Under what conditions is advertising a net economic benefit and/or when does it become a detriment? Some alternative phrasing: is all advertising bad, or can it be good? I'm personally astonished that some of the biggest companies today by revenue are simply advertising companies.
So how do you get investors to stop expanding operations within a capitalistic model, given that "green" innovations which increase efficiency or renewable energy production will not stop human investors from increasing absolute output & absolute consumption? And if the paradox cannot be resolved within a capitalist model, what modifications or changes are to be made?
Under what conditions is advertising a net economic benefit and/or when does it become a detriment? Some alternative phrasing: is all advertising bad, or can it be good? I'm personally astonished that some of the biggest companies today by revenue are simply advertising companies.
I think originally the most apparent argument in favor of permitting the existence of commercial advertisement is that it can be used to stimulate consumption of new products, giving companies greater power and incentive to create new markets.
The more obvious argument today in favor it would be that it facilitates a massive new digital market in services that are free to the user but paid for by advertisement.
Personally I think both these justifications are a crock of grade A horseshit, and it should be banned or restricted to purely local physical spaces.
...
Personally I'm on the fence about whether it should be banned. There are several possible down-sides.
First, it would be very hard for new players to enter a marketplace if there was no advertising allowed. Traditional brand-recognition would be everything. It would benefit the largest players in the market, similar to how the UK's ban on tobacco advertising actually helped the established tobacco firms.
Second, it would be impossible to enforce. They would sneak it in with paid endorsements, so while there would be no "overt" advertising, it would just massively boost the "advertorial" market. So you no longer have "advertising", you have "advercontent" and that's all the content you have, because nobody can afford to make anything else.
Third, if you're using a free service and are annoyed that there are adverts, so you want to ban them, then, hello, welcome to the new improved world where this service just doesn't exist in the first place.
EDIT: fourth, if it applied to something like video game advertising, then that would mean the types of games that cost a lot to produce just aren't economically viable anymore. No more GTA V type games, and massive layoffs. The same with filmmaking. But it'll also crash the indie market.
Third, if you're using a free service and are annoyed that there are adverts, so you want to ban them, then, hello, welcome to the new improved world where this service just doesn't exist in the first place.
The free digital service thing is another interesting point. You mention this:Third, if you're using a free service and are annoyed that there are adverts, so you want to ban them, then, hello, welcome to the new improved world where this service just doesn't exist in the first place.
-- and I have to wonder, is that actually a bad thing? Should things like youtube, facebook, etc exist? Hindsight is 20/20, and it's a stretch to say that we should have banned advertisement so that these things never formed, but really, I think things would be better without them.
I think youtube is maybe the best example to consider. The question is really a technical one: is there any compelling reason why we should do all of our video sharing over the internet through a single centralized multinational corporation's monopoly? Do we need their servers to do this? I don't think we do.
If advertisements were banned and the "user-created content platform" model was basically impossible to make profitable, people would still want to share videos over the internet. The incredible usefulness of the internet would have still stimulated increases in bandwidth and networking technology. The difference is that instead of a monopoly or cartel buying up obscene amounts of server space so they can control everything, we'd probably instead have a decentralized system for these "user networks" like youtube, facebook, etc. We would probably have improved peer-to-peer protocols written and improved by academics and non-profits with the sole aim of improving usefulness (with no profit motive required), rather than closed-door research done by Google or whoever to ever expand their control and entrench their userbase which is conditional on their profit from doing so.
We should go back to a barter economy and artisans. Important industry/resource extraction operations should be performed by public servants drawn from a pool of mandatory 2 to 4 year civil servants that all citizens are required to at one time be a part of.This sounds interesting, thow3 who haven’t done this kind of stuff (probably lots of people, including myself) can be trained by this3 who have done this stufff before, and can h3lp train new people
I remember learning about a place, I wish I remembered the name, that had various crafting guilds. An apprentice would have to craft something much better than their previous works to show their master so they could train apprentices, this was called a masterpiece.
Barter is terribly inefficient, but it does always work as a last resort*.
Artisan society sounds cool, but then it gives rise to guilds.
*Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Yes, looking back it was a history class, so it probably wasn’t talking about a specific place
I wish I could remember the name of the place it was talking aboutYes, looking back it was a history class, so it probably wasn’t talking about a specific place
No, if it was a history class, it is very likely it was talking about a specific place, and then forcibly extrapolating that place's customs and law to every other place in the vicinity -- see also freudality 101
Barter is terribly inefficient, but it does always work as a last resort*.
Artisan society sounds cool, but then it gives rise to guilds.
Really most barter societies would be communal villages for the most part.
“I wouldn’t live here if I wasn’t working here,” she says. “The main reason is there are no schools out here. If I get married and have children, they cannot get settled here in Lavasa.” This highlights one of the major problems for Lavasa – how does it turn itself from a quirky weekend getaway into a fully fledged “smart city” where people live and work full time?
There are lots of calls (made louder by the pandemic) that we need things like UBI to start separating access to goods and services from the act of producing goods and services. But this is still stuck on the idea of giving people more money instead of making things cost less so you don't need income. Is that really a bad thing though? Would we be better off trying to reduce costs universally, and somehow get over the psychological issues we have with "deflation", instead of figuring out how to give everyone money?
My hypothesis is that UBI alone can't do that, but has to be coupled with things like debt reform, removing health insurance dependence on employment, etc.
Heading back towards the topic a recent Australian survey shows that the covid epidemic has increased support for the idea of a Universial Basic Income (to 58% up from about 50-51%, if memory serves).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-11/survey-says-most-australians-welcome-universal-basic-income/12970924 (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-11/survey-says-most-australians-welcome-universal-basic-income/12970924)
In a bit of an overstatement the article opens with:QuoteNearly two-thirds of Australians say they would support the introduction of a universal basic income (UBI), according to a new poll.
Personally I think the political class has missed a huge opportunity to more to a UBI during the coronavirus epidemic, since the economy is already disrupted the opportunity cost of the transition is much much lower.
It should be noted that those groups that are most strongly opposed to UBI include (or are basically) the politicians, journalists and business people which is why despite decent popular support it is consistently trashed as an idea.
Why is it notable that people who oppose UBI are the ones that have to pay for it (politicians and business people)? I guess maybe it's notable that "journalists" are opposed, unless this meant "the media companies."
This begs the question then; why are our current crop of political leaders so averse to UBI and so dogmatic in their love for free market darwinism?I am demonstrably bad at detecting rhetorical questions - this is one one, isn't it? Anyways just in case - a large proportion of the funding for political (re)election campaigns comes directly form corporate coffers. Politicians also come almost exclusively from a privileged strata which benefits from the exploitation of cheap labour. There are also deeper reasons involving marriage to the 'growth at all costs' paradigm: the pyramid must grow! - but I'm not gonna write a treatise here.
I just don't believe that UBI can bring people above the poverty line; I posit UBI will shift the poverty line instead, consuming as much of UBI as it can. Until you put in place enforced laws that prevent capital holders from just rent-seeking all the UBI, it's going to be second verse same as the first. Also the claims of "but UBI is cheaper to administer than welfare" are spurious - the general public is not going to benefit from those savings; the tax funds are just going to be sent somewhere else.
