians are everywhere.
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Does the government know that you are wasting their time by commenting on /. during business hours.
As long as I get my numbers in for each day, no one cares what I do in between tasks. My numbers are usually in the top three out of the department.
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Parasites have a long standing history, reaching back millennia and still going strong.
Of course, in nature every organism tries to combat them, fight back and do its best to eliminate them rather than embracing them and lauding them for living on their expense...
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We all carry a thriving microbiome in our gut. Relationships that begin parasitical can become symbiotic.
The thing is, people tend not to pay for digital content. With Microtransactions, people had no idea how their usage might add up (think the first iPhone coming out ONLY with unlimited data plans - that cleared one of the hurdles that left WAP stumbling) or there would be privacy concerns, especially how porn was a big mover of the web.
Subscriptions are tough too, there are too many possibilities to try,
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All those companies are software companies.
Magic smoke is a hardware thing
I don't think they would intentionally execute the HCF instruction
Obsession With The New (Score:2)
USA culture is obsessed with the 'new'. In fact, 'new' and 'free' are the two most-liked words in the English language (in the USA.) It should be no surprise that consumer spending behavior would gravitate towards what's novel, which necessarily (eventually) requires new technology. An increasing proportion of our entire economy is being automated, with widespread predictions that eventually, our ENTIRE supply-side economy will be automated. This automation requires, again, new technology. Therefore, tech c
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And until the not so recent past, that was a pretty sensible attitude. New was better, and free was actually free. Yes, TANSTAAFL does apply, but I do remember people who would host parties for the only reason that they enjoyed being party hosts and invite friends over. Without any actual ulterior motifs.
And new did actually mean better. Think back the last 100 years and you'll see that every generation of something that came out was in some way better than its predecessor. Faster. More reliable. Safer. Mor
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Cars get harder and harder to repair yourself with every generation having more and more technical bullshit baked into its vital parts
But they also become more reliable, and EVs have the potential to be substantially more reliable because they feature the simplicity that you are valuing so highly.
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As manufacturing quality gets shoddier in the pursuit of profit margins newer stuff becomes less durable and reliable. Brands of jeans that used to be hard-wearing are now getting torn in less than a year of the same usage.
Yeah, but we were talking about cars, which are much more reliable than they have ever been.
Most of the other parts of a typical car (bearings, suspension, power steering, climate control, stereo, etc) are hardly any different or less complex in a Tesla. However they continue to become more complicated electronically rather than mechanically so really they're no easier to fix when something goes wrong. A bad wire connection somewhere doesn't make a tell-tale sound that would clue in an experienced mechanic to the issue
No. It generates a fault code with a description like "OPEN OR SHORT TO GROUND" or "OPEN OR SHORT TO POSITIVE", literally. You get a good idea of where to look, and even which wire is the problem. Of course, this is how it works when all this stuff is communicating on some kind of OBD-II bus, whether that's CAN or not. If it's a proprietary bus, there may or may not be that kind of fault detection.
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Really? You can somehow get me the required software to even find out what's wrong with my Kia's engine? Let alone repair it and reset the check engine light?
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This isn't surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is that a lot of tech is either useless (Twitter) or evil (Uber).
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Re: This isn't surprising (Score:1)
One of my bosses wanted a particular problem "fixed now!!!" The issue at it's roots was poor business practices by management, but of course management never sees it that way and must be the fault of a SINGLE human IT guy.
Apparently he didn't like it when I told him that there wasn't anything that could be done to speed it up resolution, and that he just needed to wait until it was done and that I couldn't defy laws of physics. He then felt like I must have been just making up bullshit like I'd intentional
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Old German proverb: The knave thinks (others are) the way he is. Now take a wild guess why your manager thought you were bullshitting him when you told him it will take the time it will take.
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Baby taking 9 months? Try more women.
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If your boss is at least a halfway decent mathematician, you might be able to explain it this way: When you have already n programmers in your crew, adding another one adds only about 1/n workforce to the pool. The rest is wasted on coordination and training.
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The #1 cost of most things are the raw materials needed to product followed by the labor (and their benefits). Tech needs almost nothing to produce since it includes software and even then needs a fraction of the employees of most sectors. Tech has amazing ROI because you just plain don't need to invest very much.
The trouble is that a lot of tech is either useless (Twitter) or evil (Uber).
whoa whoa... twitter is both useless AND evil (on an average)
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Not Surprising?!?!?????
I'll tell you what's surprising.....
These tech companies are all being successful due to two very simple reasons...
