Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Whether you have 24 processors with each dedicated to a window or one dithering between the 24 very quickly doesn’t make much difference from a human productivity point of view.

If we could build one processor that ran 24 times faster as economically as we could build 24 parallel processors, then the logical equivalence you note would apply.

But as Intel learned the hard way when they found it exponentially more costly to make Pentiums faster than about 3 GHz, there are practical limits, at whatever scale one is working (one CPU per cabinet, drawer, board, chip or core), to the speed that one can economically drive that CPU.

Thirty years ago, if someone pointed at a cabinet and said it was a computer, I assumed there was one processor in that cabinet. Now, I assume that there are dozens or hundreds of processors in there. The last system I worked on, before retiring from that career this month, had thousands of CPUs per cabinet.

When we (those designing computers, as I did for 30 years) hit the physics limits for practical, economical speed imposed by packaging choices at a particular scale, we are forced to start using multiple processors at that scale, to get continued computational growth.

The questions of which workloads, and which algorithms, run well on which computer architectures are then driven by the economics of computer design. If one way of packaging a gigaflop of processing is ten or a hundred times cheaper than an other way, then people will burn the midnight oil to get their workload to run on the cheaper architecture.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

If you do a google search for "ThePythonicCow" you will find my droppings in a variety of places on the web.

The very first hit, my home page on FreeRepublic.com, explains this moniker in more detail. It's a combination of "Python", a computer program language that I like, and "Cow", an animal that brings back warm and fond memories from my childhood.

One advantage to using "ThePythonicCow" as a handle on various forums -- I have yet to run into the problem of finding the handle already in use by someone else ;).

[sunskyfan]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

A thousand CPUS does not equal a CPU operating a thousand times faster.

A thousand CPUS and do a thousand individual tasks at the same time. A CPU operating at a thousand times faster can do the one task a thousand time faster. Most human interaction and problem solving does much better with 1 CPU than many.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

A thousand CPUS does not equal a CPU operating a thousand times faster.

A thousand CPUS and do a thousand individual tasks at the same time. A CPU operating at a thousand times faster can do the one task a thousand time faster. Most human interaction and problem solving does much better with 1 CPU than many.

For me I am learning a bit from this pretty interesting shit on CPU's, but it really has misdirected the thread, which in itself had turned into being visited and commented upon by lots of people.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

A thousand CPUS does not equal a CPU operating a thousand times faster.

A thousand CPUS and do a thousand individual tasks at the same time. A CPU operating at a thousand times faster can do the one task a thousand time faster. Most human interaction and problem solving does much better with 1 CPU than many.

As you suggest, there are correlations between the various quantities you consider, but the multiple layers of parallel and sequential processing involved in computer architecture and their application to various problems and interactions have more subtle relations than your straightfoward reply suggests, or than (unfortunately) I will take the time to present here (in part due to my laziness, in part due to this not being a computer architecture forum.)

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

For me I am learning a bit from this pretty interesting shit on CPU's, but it really has misdirected the thread

Quite so ... a bit off topic.

[Rajiv]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

I thought it meant something more like this except with a cow instead of a deer!

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Ouch - I'm glad I wasn't that deer.

[Rajiv]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

A lot of people did feel that way after the dot com bust! and they are probably feeling that way now!

[ajerimez2]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

There is also the demographic effect - back in the 90's Harry S. Dent predicted a down turn in 2008 based on the tendency of spending to reduce as baby-boomers grow old. Was he on to something and later lost his way?

I read his book "The Next Great Bubble Boom" a few years ago. Yes, he was predicting a new depression to start in the 2008/2010 time frame and persist until about 2020, based on the retirement of the Baby Boom generation. Unfortunately, he also had the balls to predict that the DOW would rocket to 20,000 or even 40,000 just before that depression started, which is why he became desperately bullish in these past few years - it was his last chance to be proven right, fundamentals be damned.

I haven't read any of his stuff for a while, but it seems that his depression has begun. Funny that it doesn't seem to have been precipitated by the retirement wave, but rather by the housing collapse. Poor old Harry never factored-in all the bad credit when he made his projections. Doubtless, though, that the retirement wave will exacerbate the decline.