There's a feminist who suggests that a monetary value be placed on housework + childcare so that more women could participate in a regulated labor market and enjoy workplace protections/make use of existing labor law :)
How about people who cook their own food every day instead of ordering pizza or going to a restaurant?
I foresee troubles with workplace safety inspectors. "No children on the workfloor!"
please explain how a…urinal?…sink?…oddly shaped storage unit?…whatever that is relates to this. I have no idea what you’re trying to convey. I’m sorrySpoiler (click to show/hide)
please explain how a…urinal?…sink?…oddly shaped storage unit?…whatever that is relates to this. I have no idea what you’re trying to convey. I’m sorrySpoiler (click to show/hide)
please explain how a…urinal?…sink?…oddly shaped storage unit?…whatever that is relates to this. I have no idea what you’re trying to convey. I’m sorrySpoiler (click to show/hide)
please explain how a…urinal?…sink?…oddly shaped storage unit?…whatever that is relates to this. I have no idea what you’re trying to convey. I’m sorrySpoiler (click to show/hide)
I refuse to explain myself. But for background you are presumably missing see: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-duchamps-urinal-changed-art-forever (https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-duchamps-urinal-changed-art-forever) Beyond that thinking is required.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
(ah, ninja'd, but have this anyways...)
thank you bothplease explain how a…urinal?…sink?…oddly shaped storage unit?…whatever that is relates to this. I have no idea what you’re trying to convey. I’m sorrySpoiler (click to show/hide)
Its a famous 'sculpture'/found art piece, essentially the artist took a urinal, laid it on its side, and put his name on the side of it.
Point being, the artist didn't make the urinal/work-of-art, only put it in a museum gallery.
So how do you measure the value of that which cannot be stolen but can be destroyed?
As for the 'rent-seeking' stuff how the hell are traditional dividends not a classic example of it?
More deeply I don't know how one can distiguish profit-seeking from rent-seeking in any rigorous way in the real world - the wage relation itself is a form of rent-seeking since the printers are deprived of part of their labouring efforts by the owner of the printing press; the waitress by the cafe owner; and the cafe owner by the mega-corp franchise.
Beyond any economic (read narrowly as monetary) relation one thing a UBI does is to free up the time investment otherwise demanded by wage labour.
As for the 'rent-seeking' stuff how the hell are traditional dividends not a classic example of it?
More deeply I don't know how one can distiguish profit-seeking from rent-seeking in any rigorous way in the real world - the wage relation itself is a form of rent-seeking since the printers are deprived of part of their labouring efforts by the owner of the printing press; the waitress by the cafe owner; and the cafe owner by the mega-corp franchise.
Beyond any economic (read narrowly as monetary) relation one thing a UBI does is to free up the time investment otherwise demanded by wage labour.
Dividends and "traditional" profit are gains you get from productive work. Rent seeking is getting paid for no productivity. Traditional dividends are not directly rent-seeking, because they are (traditionally) paid for out of the profits of a productive enterprise. Theoretically if the company in which you own shares doesn't make a profit, you don't get dividends.
If you make a ton of money building widgets and selling that at a mark-up, that's profit-making. If you already sold someone a widget and make customers pay you to keep using it, that's rent-seeking. Calling software development a "subscription" because you force updates on people every month: rent-seeking.
If you profit by buying low and selling high, that's neither profiting from productivity or rent-seeking, that's playing the market, and should also be discouraged (see: massive windfall profits of natural gas companies in Texas; also see "lucky" people who bought Bitcoin at $1 or some now-massive stock at low price. Basically I'd tax dividends at normal income rate, and tax gains due to sale of stock at some much higher price).
If I were to seriously look at creating a policy, I'd look at encouraging profits from productivity and discouraging rent-seeking and buy-low-sell-high profit. I'm still pondering how to address real-estate abuse; probably some combination of taxing non-residence property based on total amount of non-residence property owned and mandating that rental payment by the residents confers ownership share.
Well, I did too, but maybe for different reasons :p If I take the time to build a sand castle at low tide, why should anyone have a right come up to me and threaten to remove my enjoyment of watching the ocean take it away from me? The horrifying thing is that, that sandcastle example is an analogy that can be applied to people who watch their children suffer ruin by the influence and actions of others rather than watch their children become free adults. In some ways, figurative "inalienable property" is exactly at the core of "the right to take emo-pets on planes" and other "emo-rights" like the right "to have a public statue of some historic dude who was also a slave-owner or to remove that statue". Because the figurative or literal applications of words can blur, maybe I don't fully understand which "inalienable property" you meant, but if you are suggesting that I meant "inalienable property" referred to in Gambone's reply to this question (https://www.quora.com/Why-isn-t-property-one-of-the-inalienable-rights-listed-in-the-US-Declaration-of-Independence), that is not what I meant. I only meant that the effort of mowing a lawn resulted in nothing that could be taken or taxed, only destroyed. Mowing a lawn is as much an artistic expression as a functionally useful act. If it has been a high grass lawn and that grass was cut and gathered for livestock, then that grass is something that could be taken or taxed... that is where I was going with that. Taxmen, whether holding weapons or briefcases, want something tangible to take, and while GDP does include "services" that are not tangible, the payment for those services is tangible, which is why "paid baby-sitting" is part of GDP and "unpaid baby-sitting" is not.So how do you measure the value of that which cannot be stolen but can be destroyed?
I greatly enjoyed your post on inalienable property.
In other words, I dislike phrases like ”x is the richest country in this area” or ”the economic growth of last year was y%”, when these don’t correspond to living standard or poverty rates.
No, I mean the literal meaning of inalienable, rather than the figurative one: property that cannot be transferred.
I'm curious about this - I've never heard of "inalienable" being used to apply to property. "Inalienable" does mean "cannot be taken away," but there is no type of property (of which I'm aware) which cannot be taken away, so I don't know how to think about that.
Woo, 3/4 basis point target increase! I may make more than 1% on my savings account now!8.6% inflation.
Inflation discussion... begin!
This "inflation" is a lie to hide corporate price gouging and profit taking.Haha, this is the dumbest infographic I've seen in a while. The CPI doesn't even GO from 0 to 7 - it seems to be using the inflation rate, which is a first derivative (ie, not the right thing to compare here) and falsely calling it the CPI. Then, of course, intentionally scaling it to match the other graph to fool the innumerate.
(https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*riklDgWgYumg14RKdWRbTw.png)
This "inflation" is a lie to hide corporate price gouging and profit taking.Technically, inflation is not Corporate price gouging and profit taking, but rather Government overspending, overtaxing, and defrauding their creditors.
(https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*riklDgWgYumg14RKdWRbTw.png)
Does the government secretly pay people to produce less and pay more?Of course not! The US Government openly pays people to produce less and pay more! Just look at farming!
Trouble is getting the food from where it is, to where it isn't. That takes actual work and eeeewww work
QuoteTrouble is getting the food from where it is, to where it isn't. That takes actual work and eeeewww work
Better make it possible to have areas that don't produce food... start producing food. With modern seeds, irrigation and fertilizers there are few countries that can't grow enough food to prevent starvation. But that takes even more work.
It wouldn't even take the US to end hunger. The amount of food waste across the world is staggering. Trouble is getting the food from where it is, to where it isn't. That takes actual work and eeeewww work!Actually, I've delivered food "waste" in the form of fruit that fell off bagging machines onto the floor. What stopped that was the warehouse manager threatening firings and possibly criminal charges for taking "product" out the door despite it being explained that in reality it was actually "food waste" that goes in the dumpster along with hundreds of others of it's kind every day. So no, it's not about "eeeewww work", it's more obstacles set in place by people in authority, whether that is corporate or government. In addition there is little incentive to encourage it financially in the business, who may see donating "waste" product as creating supply in a way that negatively impacts retail sales down the road. My suggestion would be a local/state authorized pickup service for food wasters -> food charities and corporate donative tax breaks derived therefrom. The second part for tax breaks exists already to some degree, but an official local/state delivery truck that can be counted on to arrive timely during the facility's machine cleaning and sanitation shift on it's route to collect the local donations so they don't require refridgeration space at the factory location would help.
Farm subsidies are not as simple to reduce as you'd think. To some extent it's worth paying them to ensure that there are always farmers producing food; you don't want them to quit when there are "short term" market disruptions that would otherwise put them out of business, which then would result in shortages later. Consider all the recent industries we *didn't* subsidize; COVID catalyzed the departure of supply from the market, and now there just isn't a supply at all, which means prices go up for what is left. We *could have* subsidized these industries, to keep them producing, so we wouldn't now have shortages. But no, subsidies are bad!It's been a while since I've read much about agriculture, but you may be confusing crop insurances with subsidies. An argument against subsidies is that it drives the price of food up by paying large producers to not produce as much. As you said, this is useful to hinder unsustainably low prices. However when prices are high or there is a lack of supply it may be that subsidies could be temporarily reduced to encourage more planting. However that may be politically unviable as large agro producers are dominating the political scene for food producers, and besides lobbying, producers also have done such things as coordinated food dumping in the past over disputes regarding prices; for example milk producers dumping product onto the ground in protest over low prices, though I am unsure without checking if that was organizationally driven or individual acts. While that is less likely in a time of high prices I would assume, I can also assume there are avenues (including societal influence) for which large producers and agro organizations could negatively impact supply (thus raising price and pressure on government) and blame regulation, loss of subsides, etc and I would guess be completely in the clear civilly and legally. Thus there may be a social cost to lowering subsidies that raises prices even further during a price crunch, which the public would directly attribute to government action whether fair or unfair.
The issue I have with things like "public" anything is that you have to be careful to strike a balance of having the recipients of said public benefit have some kind of stake in it. If you just give things to people, but don't enfranchise them with it, they'll just let it devolve into squalor.I would be curious how enfranchise would be defined in that quote.
I think the government could do more to discourage the increasing trend of real estate megacorps buying up housing. I think this could be applied to any industry: tax rates should be proportional to market share, not just to profit. This way you discourage consolidation. Consolidation is only good if it results in efficiency, typically only in manufacturing; consolidation in literal rent-seeking industries is anathema.Yes indeed on your thoughts on consolidation of rentals. I also think public housing expansions would be a good idea; it may be I'd live in a concrete box+amenities with a small window in a big ugly building if it was possible to live in my concrete box paying rent by myself and if it did not require having me working 30 to 40+hrs a week yet with no savings for future investment in production capital of my own (I paid absurd rent for a one room the last time I did that which is why I'm complaining about saving while living on my own). NYC is doing some expansions for homeless shelters I read in the Times, but to me it sounds more like forced relocation to (for-profit?) facilities that ends with homeless individuals encouraged into signing a bank loan to escape curfew controls and other residency restrictions in the shelters. However that complete guess is a product of my own cynicism while reading some positive tone Times articles so I should clarify I don't know much about it besides those articles and it doesn't sound completely bad. Hopefully it's not an incarceration-lite system of profitable control that I'm making it out to be, but I also have read reasons to be skeptical of for-profit providers relying on government authority to pack them if that is what is being employed (articles were light on details, mostly an emotive piece, they followed politicians around to their events and what they did on day 1, 2 and 3 with positive quotes from a homeless person included).
I'm opposed to toll roads simply because the toll near work only accepts exact change and that means a lot of customers pester me for quarters I'll never have as work only gives me five dollar bills for change.
And this toll road only started doing that post quarantine and I suspect they just never bothered to hire people to man booths there for change or something.
This model also makes sense for things like natural resource management.
I think you misunderstood. I mean the public owns the natural resources/infrastructure, and then bids out the management to any number of contractors. This is NOT like cable companies, where the cable companies own the wires and are granted a monopoly. This is the crux of the lobbying and lawsuits around municipal broadband - these communities want to own the infrastructure and just contract out the maintenance, but the telecom folks want to own the infrastructure.
This is not *exclusive mining rights* contracts - this is things like "we let you mine/lumber/etc. this area on behalf of the owners, the public". Important distinction. As far as I know, only roads are really done this way, maybe some localized instances otherwise, but it's not common. I mean even power companies own their lines, they aren't "state owned." And I'd argue power is just as critical as roads.
So just out of curiosity, what's the alternative? How would a truly "public" industry actually be any more accountable than private industries now that are supposedly overseen by public commissions?
I don't see trading one corporate overlord for another to be anything other than a lateral shift... or am I missing something?
This is starting to veer a bit off from economics to politics... maybe there are some economic theories here that apply?
I don't see trading one corporate overlord for another to be anything other than a lateral shift... or am I missing something?
Maybe something like Triple Bottom LIne Accounting (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/triple-bottom-line.asp)?this sounds like an amazing idea, my question is how do you quantify how well a company is caring about the environment or people? Profits are numbers and can be easily compared, how will they gauge the other two parameters and how to improve them? To be clear, I like the idea, I’m just having trouble picturing how to “graph” the social and environmental effects, like it’s easy to say profits increased by m [money] this month, but how do you say whether and by how much p [quality for people] or e [environmental impact were affected? I used variables because I remember economics involved lots of equations. I don’t know if I worded this in a correct way, if you need clarification just ask, I agree environment and people should absolutely be considered, I mention graphs since in various shows in movies about companies, the meetings involve discussions of data, and if things can be measured, you can track improvements or declines and attempt to correct as necessary to ensure improvement in all 3 parameters, yes I am aware this is not how one would talk in person about describing this but this is how my brain is thinking about it and I don’t remember what people usually say instead of parameter, it’s been a while since I’ve had a conversation about data, I don’t even think I ever conversed about data with someone in person
(Just to move the discussion along, since - unsuprisingly - I think that the profit motive is itself the problem.)
[snip]
how do you quantify how well a company is caring about the environment or people?
[snip]
how do you quantify how well a company is caring about the environment or people?
One way to do this is to use a sustainability index to benchmark the company's efforts against. (A common one that gets used is the Global Reporting Initiative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Reporting_Initiative).) But even just enabling accounting for CO2 emissions can be used to quantify a limited environmental impact, for instance.
(The deeper question lurking here is how to balance the different ledgers of people, environment and profit against one another. While it is not easy (being green) attempts have been made, for example look at the way the Sustainable Development Index (https://www.sustainabledevelopmentindex.org/) tries to balance people and environment in a way that the Human Development Index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index) does not.)
Corps have savings, workers do not.More to the point
"Nobody wants to work" is a bullshit narrative anyway considering employers generally did nothing to adapt their hiring practices.
Corps have savings, workers do not.More to the point
"Nobody wants to work" is a bullshit narrative anyway considering employers generally did nothing to adapt their hiring practices.
"Nobody wants to work" is a made up narrative so employers do not HAVE to adapt their hiring practices.
Figured you might find this interesting. There was a massive leak of offshore accounts details, which is apparently got lots of juicy info in it. http://www.icij.org/offshore/secret-files-expose-offshores-global-impact
http://www.icij.org/blog/2013/04/highlights-offshore-leaks-so-far
Nice, very well done and my appreciative thanks. At least 1/3 of the world's wealth is stagnating in bank accounts seemingly doing nothing useful, huh. No wonder I can't find a job.
That's why one of Occupy's main messages has been that inequality is the problem. When somebody has so much wealth that they literally have no use for it other than hoarding it for its own sake, everyone else suffers for their obscene mental compulsion.
Don't banks invest money on behalf of their investors (account holders)? Just because there's money in an account, doesn't by itself tell us the "money is doing nothing useful".
The money sitting idle in the bank is a symptom of the problem, though, not the problem itself. Unutilized money ceases to have any economic meaning. e.g. if you had 1 billion dollars and bury it in a hole in the ground, that's 1 billion that's no longer in circulation. Too much aggressive investing could actually be inflationary / a bubble, e.g. you might prefer the money sits in the bank rather than everyone drives property prices through the roof for "investment properties", and regular people can't buy or rent a house.
If they don't invest it locally or in country at least, it encourages the current banking system (in the USA) to release freshly printed money directly to the banks because the system is designed from a trickle down perspective. If I may propose a theory, this causes inflation which doesn't effect the banks (as much) because they are the ones receiving the new money supply. By giving it directly to banks to loan, if they fail to put it back into a useful place, there is no recourse but to give them even more money in the hope they do something useful. If they receive 100% or a large percentage anyways of the new money, by not loaning what they receive, the inflation would not apply as much to them as they are the ones receiving the new money and thus the inflation, which is sort of percentage based will not effect them meaningfully because it puts even more of a majority of the money supply into their power. Meanwhile, non-banks are effected dramatically by the manipulation of money supply and clamor for ever lower interest rates because apparently the banks are not receiving enough to loan.
Meanwhile, at such low interest rates, there doesn't seem to me much incentive for banks to loan out more than what is necessary to pay back the interest or to fulfill their obligations. I'd suggest this is why growth has been extremely modest; the banks only loan the bare minimum to cover their obligations, which are themselves growing greater due to their accumulation of Fed loans; in other words an increase of volume being behind the modest growth despite being near 0% interest to the banks and much higher when leaving the banks, allowing them to easily limit the amount they have to put out for loan. Thus, perhaps if a large, likely international bank wishes to continue to accumulate easy, easy capital which can then loaned out at dozens or hundreds of times the interest they pay to the Fed (possibly once Fed interest rates go back up, as to increase loans now might stimulate the economy enough to encourage the Fed to raise rates on future loans), a bank could easily benefit if they allow their money to stagnate for as long as it continues to result in very low interest rate loans from the Federal reserve.
My solution would be to raise the Fed's rate as well as raising the rate on already outstanding loans. It would not crash the banks unless they refuse to find good loans or unless good loans do not exist. If good loans do not exist if I had the power I'd set up a government controlled banking and loans to operate at a minimized loss headed up by people disconnected and perhaps even that despise the current banking industry yet who are knowledgeable and willing to learn enough to run such a thing, and the leader would have to be a person with political ambitions willing to sign a non-corruption agreement wherein he trades all his 'political capital' if the organization becomes corrupt under their watch.
To allow the banks to continue what I consider blatant looting of government and citizens will result in an a slowly at best but surely inflated currency, an inflation that effects the many small holders of money the most because they have the least and that little will be worth less in trade, and the much fewer large holders almost nothing because they will have accumulated all the additional money added to the system while still being the most likely, on an individual level, to be able to flee from the currency should it indicate a crash due to inflation due to having enough to be able to live internationally rather than being forced to live locally.
Another recession? Didn’t the last one last a while?I don't think the last one really ended.
Another recession? Didn’t the last one last a while?I don't think the last one really ended.
Yeah, actuarial risk is a harsh mistress.NO
You have to be willing to accept short-term losses to invest in areas like that and, sadly, people don't like taking risks.
The only solution really is to get people to start valuing something *other* than currency, because then the risk picture changes - that is, if you value civil stability, then it's higher risk to ignore those areas.
Interest on my money market account is now up to 1.49%....back when the inflation rate was 3% instead of 8%.
Halfway to the 3% I was getting 20 years ago...
First cut of the profit (from investing your money) goes to the guys investing the monies.You forgot to mention they charge a yearly fee regardless of whether you make any profit.
Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?
Lots of high-profile strikes occurring or looming in the US (teachers, nurses, potentially rail workers) prompting this question: do strikes really hurt "management" or do they end up hurting customers?No
I can't see teachers strikes hurting schools (in fact 2nd party information has it that schools save tons of money in the short term if a strike occurs), but they massively hurt students.
Nurses striking - doubt it will hurt CEO pay or massive health industry income, but it puts patients at risk.
Freight workers striking - again, I doubt it will cause CEOs pain, but it will mean even more shortages of goods on peoples' shelves.
Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?
Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?
The alternative, I imagine, would be for the government to intercede on the workers' behalf and forcibly implement their demands. The Capitalist Class simply has a great deal more fat to survive long droughts with, and can out-survive anyone in the Working Class. I'd imagine the more real threat comes from the other members of the Capitalist Class, sensing weakness and smelling blood, moving in to displace them in the market, effectively kicking the weakling out of the country club of rich assholes, from which they can never return.
Is there a better alternative to strikes that will protect both workers and consumers?
The alternative, I imagine, would be for the government to intercede on the workers' behalf and forcibly implement their demands. The Capitalist Class simply has a great deal more fat to survive long droughts with, and can out-survive anyone in the Working Class. I'd imagine the more real threat comes from the other members of the Capitalist Class, sensing weakness and smelling blood, moving in to displace them in the market, effectively kicking the weakling out of the country club of rich assholes, from which they can never return.
This, but also:
Of course schools save a ton of money in the short term if a strike occurs. School shuts and they don't pay their striking workers. It's just that in the long term, if they want to keep having a school, they need to pay people to work at it. The point is not necessarily to hit them in their wallets, it's to make their business stop functioning.
