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[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 65 points 5 days ago (8 children)

If money can just vanish, was it ever real to begin with?

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[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago

It's real enough that the AI bust is going to leave us all in the blast crater. Tens of thousands have already been laid off in the tech sector. Those people are edging people like me out of a job or moving into other sectors and competing for jobs there. Both them and I are spending less.

Now image the blast wave when AI really falls down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply

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[–] Xaphanos@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

No.

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[–] RichardDegenne@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 days ago (3 children)

It's not actual money being moved, it's just a calculation.

If have 10 apples and people buy apples for $1, then my stock is "worth" $10. If people start buying apples at $0.90 tomorrow, then the stock will be worth $9.

I didn't literally "lose" a dollar. Instead, it's the value of my stock of apples that has changed.

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[–] chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I understand how the stock market works. I'm calling into question whether the 2.5 trillion ever existed, or whether it was a speculation that people put entirely too much faith in. If I tell you that I'm going to buy your Apples tomorrow for $2 a piece, does that double your value? No. You still have 10 apples in value. The money you don't have is made up. Until it can be exchanged for goods and services, it's not even toilet paper. If people want to trade on speculation, godspeed, but it shouldn't have shit to do with my life.

I don't think you are trying to come to their defense, and I don't want this to seem like an attack on you. I'm just restating my point with a bit more detail.

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[–] Zos_Kia@jlai.lu 6 points 4 days ago

In this analogy, it's like tech companies agreed upon valuing apples at 200$ a pop while the apple trees aren't even planted. So, yeah, this money never existed.

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[–] RichardDegenne@lemmy.zip 1 point 4 days ago

It's always speculative. You buy or sell a stock because of your opinion on the current price, or because of your expectations on the company.

That's the whole point of the stock market.

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[–] boonhet@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago

No, it's market price x share count where market price is the price of the last sale. It's an approximation of value that only works for small amounts.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 point 3 days ago

If you put money you earned as pay in a stock for something like a 401k, yes it was. If you’re a rich person whose hundreds of millions turn into billions because the line goes up and you were granted stock options as part of a compensation package…no. Your money was never real.

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[–] darthsundhaft@piefed.social 16 points 5 days ago (1 child)

Already lost NNN. GG