<story><title>Sounding the Alarm: Now Is the Time to Be a Cockroach</title><url>http://www.erica.biz/2018/cockroach/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rbliss</author><text>The article fails to articulate a specific reason for a market failure besides:&lt;p&gt;1) The market is really good right now and has had a long run so we must be at the top.&lt;p&gt;2) An appeal to their own authority for having &amp;quot;trained myself to recognize the top&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This comes across as a scare clickbait piece devoid of substance. That&amp;#x27;s not to say we won&amp;#x27;t have a market failure in the near future, but without a clear rational, this specific article is junk.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s good to run a cash flow positive company, it&amp;#x27;s good to have 6 months of savings and low debt, but please post something more substantive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ericabiz</author><text>Hey rbliss, article author here. I&amp;#x27;ve been out of pocket all day. I was getting ready for bed when I saw my article on the front page of Hacker News!&lt;p&gt;Your comment is fair. It&amp;#x27;s late here, so I don&amp;#x27;t have the mental energy right now to write the 1000+ words I would like to on this matter.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s totally worth writing another followup blog post explaining in more detail, which I&amp;#x27;ll aim for next week.&lt;p&gt;But, in brief:&lt;p&gt;-- Flattening yield curve&lt;p&gt;-- Ridiculously low unemployment (&amp;quot;full employment&amp;quot; is the term that&amp;#x27;s floating around)&lt;p&gt;-- Record high housing prices&lt;p&gt;-- Public corporations sinking profits into stock buybacks instead of acquisitions or capital investment (I find this a highly dangerous trend for the economy)&lt;p&gt;-- Consumer debt levels now higher than they were in 2008&lt;p&gt;-- Subprime auto loans being &amp;quot;tranched&amp;quot; and sold to investors much like subprime housing was in 2005-7 (and this is even worse, since cars are depreciating assets): &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2018-07-16&amp;#x2F;riskiest-subprime-auto-bonds-shrug-off-consumer-lending-worries&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;2018-07-16&amp;#x2F;riskiest-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;And I saw this one yesterday: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.feld.com&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;early-stage-vcs-be-careful-out-there.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.feld.com&amp;#x2F;archives&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;early-stage-vcs-be-car...&lt;/a&gt; -- specific to the startup&amp;#x2F;tech field.&lt;p&gt;If anyone has any more questions, please feel free to ask me here, and as I said above, I&amp;#x27;ll aim to write a more detailed followup next week.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sounding the Alarm: Now Is the Time to Be a Cockroach</title><url>http://www.erica.biz/2018/cockroach/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rbliss</author><text>The article fails to articulate a specific reason for a market failure besides:&lt;p&gt;1) The market is really good right now and has had a long run so we must be at the top.&lt;p&gt;2) An appeal to their own authority for having &amp;quot;trained myself to recognize the top&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;This comes across as a scare clickbait piece devoid of substance. That&amp;#x27;s not to say we won&amp;#x27;t have a market failure in the near future, but without a clear rational, this specific article is junk.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s good to run a cash flow positive company, it&amp;#x27;s good to have 6 months of savings and low debt, but please post something more substantive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>NeedMoreTea</author><text>Agreed, to a point.&lt;p&gt;Having been through several more recessions, since the mid 70s, all have been different. Different symptoms, different causes, different sectors.&lt;p&gt;+ 1970s - Oil crisis &amp;amp; OPEC&lt;p&gt;+ 1980s - Deliberate govt policies and adoption of monetarism&lt;p&gt;+ 1990s - ERM, Black Monday, US S&amp;amp;L&lt;p&gt;+ 2002 - dot Com bust, post y2k contraction&lt;p&gt;+ 2008 - Global banking crisis&lt;p&gt;The nearest I&amp;#x27;ve seen to being able to &amp;quot;recognise the top&amp;quot; is some young person, usually looking too young to drive, turning up on national TV financial news explaining why &amp;quot;this time it&amp;#x27;s different&amp;quot;, why the boom will continue, or why the property market isn&amp;#x27;t overheated. This is usually a clear sign that the economy is now having a Loony Tunes moment, in mid-air and not yet noticing there&amp;#x27;s no ground any more.</text></comment>