The point of striking is to force the organization to shut down by depriving it of labor. It's like the part of a job interview when you say: "I'd love to work here, but I would need more money." It's just that they're saying: "look, I've been working here for 10 years and I want to keep working here, but guys, you gotta pay us more. Seriously. We've been telling you."
The last thing is: I'm not sure you realize this, but organizing a union or a strike is a fuckton of work. Also, sometimes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain) bad shit happens to you.
People don't strike when asking nicely works. Striking is usually only LEGAL when it's demonstrable that the company has been negotiating in bad faith, and then organizing the strike -- "hey time to deliberately deprive yourself of income" -- is hard. But when it works, it gets results. That's why people bother to do it.
A) What's the (economic) rationale behind striking instead of quitting and starting your own organization?
B) What do you do when the "management" is different than the "customer" - especially relevant for things like public teachers, law enforcement, etc. These are "businesses" that society doesn't really want "to be put out of business", yes?
we have a national worker shortage
I guess this could go here as it's economy related, but a somewhat funny thing is happening in Croatia. So in light of recent inflation trends the govt has issued a price fix on certain essential goods like flour, milk, oil, sugar etc. meaning that their price can't go above a certain point. Croatia also has certain laws that prohibit selling goods for below their minimum acquisition price, this is to prevent unfair practices like massively undercutting products when you can absorb the cost to drive competition out of business and similar shady stuff companies would try and pull if they weren't leashed properly.
The problem we now get to is that because the base price of sugar has gone up past the price cap set by the govt retailers are now legally unable to sell it, and since the laws are made by incredibly competent people, nobody thought to introduce exceptions and provisions for extremes such as this one. And now you're stuck with a nation-wide sugar shortage, except there's plenty of sugar in every supermarket, but nobody can legally buy it :V
we have a national worker shortage
We have a shortage of wages, not workers.
Please stick to economics, not politics, thanks! We have other threads for political discussion. If you can focus on the economic theory behind it - what is different about this economic cycle than previous ones, for example?
Interesting article about the study that helped prompt Britain's descent into austerity from 9 years ago:Oh, it looks like it's had quite an impact :P
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190
Turns out there was a mistake in it. Debt-to-GDP ratio doesn't have anywhere near as much of an impact as the original study predicted.
OK, can someone translate that for me? I've no idea what that means.Lets pretend I am a dickhead banker. Through fractional reserve banking I make money lending money I don't have to people who have less and charging them interest on it. But there's a problem: I could actually lose money if everyone I opened debt accounts or can't pay back. Because I am a dickhead banker I would rather have someone else pay for the consequences of my actions. And so you get the credit default swap.
Increasing minimum wage IS inflation. Anyone that can't concede that point is an idiot.The price of labour increasing is a symptom of inflation, as much a cause of it. The creation of money is the foremost cause of inflation, not the circulation of money. The circulation of money is the purpose of money; higher wages is simply a way to transfer wealth from job destroyers and low-productivity workers to job creators and high-productivity workers. It will not affect the creation of money, but it will grow the economy and improve living standards for all those suffering a real decline in their ability to purchase vital resources like living space, nutrition, clothing & transport. Much hubub is put on how rising wages would make rising services and manufacturing costs, thus forcing businesses to raise prices and drive inflation up. So individuals are asked to take a real wealth cut and a real drop in security and living standards - and yet inflation still continues. This is because all of America's news media are owned by 4 companies, none of which want to discuss the role that profits have in the deleterious wealth transfer from poor to ludicrous elite. E.g. it's unfair to expect Amazon or McDonalds to pay more of the record profits they make to the workers who made those profits, but Jamal and Cletus need to really tighten their belts so shareholders can get better returns on Jamal's shift
Now, I'm not necessarily saying that it's not an appropriate response to inflation, but you have to get the inflation under control before you throw more gas on the fire.
Wouldn't the way to fight inflation be to incentivize saving, incentivize long-term investments, increase taxes, anything to tie up people's money and remove it from the economy?
Increasing minimum wage IS inflation. Anyone that can't concede that point is an idiot.The price of labour increasing is a symptom of inflation, as much a cause of it. The creation of money is the foremost cause of inflation, not the circulation of money. The circulation of money is the purpose of money; higher wages is simply a way to transfer wealth from job destroyers and low-productivity workers to job creators and high-productivity workers. It will not affect the creation of money, but it will grow the economy and improve living standards for all those suffering a real decline in their ability to purchase vital resources like living space, nutrition, clothing & transport. Much hubub is put on how rising wages would make rising services and manufacturing costs, thus forcing businesses to raise prices and drive inflation up. So individuals are asked to take a real wealth cut and a real drop in security and living standards - and yet inflation still continues. This is because all of America's news media are owned by 4 companies, none of which want to discuss the role that profits have in the deleterious wealth transfer from poor to ludicrous elite. E.g. it's unfair to expect Amazon or McDonalds to pay more of the record profits they make to the workers who made those profits, but Jamal and Cletus need to really tighten their belts so shareholders can get better returns on Jamal's shift
Now, I'm not necessarily saying that it's not an appropriate response to inflation, but you have to get the inflation under control before you throw more gas on the fire.
It's been a while, so new post:
I was reading an article yesterday about how the average monthly income in some countries is the equivalent of like $250 (US).
My understanding is this is done not on a purchasing-power-parity comparison but just on a nominal conversion rate comparison.
My musings are thus: If it's possible to live (albeit with a low standard of living) on $250 a month - which it must be possible to "survive" on that - basic food and stuff at least - then what bizarre systems are in place which prevent price equality? I mean, I'm pretty frugal with my budget, and it costs my family of four roughly $800 a month for groceries ($50/person-week).
In these countries with $250 monthly income, how much does it cost for monthly groceries?
What's preventing resourceful "rich" folks from going in, buying that really cheap food for even half what it costs me locally, both giving those low-income places more revenue and getting me my food for less? That is - why is there not massive arbitrage here? Is it purely trade restrictions?
In these countries with $250 monthly income, how much does it cost for monthly groceries?Transport usually kicks things up a notch. Otherwise you can totally do stuff like that. E.g. rich people flying to another country to buy tailor-made clothes at prices cheaper than generic store one size fits all clothes. Of course it also makes more economic sense for rich people to fly to a cheaper country to get their goods because they also receive a lot of free flights from their credit and air club schemes. Another similar version is old pensioners moving from the west to live in hotels abroad. And to some extent you can get away with arbitrage, and you see it a lot even between countries that have no trade deals at all and so face full tariffs. I guess the main competition is that if you try to get away with something like selling cheap imported food... You'll probably already be competing with a globomartcorpTM who has the same idea
What's preventing resourceful "rich" folks from going in, buying that really cheap food for even half what it costs me locally, both giving those low-income places more revenue and getting me my food for less? That is - why is there not massive arbitrage here? Is it purely trade restrictions?
