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Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

> I think we'll discover before the end of this year just how many of the tech darlings were largely side effects of the poisonous sandbox constructed by the US fed

?? Poisonous sandbox?

Is this an awkward way of referring to money printing? Or the low interest rate environment?

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It warms my heart to think I could still be graded on language use so late in life. How would you describe it?

Its a perfect metaphor for the kind of environment the FED created in the last few years for risk assets imo.

s/FED/Fed/g it's not an acronym for anything. It's short for the Federal Reserve.

It's a bit awkward since "poisonous" usually refers to things you eat, and sandboxes or their contents are generally not eaten.

If you want to continue the sandbox metaphor, which I do like, "playing in the Fed's sandbox until the bottom fell out" might work. Or even "toxic sandbox".

> It's a bit awkward since "poisonous" refers to things you eat

poisonous (adj.)

[...]

2. (figuratively) Negative, harmful.

Synonym: toxic

Not a synonym, at least by the nouns they're based on. Toxin is a parent category that encompasses both poisons and venoms.

Poisons are something you do to yourself (usually by ingestion), venoms are injected by the other organism (such as a snake bite).

I quoted from Wiktionary, feel free to update the definition there (with sources) if you disagree. Note that the "Synonym: toxic" appears underneath the second (figurative) definition, and in my opinion is perfectly correct; in figurative use poisonous and toxic are used in the same way.

I was thinking somewhere vaguely along the lines of easy credit as something like heroin addiction/withdrawal, that's where poison came from. I guess it is awkward

I liked it. Also because the markets have become decoupled from reality/fundamentals/value - like a sandbox - at this point. Also liquidity and fungibility of the money supply/sand =)

> Or even "toxic sandbox".

The Caddyshack Baby Ruth scene seems apropos.

Fed Floaters. Everybody out! Pool's closed.

I usually think of "poison" to mean "dampening." It still doesn't quite work here though.

> If you want to continue the sandbox metaphor, which I do like, "playing in the Fed's sandbox until the bottom fell out" might work. Or even "toxic sandbox".

All toxic substances are poisonous. A toxin is a poison produced by a living cell or organism.

Poisonous Sandbox was elegantly simple, pithy even, and quite appropriate.

While "toxin" refers specifically to a poison produced by a living cell or organism, "toxic" does not -- it's a synonym of poisonous, directly derived from the Latin word for "poisonous".

"Toxin" is a newer invention, derived from "toxic" by adding the biochemistry-related suffix "-in" to indicate toxic substances of biological origin.

how about kid in hospital after tasting sand from sandbox poisoned with the Fed's rat droppings

> sandboxes or their contents are generally not eaten.

In my experience that is not a correct statement for the target demographics.

I think it works, toxins can transmit into the body not just through the ingestion route but also skin absorption among many other routes. So if there's toxins in the sand of the kind the skin is vulnerable to then that sandbox would be poisonous to the occupants. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/skin/default.html#:~:text=D....

I am partial to litter box

I like this. Everyone tries to bury their shit in the litter box.

You are always being graded you just got a report card earlier in life.

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