I guess the lesson to learn is that Dent, Roubini, Schiff, EJ, Rogers - they all get the big-picture correct, but relying on any of them for exact timing or buy/sell targets is a waste of time. And just for the record, I'm not blaming anyone else for my losses, so spare me the "iTulip does not provide investment advice" bullshit. I have every right to criticize, and I will continue to turn to iTulip for advice in the coming years.

[Chomsky]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

"I haven't read any of his stuff for a while, but it seems that his depression has begun. Funny that it doesn't seem to have been precipitated by the retirement wave, but rather by the housing collapse."

Seems to me that, in a way, the housing collapse is related to the coming baby-boomer retirement wave. As the baby-boomers enter retirement, their activity in real estate is diminishing, posing a serious threat to FIRE sector profits. FIRE therefore expanded its horizons looking for ways to replace the baby-boomer RE economy, hence crappy underwriting, subprime loans, option-ARMs, etc.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

My apologies. To return to topic! In summation. The bullshit bubble enabled by computer technology mixed with the financial system has burst. The ability of the market to determine value is broken. Even gold. Nothing has value because value cannot be confidently determined thus deflation is happening. Out!

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

What's happening now makes 1987, 2002, 2004, and 2006 look like a walk in the park.

...

I just hope to god that this ends sooner rather than later, and that the Fed does what it's promised to do and prints dollars until the rivers run green. At this point, to have been right about the housing collapse and depression, yet still end up losing money on account of a fundamental misunderstanding of the money supply, is too much to bear.

The main investment rule of thumb I've taken from my readings this last year is to stay on my toes ... be ready to move quickly ... stay liquid or near liquid. I avoid any long term commitments of my money, avoid debt, avoid leverage, and quicly get out of stuff that isn't acting as I expected.

I don't expect to find a map of the future worth my blind trust; rather I expect to see what upcoming twists and turns I should be prepared to deal with, and to be able to better understand what is happening in the present.

[FRED]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

If you are expecting a deflation spiral, you are mistaken.

If you are not expecting a deflation spiral, what do you want to call it? We call it disinflation.

See The Truth about Deflation.

[labasta]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Unwinding of funny paper is not deflation. Go to your grocery store and look for prices that are going down. Just isn't happening (yet?). Stocks are down, oil is down commodities are down, but mostly on fears of just how much funny paper there is and how long we have to go before we hit bottom.

see http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data (yes, this lags a bit)

The big question is, "how long will it take to unwind all the funny paper?" With the government fiddling with things, it is going to take much longer than it should - collapses are fast - with the government propping things up, things will lean this way and that before tumbling down. There are funny housing loans with resets out to 2012. The rating companies have to be sued, put out of business, and replaced with new before any trust can return to the system. I'm afraid some of these things might take a while. In the mean time, the printing press is just getting revved up - and it takes a while for velocity to turn over the supply right now - the fire might start slow - but there is way to much kindling to say it is going out.

What should concern you more than inflation vs deflation of the dollar is the loss of good-will. The trust to do business is gone - the trust in the US government is sinking. I think it is quite probable that the dollar will lose its reserve currency status. Companies with funny books will start to be exposed and those with sound practices will be found - and rewarded.

The huge move to socialism in the last 8 years with the huge growth of government is inflationary - when will the teeth of inflation start to bite? Hard to say, as no one knows the extent of funny paper and funny book keeping. No one is talking about shrinking the size of government - I suppose if government keeps growing at the rate it is it starts to squeeze out the private sector. What happens as the biggest economy in the world goes socialist? I wonder if we just crossed a tipping point?

There is also the demographic effect - back in the 90's Harry S. Dent predicted a down turn in 2008 based on the tendency of spending to reduce as baby-boomers grow old. Was he on to something and later lost his way?

Funny you should mention demographics. I was thinking the there might be something in it the other day.

I read a book years ago that said the main movements from the 60s onwards have been caused by the baby boomers. I think there is something there. How much of a somethign I'm not sure.