So that basically confirms what I thought - "trade restrictions" was my shorthand for "the people with guns preventing free trade from happening."Reminds me of one of my old Russian-Ukrainian schoolmates who used to fly to Ukraine to buy tobacco to resell in the UK. It's the kind of stuff you can get away with when you're arbitraging 60 packets of cigarettes but when you start getting higher the people whose profits you're hurting notice it and put an end to it
Funnily enough, my dad and his friends got pulled over on suspicion of that despite the fact they weren't doing it.Fake moustaches and funny nose clipped on?
They'd gone off to France to buy a load of cheap goods with the intention of gifting and personal use. Problem was, it was the 90s, there were three of them, and they had a white van. They couldn't have made it look more suspicious if they tried.
I have to say though I was hoping for something alternative to "it's the business cycle" - I mean I guess I understand the business cycle theory, but it doesn't feel right; in the sense that "if you have to make a change of 1-2% here or there, sure. But 10-20% changes (basically anything active, instead of just not backfilling attrition) "overnight" makes me think EJ's assessment is more accurate: people collectively are idiots, no matter how smart any subgroup might be.You have to understand, businesses can motor on quite happily accumulating inefficiencies at, say, a modest 2% a year for five years before the lean times come and the fat has to be trimmed. Nobody tells you that a division is underperforming until it starts to take in less than it spends; you don't get to see the amount of money you could've been making.
Basically - if "everyone" knows the business cycle is broken, why don't "we" fix it? Is it because people really do like the "excitement" of an unstable system, over a nice (theoretically) continually improving one, that doesn't have systemic downturns? One where you have reasonable savings margins and buffers against chaotic events like weather and disease?Worse, it's innate in the mathematics and in human psychology. There is no possibility of stability. To understand this, you need to really drill down into what that would mean - like that "reasonable savings margins and buffers against chaotic events like weather and disease" means that, when the weather turns out to be fine and you're not diseased, you have capital lying on the ground being wasted, you produce less than you could have, and somewhere on the margin people starve to death who could've been fed.
Or is it really just that even if you have populations trying for stability, that social structures (explicit like laws, or implicit like culture) cause it to revert to unstable boom-bust cycling?
To understand this, you need to really drill down into what that would mean - like that "reasonable savings margins and buffers against chaotic events like weather and disease" means that, when the weather turns out to be fine and you're not diseased, you have capital lying on the ground being wasted, you produce less than you could have, and somewhere on the margin people starve to death who could've been fed.
I don't think I understand this - why would capital be wasted here? By "stability" I mean you do is "bank" your excess produce, so when you have a production interruption you can draw down your stores instead of having nothing. The old "let's build grain silos and store up our extra produce during good years, and then live like kings when there's a famine" strategy.The wasted capital in this case is the land, labor, seed, water, etc. that goes to growing the excess produce that you store up in the grain silo instead of any other possible use that might help people today.
You're both also forgetting that Rich People can profit from cyclical economic times. And Rich People control a lot.This is pretty naive.
After all, sure if you have a few extra things in your pantry, that's not waste.Of course it is. Hasn't your mother ever told you, "clean your plate, there are starving children in Africa"? It's a very minor example of waste in the long run, but it is deadweight, resources just sitting around when they could be helping someone now.
Look at it like this: if the family next door sells off everything in their pantry at the end of the day, while you let it sit, that family (which presumably eats as much as yours in the long run) will outcompete yours in the market whenever there isn't a supply shock, which is most of the time.Does that account for the non-negligible cost of more frequent trips to the market?
Does that account for the non-negligible cost of more frequent trips to the market?Yes, because it's, you know, an analogy.
Some of us don't consider "maximum dollar gain" to be the end goal, some of us like "stability" or "lack of stress."Sure, and I think that's true of most people, but it is an objective fact that those who do care about maximum dollar gain will get more money than you, which, in a business context, means you get bought out or shareholders revolt. I feel like we're having two fundamentally different conversations here; I'm trying to answer you as to "why they do that" while you're telling me that you wouldn't. Okay, neither would I, but you're not running a JIT company!
It sounds like the key to that question is a definition of "better"This. Everyone has different ideas about what a "well-stocked pantry" means, from nothing at all and panicked clearing of every loaf of bread from the store every time they predict a snowstorm to a 20+ year food supply. Same with the tradeoff between job security and amount of income. Just as "we" can't do better by mandating everyone keep exactly 1 week food on hand, as that is optimized only for those who preferred 1 week, "we" can't improve on pretty much any other set of tradeoffs, other than respecting others' choice of a different preference. And, of course, the consequences of that choice.
That is - the claims that "the economy isn't zero sum" miss the fact that parts of the economy are indeed zero sum or even worse. The reason we have consumer protection laws is evidence of this: a company maximizing its local profit will often do so at the expense of "social good." Consider the stuff in the news about indirect collusion of rent prices, or cries of price gouging on anything, etc.Apart from contrived scenarios, things like this should not happen. Not having extra batteries on hand when there's a hurricane heading one's way was a decision he made to not buy spares in the weeks and years ahead of the actual event, and he just desires to externalize the costs of that decision onto others. Gouging is a good thing. It incentivizes people to have on hand the stuff they will need so they are not driving around as the storm approaches, hoovering up everything in sight. It incentivizes people from outside the area to load trucks with goods that they can get better prices on. Ideally, this never happens because everyone already has a few cases of water, a week's worth of food, basic medical needs, etc. on hand, so there are not local shortages in the first place.
I have never before imagined I would live to see the words "gouging is a good thing" writtenI know. Sad, isn't it, that we've basically all been indoctrinated to the point we can't think things like this through?
I know. Sad, isn't it, that we've basically all been indoctrinated to the point we can't think things like this through?It's a good thing we have armed robbers, as they incentivise people to wear body armour. It's just a shame people are so indoctrinated to the point where they can't see the good in being shot at by armed robbers
Hardly applicable. It is easy to say men should not harm other men, and to punish those who won't follow the rules. It's another entirely to try to tell Mother Nature to stop harming people and punish her if she won't listen.Perfectly applicable; you are saying that someone taking advantage of a catastrophe to price gouge people out of essential supplies is a good thing. This is an argument which is so basically wrong it falls apart at the first glance. A price gouger no more incentivises people to stock up on essentials than an armed robber incentivises people to stock up on defences. Because if you live in an area that is prone to natural disasters, the natural disasters themselves incentivise people to be prepared. Someone taking advantage of panic and ill-prepared persons is not providing some moral good, they are a robber and scum of the highest degree. Especially since not everyone has the storage space or resources to have weeks of supplies in the event of a catastrophe, as the majority of the human race is just living paycheck to paycheck.
It is hardly unforeseeable that there would be circumstances where you would want spare batteries or extra aspirin or a case of water. Heck, some countries got darned close to that with their COVID lockdowns. The time to lay in a month's supplies is before you get welded into your apartments for a 14 day quarantine.