1) Selling you stupid bleeding edge shit you don't really *need*.
2) Selling your soul out to the devil via datamining your ass 24x365 live in realtime via all microphone video chat gps purchases habits photos *including* the last time you jacked off to Britney Spears. They buy, sell, and have it *ALL*, your entire LIFE on their backend. Ruling over and engineering you is
Re:This isn't surprising (Score:5, Informative)
Uhm... what? You do know that increased demand for tech has caused the demand for raw materials involved in making tech, such as rare-earth minerals, to skyrocket [mit.edu]?
Chips don't grow on trees. This is a classic case of the Jevon's paradox [wikipedia.org] which has been noticed since the very beginning of industrialization: as you increase the efficiency of a technology, whether it's coal plants, internal combustion engines or microchips, the demand for said technology goes up.
We have a limited amount of raw-materials in the ground and the extraction of the remaining resources will grow increasingly difficult and expensive with time, which means recycling of old electronics more efficiently is the only sustainable option in the long run. Same goes for plastics: we currently dump billions of dollars worth of plastic to dumps and the oceans but as the cost of oil keeps rising and plastics become more expensive, we should start to see the market turn towards a greener economy not because they care about the environment but because picking floating plastic out of the sea and reprocessing it will at one point (hopefully soon) become more cost-efficient than making new plastics out of a perishing resource.
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You obviously did not understand the paradox. We've made great improvements in cutting technology. Axes have been replaced by powertools and harvesters far more efficient than any axe type in cutting down wood, but simultanously the demand for wood has increased massively since the Neolithic.
The point is not that new, more efficient technologies don't surpass th
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Thanks.
What idiot... (Score:5, Insightful)
conflates the "stock market" with "the economy"????
Oh, right: journalists. I'd be unhappy as hell if my kids became lawyers, but kill the one that becomes a journalist.
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Good point. It would be worth comparing gross revenues of various sectors of the economy and see the long term trends. I would bet that tech would weigh in quite well, especially when growth trends are considered. But the stock price is really the wrong place to look.
I looked at BEA numbers [bea.gov] and found that the "Information-communications-technology-producing industries" grew by 3.05% between 2015 and 2016, while all industries grew by 1.62%. So "tech", very broadly and loosely defined, grew nearly twice as much as the rest.
However, it's also much smaller. Goods-producing industries generated $8T in 2016, services industries almost $20T, while tech was less than $2T.
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conflates the "stock market" with "the economy"????
Oh, right: journalists. I'd be unhappy as hell if my kids became lawyers, but kill the one that becomes a journalist.
That connection was especially amusing when there was reporting about China's new stockmarket which may as well have been a casino - booms and busts every day with only the house winning in the long term.
It'd be a mercy killing (Score:2)
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Murdoch doesn't own The Guardian.
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Yes the article compares share growth of tech sector with economic growth of the rest which is nonsense. That said, It's been said that the stock market leads the overall economy in terms of trends by about 6 months. I don't know if it's true. But the productivity part is probably relevant: 2.7% for the tech industry and 0.7% in things that are more important. That's not a good sign.
Not quite (Score:2)
While I agree that the first 2 are of no value, Apple and Google make tangible useful products. As someone else in the topic states, there is a duopoly on mobile phones between the two. They both make products for the desktop and mobile which dig into the long held MS monopoly.
That is not to say they don't have crap too, but definitely not a Facebook or Twitter. If those two companies stopped receiving free advertising from people, competing products would put them out of business.
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Except for creimer our very own resident troll billionaire who earns $55B+ despite being a stupid lazy fat American slob. So you see it's not true there are no tech jobs for Americans. There is one token tech job for one token American and that job is filled by the big fat ass of creimer.
My ebooks are available at Amazon [amzn.to] and Smashwords [smashwords.com]. You can also visit me at my author website [cdreimer.com], personal blog [kickingthebitbucket.com], YouTube [youtube.com] and Twitter [twitter.com].
The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (Score:2)
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Yes, but it's too big to fit in this comment space. Please send me a stamped, self-addressed envelope and I will return you a copy.
What's a envelope, and should I stamp on it bare-footed or with boots?
What is tech? Baby don't hurt me... (Score:2)
Bubble? (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason those stocks are increasing is that millions of people have their 401K investing in "tech stocks" The people who manage some of those get a billion a week that they are obligated to invest before the next billion shows up next week. The result is the tech stocks are over valued and the price keeps going up as the game continues.
