Interesting Links for 28-11-2017

[andrewducker]

You shouldn’t validate yourself by using the lives of groups you don’t belong to as evidence of why your identity is legitimate

(tags: identity transgender lgbt )

Australian Teacher Was Fired After His Students Saw Him With His Boyfriend

(tags: australia lgbt school OhForFucksSake )

Investing in mental health is the cheapest way to improve society

(tags: mentalhealth money society )

Runaways is the best new TV series you probably missed

(tags: tv comics superheroes )

Poll suggests unionists would be content with Irish Sea border after Brexit

(tags: NorthernIreland UK Europe ireland )

AirBnB hosts now using disguised bedroom cameras

(tags: OhForFucksSake surveillance housing )

Europe bans screen-scraping banking services

(tags: banking Technology europe security )

What signs are we seeing of a financial crash?

Anyone got any opinions about how far away the next crash is?
(tags: finance banking investment economics )

Comments

[miss_s_b]

I have avoided Runaways because the idea of a secret evil organisation called Pride is very uncomfortable for me...

[danieldwilliam]

We are probably about due for a general economic downturn in that it has been about ten years since the last one and they seem to happen about once a decade. However, I'm not sure there is much that is normal about the last ten years. We're arguably only just coming out of the last recession. Also, the world economy is now much larger than just the West, and large parts of it are operating to a different dynamic.

Growth in the West is hard because we're mostly at the technology frontier. Growth in the not-West is easier because they are mostly applying existing technology to peasant farmers turned factory workers.

If I had to pick a cause of the next crash it would be a revaluation of Western financial assets leading to a sharp enough downturn in Chinese exports that they can't fudge their own economic stats enough not to have banking or property crisis.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, China is in a bit of a tricky situation here - they are definitely covering things up, and it's going to get harder and harder to do that if pressure mounts on them.

Probably, to be honest, do them good to clear out some of the collapsed businesses in their economy. Which they do seem to be taking more of an interest in:
http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/2106283/chinese-bankruptcies-rise-sharply-year-more-zombie-firms

[danieldwilliam]

So long as they are still growing and employment is strong then now is probably the time to clear out some deadwood whilst avoiding too much social angst.

[calimac]

While the general topic is clear, I cannot figure out exactly what it is that the author of the first entry is objecting to.

[birguslatro]

I found this the most interesting chart I've seen in a while with regards to crashes...

https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2017/images/sp-ag-2017-02-16-graph1.gif

A lot of money's been going into houses, except for in the US. (And some other OECD countries not included in that chart for some reason.) If that's the trigger for the crash, it mightn't affect the US that much, and so may be localized, as with the Asian crash in the late 90s.

[andrewducker]

Possibly. Although the US varies dramatically, and there are definitely places where housing prices are ridiculously unaffordable.