Have fun dying of thirst or making do at half or less of your normal insulin dose.Lmao is this an American thing? You talk about the real world and the imaginary world as if it's controversial to help your fellow man with the resources your nation has in abundance. It's not some hypothetical to punish price gougers and deliver emergency relief to people in crisis... This has been business as usual for thousands of years of human history. I don't have to worry about dying of thirst, I don't have to worry about insulin dose rations, my healthcare is free and my country maintains supply lines in times of crisis instead of allowing a small number of price gougers to hoard vital supplies. This mindset of "Lol pay up little piggy or die" just displays a total absence of basic empathy. I would give a beast a sip of water if I saw it dying of thirst, the idea of looking forward to punishing swathes of humanity for not being able to prepare for a supply crisis that is entirely manufactured by price gougers is - like I say - the mentality of an armed robber who chides his victims for not having sufficient defences against their predations.
Once upon a time, a single person managed to accumulate a little bit more than everyone else. Of course, they were outnumbered by their peers, who could take that surplus with their numbers.Probably not how it came about. Why would anyone obey someone's dictates just because he had two bushels of apples when you only had one? Would YOU?
And thus, the first Rich Man invented Government to keep his riches.
The Establishment has a love/hate relationship with Middle Class. On one hand, they never want to share their wealth with the Middle Class, and they profit from the Middle Class. On the other hand, they need the assistance of the Middle Class to control the Poor.This has rarely been true. Particularly in American politics, ever since general (white adult male) sufferage the winning tactic has always been for the rich and poor to team up against the middle.
...you are saying that someone taking advantage of a catastrophe to price gouge people out of essential supplies is a good thing.I'm actually saying its better than the alternative.
Imagine a city which is prone to disasters, but where inexplicably, people continue to live. You are likely familiar with the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper. This city's denizens choose the ant's tactic. They commit themselves to having one shelf of their kitchen that always has food and a couple cans of Sterno, and a couple cases of water in the hall closet. When disaster strikes, they clean up their yard trash, haul it to the curb, and then, if they are not part of the general reconstruction (roads, power, etc.) they go back to their homes and read a book or play a board game or something. Point is they are staying off the roads, not interfering with the people who need the roads to haul away all the yard trash and rebuild the roads and reconnect the power. A couple days later, the city is back to 80%.I love that story. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=180346.msg8414243#msg8414243) Yet you're still continually failing to justify your argument by forming a baseless link between being pro-preparedness and pro-price gouging.
Now imagine they choose the grasshopper strategy. The storm no more than passes and all the grasshopper putzes are out clogging the roads trying to get a latte. The power crews are unable to get through, and instead of focusing on getting infrastructure going again, the disaster response has to be hauling food and water and other supplies in, while trying to get through all the cars that ran out of gas trying to find a store that still had water. Instead of being more or less back in business 48 hours later, this strategy is still limping along 2 weeks later.
So the question is how do you get the population to choose the ant strategy, which is self-evidently superior in terms of minimizing human suffering?There's actually two arguments which need to be addressed here. The first and most obvious is not all actors in an economy have equal market power, information, time, resources and energy. Take a good look at how the majority of the world lives in tropical areas prone to annual extreme weather events, and how with a few exceptions (e.g. Singapore), most of these countries from Latin America to East Asia and everyone in between tend to have incredibly low median incomes relative to developed nations. A brick maker or factory worker in Bangladesh will likely have a good deal of experience with regular seasonal flooding from monsoon rains or memories of tsunamis. And yet, why do they not have weeks of bottled water, food & medicine stocked up?
It's not so much that gouging is objectively good in itself, but rather that it puts in place the right incentives. Sure you ignored the speed limit sign, and you can't do anything about what has already happened, so maybe a fine will make you slow down next time. Whereas if the policy is just to ignore all the yutzes doing 90 in a school zone, that behavior is likely to continue. A fine works exactly the same way gouging does. Indeed, it's a little odd to think that "gougers" should be fined, as it is an implicit acceptance of the idea that incentives matter.
Because that's what happens. You don't incentivise people to be more prepared when you have price gougers. The disaster is the incentive.Feel free to correct me, but I think this is the core of your argument. But if they are stocked up, why should they care about gougers? They are someone else's problem. Either someone who did not bother stocking up, or someone whose stocks were destroyed by the disaster.
If catastrophy strikes this very moment the peoole who are going to be stocked up were allways the people who were stocked up at all times, I wouldn't call it foresight necessarily , allways worrying you won't have enough is a preliminary state (non pathological) of the pathology greed.Even so, I think it's worth being prepared just in case. There are plenty of times where if you are prepared for a disaster, then you are well prepared for something which is less than a disaster. E.g. being prepared for a catastrophe means you're much less affected if there is a power out, or if there is a sudden shock in food prices, or you suddenly lose your job and source of income. The ant may not have the foresight to foresee anything in particular, but in the story the ant is just preparing for winter itself. Much in the same way that we can't tell when disaster will strike, it's not that hard to envision that one day, bad things will happen, and having some emergency funds and supplies as a safety net can carry you through.
If anything the ant is blind, it doesn't foresee anything, you gave it 2 units of food everytime it gathers 1, it would continue to stockpile anyway, on the other hand I know few insects as skittish as grasshoppers, man as soon as that 6 foot shadow enters their periphery those things are gone. So maybe shake the biblical subtones and stop discussing this shit in terms of a children fable, especially when it doesn't work on macroscale.
Yes piglet in stonehouse has the most common sense, big win, meanwhile it's easier on the supply chain to have 1000 appartment dwellers consume an average of 0,7463 sour cheese boxes per week than it is for a supermarket to anticipate single customers buying their stock of some product empty sparodically. Not moral relativism, circumscribing these thing in definitve formulation was a loosing bet from the get go, the smallest common denominator is probably something like, "everybody is a nuisance to someone.Hahaha, reminds me of the spaghetti panic runs, where people simultaneously begin hoarding spaghetti
Feel free to correct me, but I think this is the core of your argument. But if they are stocked up, why should they care about gougers? They are someone else's problem. Either someone who did not bother stocking up, or someone whose stocks were destroyed by the disaster.Because they are a moral blight in this world I live in who provoke the same outrage upon me as I would upon hearing my neighbours got robbed. My response wouldn't be "don't care I didn't get robbed not my problem" my response would be "these gougers are criminal predators." There is more to life for me than self-interest; everything good and enjoyable in life comes from the networks I build on trust, altruism and honesty. Introducing a moral hazard and perverse incentive to be rapacious, selfish and dishonest will inevitably poison the well of society. Even if it will not affect me monetarily, I would rather not see my society endorse dickheads, and am happy with the way they are castigated.
If the former, then that argues against you that the disaster in itself is enough to incentivize preparedness, when by definition it was not, in the same manner that police have to keep picking up people for speeding in a school zone because, self-evidently, they are speeding, despite the knowledge that the disaster of smashing into a kid should have been enough of an incentive.In this scenario you are comparing the person engaging in dangerous behaviour (a gouger exploiting people in times of crisis) with a person being endangered by reckless behaviour (a child about to be hit by a careless driver). This is funny
If the latter, that's where you had the foresight to set aside a little extra for your neighbor, trusting that if the roles were reversed, he would do the same for you.See:
If you don't think humans are ingenious enough to devise ways of storing food in ways that are safe from most disaster conditions, you need an explanation for why humans didn't die out hundreds of thousands, millions of years ago. Maybe we've just become terminally stupid?
