Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> This "somewhere, someone is losing money!" concern trolling fallacy is one "usefully idiotic" source of our repeated bailout follies, so I'd like never to see it again.

I had trouble parsing this, is there an idiom in here that I'm not familiar with?

Thanks!



Maybe more than one such idiom? I probably skipped some commas. Also, I'm a bit of a nut, so most people will disagree with at least part of that sentence. Piece by piece:

"somewhere, someone is losing money": Any functioning market in securities will have winners and losers, so it isn't automatically a problem that someone has lost in any particular situation.

"concern trolling": This is when e.g. I pretend that I'm worried about something bad that might happen to you, but in reality the advice I'm giving is meant to help myself instead. We see this typically when a consultant from one political party claims to be worried about consequences for the other political party.

"fallacy": Something lots of people believe, that isn't true.

"usefully idiotic": A "useful idiot" is someone who believes the bullshit peddled by class enemies to such an extent that she'll repeat that bullshit in all seriousness, to her own detriment.

"bailout follies": We've had lots of economic downturns, but somehow only those overseen by Goldman alumni as Treasury Secretaries have required the taxpayer to give Wall Street lots of money.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: