Originally posted by andromedan
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Reply to: State of the Market
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Previously on "State of the Market"
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Originally posted by oliverson View PostStrange happenings but I've had 4 contract opportunities 'thrust' my way, all on LinkedIn within the last 24 hours!
[Update]
Woah, just as soon as I clicked 'Send', another one!!
WTF is going on? Have hope people!!
[Update 2]
Now I've seen the specs, turns out 3 of them are the same role.
However, a quick glimpse on Jobserve shows another new one, completely unrelated. Decent rate, outside, remote (almost exclusively).
Problem is getting one over the line.
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Originally posted by SchumiStars View PostSo you are saying there will be a stock market crash? Sorry I don't understand financial markets We have not had one for years TBF. But won't that mean, even fewer jobs and longer recovery?
Some of the current red flags are, the Buffet indicator (total market earnings vs gdp), the longest and deepest yield curve inversion since 1929, the Sahm rule (rising unemployment), and many more besides.
A lot of people are optimistic that Trump will be "Reagans 3rd term". In other words someone who will slash taxes and regulation and unleash the economy. Even under Reagan it took a long time for the economy to boom. And that was from a starting point of inflation falling from 12%, 30% debt/gdp, corporate debt less than 1/10th of what it is now, a growing workforce instead of shrinking, and many other things being different.
One stock market analogy is a pile of sand and single grains are being dropped onto the pile. The pile accumulates into an ever steeper pile, sometimes with little landslides. But then one grain triggers a huge landslide - a crash. But the exact moment and reason this happens can be quite random although there is a correlation between the size and steepness of the pile and size of the crash. In other words, no-one really knows when and how big. But I do think a major correction is on the way.
Fewer jobs and longer recovery - it seems likely does it not?
Another factor in this is the reaction function. We know that because of what happened in 2008 the monetary reaction to a crash is better prepared, there are all kinds of central bank programs ready to fire. They were fired in 2020 for example, and we saw that V shaped crash and rapid bounce back. Only thing is, that isn't free, it will cause a lot of inflation and balooning of government debt. Seems to me that things could get quite messy over the next decade or so.
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Originally posted by willendure View Post
The S&P 500 is doing well because much of the money coming in is on auto pilot. Americans with jobs who pay regularly into their 401K pension funds and buy ETFs. They started auto enrolment in 2006, which means unless they opt out, they will be putting money in. Apart from the crash in 2008, and a few other wobbles, the stock market has been on a fairly steady trajectory ever since. Basically investing in equities is no longer about picking value investments, it is treating the stock market like a savings account with an expected return of 8% to 10%. Not so surprising when you recall that actual savings rates were near zero for much of that time.
But... compared with historical averages, equities are hugely over-priced at the moment. There is also a negative risk/reward in many cases compared with parking money in T-bills with zero risk, yet the money on auto-pilot still keeps coming in.
On the other hand, the amount of corporate/business/government debt is at historical highs, hence the low GDP growth rate.
It won't end well, but the ride could continue for some time. I hope the bubble bursts soon, because the longer it goes on, the worse it will be when it does pop.
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Originally posted by oliverson View Post
Think of how little Corp. Tax you're going to owe!!Last edited by andromedan; 6 December 2024, 19:46.
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Originally posted by dsc View PostWhat makes absolutely no sense is that with all this tech world tulipe + low GDP growth pretty much anywhere, the stock market has seen some crazy % growth, 20% last year and over 80% across the last 5 yrs. How is any of this tulipe possible? how can it be so great yet so bad at the same time?
But... compared with historical averages, equities are hugely over-priced at the moment. There is also a negative risk/reward in many cases compared with parking money in T-bills with zero risk, yet the money on auto-pilot still keeps coming in.
On the other hand, the amount of corporate/business/government debt is at historical highs, hence the low GDP growth rate.
It won't end well, but the ride could continue for some time. I hope the bubble bursts soon, because the longer it goes on, the worse it will be when it does pop.Last edited by willendure; 6 December 2024, 18:53.
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Year is closing up boys. 2024 the year of no contract.