This gets worse when they go to prove their investment works. Say they bought a billion in shares in GOOG 5 years ago at $300. They can sell them this week for $950 or so they make a 2.16 billion profit which they can keep for weeks since it was a result of a sale of stock. Next week they dump another billion into GOOG stock at say $1000 and they other 3.16 billion from last weeks sale may go to something else like IBM and MSFT just after the investment firm reports wonderful profits.
There is a class of investment in the UK that is limited to something like 60 tech companies and there are retirement funds that are limited to those 60.
The high speed computer traders know this and have been gaming the system for decades.
Re:Bubble? (Score:5, Informative)
The reason those stocks are increasing is that millions of people have their 401K investing in "tech stocks"
All evidence suggests that you're completely wrong. Tech stocks are soaring because tech revenues and profits are soaring, not because their prices are being artificially bid up.
If your argument were correct, we should expect to see crazy P/E ratios in those tech stocks, as they're bid way up ahead of earnings growth. The three you mentioned, GOOG, IBM and MSFT have P/E ratios of around 30, 12 and 30, respectively. The GOOG and MSFT numbers are slightly higher than is normal, but seem totally justifiable given that the companies both still have excellent growth prospects (rational stock prices should represent the net present value of future income). Now, if you want to look at an inflated P/E, AMZN is about 180... but that's only because AMZN chooses to keep its profits low, reinvesting instead to increase shareholder value a different way. Everyone knows that Bezos could decide to flip a switch and start generating profits an order of magnitude larger, instantly dropping his P/E to 18, where AAPL's is.
P/E is just one measure. You can do the same analysis on several others, and you'll find exactly the same thing.
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+1
Bubble (Score:2)
Remember 2001. This is just the next stock market bubble. It will pop. just like the last one did.
The symptoms are the same, too. Crazy startups (especially in Silicon Valley), getting $millions in funding, and yet anyone looking from a distance can see that they have zero chance of ever making money. Stupidly high market values for companies making thumping losses every quarter. For whatever reason, it all turns into a lottery: this little startups hoping some big boy like Google or Apple will buy them out
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Remember 2001. This is just the next stock market bubble. It will pop. just like the last one did.
The 2001 dot com bust had everyone and their grandmother investing in tech stocks. The only people who are losing money these days in tech startups are venture capitalists and they can afford to lose a shirt or two from playing the game.
We are overdue for a recession after eight years of growth under Obama. Since Hillary lost the election, it won't be the Hillary Recession.
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Yes, dumping and extra 5-6 Trillion during the Obama years in deficit dollars into the economy will tend to heat it up a bit. However, not all of that was Obama's doing. It started under Bush with "surpluses as far as the eye could see" back before 9/11....that turned out not be extremely far. Bush managed to add only about 4 Trillion to the debt, so Obama beat him fair and square. Bush decided the country needed big tax cuts instead of sending the surpluses off to retire the debt. It is hard to buy votes b
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It's the government spending that does the most damage.
Drop medicare and health spending, unemployment and labor department, housing and community development, transportation, federal education spending, food and agriculture. Those comprise 40% to 60% of the federal budget, and they're almost all completely unconstitutional - i.e. illegal.
How much better would your life be if your federal taxes were halved?
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How much better would your life be if your federal taxes were halved?
You forgot Social Security and Medicare, which will consume 2/3 of the federal budget in 2030. Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.
Small wonder (Score:1)
These things are produced by non-American immigrants, while US worker produce crappy cars and appliances that nobody else than Americans buys.
Heck, even now you can't get only a handful of US car models for driving on the left, like several billion people need.
Tech Monopolies and Mega-corps. (Score:2)
"The Tech Sector Is Leaving the Rest of the US Economy In Its Dust"
Uh, more like The Tech Monopolies and Mega-corps are leaving Everyone In Its Dust.
These tech giants are crushing even other tech companies.
And of course let's not forget about the political strings they've pulled to stay on top. I wonder how well the "Tech Sector Five" would have performed had they been forced to play more by the damn rules and actually do things like pay taxes, and not hide 99% of their revenue in some fucking tax haven somewhere.
Not (Score:4, Interesting)
Wages have been stagnant for almost 10 years even for the A players and unicorns.
There are slightly higher paying jobs (5-10%) you could take but they require twice as much work if not more. Not worth it especially if you have a family. We're still due for a correction because of the recession like everyone else.
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Meanwhile Apple sits on 250 Billion in cash.. For christ sake give people a raise.
Yes and others because the money is offshore and they refuse to bring it back into the United States to reinvest because of the 39.6% corporate tax rate.
Stock Market != Economy (Score:1)