It's endlessly fascinating how economic datapoints get interpreted.

When I was in charge of a P&L, the guy who ran Finance for us and I had what we called the 'shelf plan.'

There were maybe 3-4 of us who knew it existed.

What's a shelf plan?
1/

@evan_lorenz Exactly this.

Plus in a gold-based system, smaller entities (SMBs or sole proprietors) could presumably even self-custody to reduce the carrying cost of gold to zero.

This is not possible with bitcoin, in which one owns a share of a collective and equally distributed liability.

The hilarity of all this, to me, is that Bitcoin makes the most sense if viewed as a Marxist worker’s rebellion.

The central promise is UBI: buy tokens that increase in value forever, granting you wealth for doing nothing.

And the cost is the future.

What are prices?

A layperson’s guide to understanding charts and volatility.
1/

It’s an observable fact that price has nothing to do with value. Perhaps over the long term these two converge, but in the short term it makes no sense that the price of, say, soybeans would change 3-4% from day to day.

So what’s happening?
2/

You’ve probably heard people say “markets are forward looking” and that’s sorta true, I guess.

But that doesn’t mean they’re any good at it.

It might be better to say “markets consistently attempt to look forward” because that would be more illustrative of what’s happening.
3/

When a day-over-day price makes a 3% move this is not a 3% shift in value, it’s a 3% shift in *aggregate expectations about future value.*

And that makes sense, right? Expectations are pretty ephemeral so they can move fast.
4/

Consider volatility through this same lens. When a market is highly volatile, this means that expectations about forward value are evolving rapidly.

This happened in March when everyone got scared about Covid - it broke people’s forward expectations, and thus broke markets.
5/

Why do we like blowing bubbles?

(This is not a bitcoin thread, go away)
1/

So I'm not a “neurotypical” (a fact discovered late in life) and while we won't go into the details here, the net output of that fact appears to be that I'm wired to take a more… ‘zoological’ approach to understanding humanity.

Hence the quirky Animal Planet threads.
2/

The distance afforded by non-participation in certain things (the weakness) also occasionally lends itself to a bit more subtlety with pattern detection (the strength).

And so I started painting a picture about bubbles.
3/

And in my mind’s eye there formed a cluster of ladybugs. They were happy, far from from eating aphids, and content on their beautiful tree.

And then one started flapping.
4/

At first the other ladybugs ignored it, but after a time its persistence was intoxicating.

And so a few more flapped.

And as is the way with exercise, certain endorphins were released

And it felt good to flap.
5/

Let’s talk about money and the State (Sovereign).

Since everyone constantly gets this wrong.
1/

So look: there never was a barter-centric state of nature.

That’s a nice story but when we look at the historical record, it’s just flat out false.

In point of fact:

- Debt predates money.
- Money predates barter.
2/

The way the Sovereign first got involved with debt was something like this:

King: “If you don’t give me 3 goats during harvest season, my soldiers will come burn your fucking house down.”

And in this way, the King originated a debt.

By fiat.
3/

But moving goats around sucks (horrible creatures) and is just sort of logistically annoying, so a new plan was devised, like this:

King: “Same deal with the soldiers and the burning and the profanity, but now it’s 50 pieces of silver instead of goats.”

Presto! Money!
4/

Money is a token that settles debts - always has been. The reason it’s useful is because it allows society to function like an abacus with N players.

In lieu of just the sovereign playing debt, these tokens are ‘debt settlement bearer assets’ which allow…well... the economy
5/

After much investigation and conversations with people on here, I’ve formed a relatively robust theory of what may be happening with Tether.

This thread will attempt to lay it out with neutral language for the purpose of discussion.
1/

Before we start, please note that ‘robust’ doesn’t mean ‘accurate’, it just means that:

1. the theory is internally consistent
2. it accounts for participant behavior

…but it’s important to remember that this is still hypothesis-stage thinking.
2/

First, let us note that the BTC ecosystem has clearly stated goals. They believe that:

1. Bitcoin is a new global reserve money.
2. They intend to create an alternative financial system around it.

Let’s just take them at their word and assume that’s directionally accurate.
3/

Next, a postulate: most people do not understand the current monetary system very well. This is exemplified by the “BRRR” meme and other variants of thinking which presume that the Fed prints money.

That’s not how the system actually works, as discussed elsewhere.
4/

In reality, what’s happening with the Fed is a bit more subtle and involves various forms of duration swaps and clerical activities that the populace at large gives more credence than those activities actually deserve.

Money is very complex.
5/

THREAD: The story of the week in finance is how a group of retail traders at @wallstreetbets, with assists from @ElonMusk and @Chamath, took down the establishment short sellers at GameStop.

A thread on the underlying mechanics of the $GME saga...

1/ First, for those unfamiliar with the business, GameStop is a videogame and merchandise retailer.

It has >5,000 stores, primarily in malls, across North America, Europe, and Australia.

The business has struggled to modernize, hurting its financial and stock performance.

2/ For a variety of business reasons, a bull (i.e. optimistic) case regarding its future performance has formed.

It really came to the forefront after RC Ventures, an entity managed by Chewy founder @ryancohen, disclosed a large position and assumed three board seats.

3/ @ryancohen summarized his case, stating:

"We are excited to bring our customer-obsessed mindset and technology experience to GameStop and its strategic assets...expanding the ways in which it delights customers and by becoming the ultimate destination for gamers."

4/ At the time of that statement on January 11, $GME stock was trading at about ~$20 per share.

Since then, the stock has surged to ~$200 per share and captured the public imagination.

But how did it happen?

There are two dynamics at play: a short squeeze and a gamma squeeze.

"If you create it for yourself, it’s art.

If you create it for others, it’s business."

@naval

General Warning: don’t work for or hire @IanMmmm - he’s a zero-integrity-self-serving manipulator. He destroyed an entire org at AWS.

He’s the reason I left @awscloud. He’s not just incompetent, he’s dishonest in the extreme. You’re throwing away your career working with him.

Also, pro-tip: record every call you have with a manager that you suspect is lying to you.

Here's what happened: I lost my shit when I didn't get promoted, because I was a child. That's on me. I had worked my ass off for 3 years and Ian said that if I moved to Seattle and signed a non-compete then I would get my promotion. I did those things - I didn't get promoted.

What does losing my shit mean? I sent a message to Ian and others that said "Fuck you, I'm not moving to the depressive hell hole that is Seattle. I'm not signing a non-compete. I'm going to stop working 100 hours a week for a company that doesn't give a shit about me."

Later, I found out that Ian had never actually reached out to anyone about my promo document. He just lied. He just ignored it until the last second because he was too focused on taking credit for my work for his own promo document. He got promoted.