Started 2024 in my overdraft and currently still in it.
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Originally posted by edison View Post
Clearly not.
A couple of students were quoted as saying they were practically the only native English speaking students on their course.
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Strange happenings but I've had 4 contract opportunities 'thrust' my way, all on LinkedIn within the last 24 hours!
[Update]
Woah, just as soon as I clicked 'Send', another one!!
WTF is going on? Have hope people!!
[Update 2]
Now I've seen the specs, turns out 3 of them are the same role.
However, a quick glimpse on Jobserve shows another new one, completely unrelated. Decent rate, outside, remote (almost exclusively).Last edited by oliverson; 6 December 2024, 13:33.
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Originally posted by jamesbrown View Post
"Trading Standards, how can I help you today?..."
Off topic, as usual for this thread, but... as an ex-academic and someone whose wife is an academic, I can say that students are caught for plagiarism all the time, and it doesn't end well, so the idea that students are getting away with this en masse is wide of the mark. Also, it would be pretty obvious in the grade statistics. However, it's certainly true that there are many postgrad (and even some undergrad) courses with few native English speakers because universities are only surviving on overseas fee income at present. They lose money for every home student and have been for years. Also, for the same reason, and as I noted earlier, I wouldn't be too surprised at a conspiracy of silence at a handful of borderline institutions, but this isn't widespread at RG universities, for example.
I was doing a lot of recruitment for junior-ish IT roles back in 2020-22. I was surprised how many applicants had masters degrees from, to put it politely, low ranking universities and were still working in basic, dead end jobs years aftergraduating. And then they were applying to join the IT Service Desk.
I think you are right, the word conspiracy wasn't used in the article, but it seems an open secret, and some senior university staff turn a blind eye to it due to the desperation to get funding via these foreign students.
I think it's more at the undergraduate level, but a lot of these foreign students come from very affluent families and they just want a bit of paper for their kids that says they went to a UK university, which in some quarters at least, is still considered prestigious.
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Originally posted by edison View Postguarantee
Off topic, as usual for this thread, but... as an ex-academic and someone whose wife is an academic, I can say that students are caught for plagiarism all the time, and it doesn't end well, so the idea that students are getting away with this en masse is wide of the mark. Also, it would be pretty obvious in the grade statistics. However, it's certainly true that there are many postgrad (and even some undergrad) courses with few native English speakers because universities are only surviving on overseas fee income at present. They lose money for every home student and have been for years. Also, for the same reason, and as I noted earlier, I wouldn't be too surprised at a conspiracy of silence at a handful of borderline institutions, but this isn't widespread at RG universities, for example.
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Originally posted by northernladuk View Post
I am absolutely sure this is going on and I'll bet the figures are higher than that... but... it's actually quite difficult to get an AI generated report through. My other half is doing a post grad course at the moment and they run the assignments through a checker and it comes back with a percentage probability that AI or copying has taken place. Looks at old submissions to see similarities amongst other things. It needs checking carefully even if you've not used AI or blatently copied anything. It can bring something as simple as quotation of well known phrases or even reference to her companies policies which are mentioned by most of the students from her work.
I would think any straight up AI document would fail it spectacularly but these people are pros at this con so will be working just as hard to using AI to get around the AI checkers.
A lot of GenAI text content is easy to spot, it just doesn't sound like a typical human would write. However, there are already 'rewriter' apps that take AI content and reword it to make it look human and supposedly guarantee the text will pass AI detectors.
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Originally posted by dsc View Post
Don't you have to present your final paper / project in person? surely then the lack of English skills would be evident?
A couple of students were quoted as saying they were practically the only native English speaking students on their course.
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Originally posted by SchumiStars View Post
The Masters from Oxford I paid for using savings and did using annual holiday from work. Defo not free, although I did manage to get it for £10k/3yrs after some accounting magic.
Just checked, same course, is £70k in fees alone now. No idea how people can afford that TBH. But when the students are driven to lectures in a rolls, you tend to wonder, if they will ever use it.
Son has just graduated from Notts in Economics has not told me what his debt level is TBF however I suspect it will 70k.
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