Access to refrigeration, storage space, the ability to procure such items in sufficient quantity at a price within their means e.t.c. all contribute to this. Even in developed countries, even when there are no times of crisis, you can see this effect on everyday spending. It is trivial for wealthier individuals to purchase bulk items & transport them, whereas items which are sold in smaller units all cost higher per gram or per litre. As a result it is cheaper for wealthier shoppers to buy higher quality ingredients in bulk than it is for poorer persons to buy lower quality ingredients in smaller units. This disparity grows when you consider how many more facilities for storage and cooking are available for wealthier persons than their poorer counterparts. Poverty is self-reinforcing. If you have more market power you can reject bad deals; for poorer persons, they have to take what they can get. This is where price gouging becomes especially evil, in that you severely reward those who have more market power and completely fuck over those without it.Out of all possible solutions to this; whether it be through education, social values, religion, disaster relief stockpiles, support networks, community outreach, reserve forces e.t.c. why would you pick the only one that creates a perverse incentive for the creation of a parasite class of merchants of misery who actively get people killed in times of crisis and actively make things worse for those who have the will to prepare, but lack the means. The stick of a price gouger is pitiable compared to the stick of the disaster which enables them; but you're giving a carrot to predatory behaviour, and you will get predators if you allow it
By reskinning the grasshoppers, we are back to bullies taking lunch money, Duuvian. I know you are trying to link it to merchants, but their "control" consists only of what someone else is willing to pay. There's a reason cartels fall apart. It's either that or maintain their existence through state-equivalent levels of violence and terror. Or, as above, becoming the bullies stealing lunch money.
Because [gougers] are a moral blight in this world...Why do you think this? The moral principle, I mean.
In this scenario you are comparing the person engaging in dangerous behaviour (a gouger exploiting people in times of crisis) with a person being endangered by reckless behaviour (a child about to be hit by a careless driver). This is funnyI was trying to compare gouger to speeder, the people being "exploited" with the kid getting splatted.
I get the feeling you are coming from a lesser developed country. I have no personal experience there. But I have lots of personal experience in the States. If anything, it's become far easier now for those of lesser means to stock up. You have to look at prices, but often Amazon has durable food less expensive than at the big box, and they bring it right to your door. Every year, Bezos gives away Prime to poor people, so they have access to better delivery terms than I do, though honestly, it's not that hard to end up with $25 in your cart so you get free shipping. There's a regional supermarket chain with prices really close to WalMart that delivers a $50 order for free. I use that all the time rather than dealing with the hassle of shopping, though I tip the delivery person generously. And in return, they make sure my order has no damaged packages before they deliver it.If the latter, that's where you had the foresight to set aside a little extra for your neighbor, trusting that if the roles were reversed, he would do the same for you.See:
If you don't think humans are ingenious enough to devise ways of storing food in ways that are safe from most disaster conditions, you need an explanation for why humans didn't die out hundreds of thousands, millions of years ago. Maybe we've just become terminally stupid?Access to refrigeration, storage space, the ability to procure such items in sufficient quantity at a price within their means e.t.c. all contribute to this. Even in developed countries, even when there are no times of crisis, you can see this effect on everyday spending. It is trivial for wealthier individuals to purchase bulk items & transport them, whereas items which are sold in smaller units all cost higher per gram or per litre. As a result it is cheaper for wealthier shoppers to buy higher quality ingredients in bulk than it is for poorer persons to buy lower quality ingredients in smaller units. This disparity grows when you consider how many more facilities for storage and cooking are available for wealthier persons than their poorer counterparts. Poverty is self-reinforcing. If you have more market power you can reject bad deals; for poorer persons, they have to take what they can get. This is where price gouging becomes especially evil, in that you severely reward those who have more market power and completely fuck over those without it.Out of all possible solutions to this; whether it be through education, social values, religion, disaster relief stockpiles, support networks, community outreach, reserve forces e.t.c. why would you pick the only one that creates a perverse incentive for the creation of a parasite class of merchants of misery who actively get people killed in times of crisis and actively make things worse for those who have the will to prepare, but lack the means. The stick of a price gouger is pitiable compared to the stick of the disaster which enables them; but you're giving a carrot to predatory behaviour, and you will get predators if you allow it
Cos it's a predatory practice used by parasites to actively reduce value in an existing society for personal profitBecause [gougers] are a moral blight in this world...Why do you think this? The moral principle, I mean.
Pretty much every time the power goes out in the summer, there are some people who go around and buy all the ice available. Sure, part of it goes to keeping the food cold, but a lot of it just gets put in dishpans to keep some room cooler than it otherwise would be, or dumped in a kiddie pool in the back yard to keep the beer on ice. Quite a bit of it melts on the back porch, never having been put to any use at all, but, hey, at a buck a bag, why not? If you needed it, you had it. On the other hand, the guy who needed a small cooler full to keep his medication cold but got to the store too late is just screwed.Lol why are you okay with this?
In this world, there are people like the first guy. Whatever the policy, it has to deal with the problems these guys cause. Some stores try limits, which sort of work, but then the same guy just makes trips through each checkout line with 2 bags at a time, and more than once I've seen people with far more than the limits with the clerk giving him a nasty look, but making the sale anyway. At, say, $5 a bag, he's more likely to think, "Do I really need more ice? A bunch of it just melted last time." And the guy with the critical need is much happier to pay $5 than to not have any at all.In this world people who tried price gouging everyone on PPE and alcohol gel got their stocks confiscated and redistributed for free to keep staff stocks high lol. In this scenario it's that one asshole who bought all the ice to resell it for $5 a bag being forced to give it to the guy who needs to chill their med stocks for free. Supermarket is happy because the price gouger already paid for it all, med stocks are chilled, price gouger gets gouged, world is good
By the way, there's an easy way to keep from being exploited by gougers. Just don't buy from them. But don't even attempt doing the same with the taxing authorities. If you want to know who the real exploiters are, ask yourself, "To whom can I say, 'No'".Price gougers only arise in situations where supply can be constrained by individuals with outsized market power compared to actual consumers; in such cases where a commodity suddenly becomes critical or supply chains are suddenly interrupted, only an active elimination of predatory gougers is sufficient. If for example someone tried buying all of a certain antibiotic to resell to hospitals, "not buying" is not an option, as the need is constant and immediate. This is especially true for any resource whose supply is being unnaturally limited by a few gougers accumulating great stockpiles to induce an artificial drought in supply
I get the feeling you are coming from a lesser developed country.I live in the UK. You can drink the tap water and breath the air, but give it some time, we're slowly sinking into the stone age ;(
If you live somewhere that options like this do not exist, where there are no sales except gougers, I feel sorry for you, though I can't really empathize as I have no frame of reference.Even countries with excellent supply in whatever resources can suddenly experience the conditions necessary to allow price gouging to exist, e.g. Covid-19, the blocking of the Suez Canal, Black Sea shipment blockade, sudden panic/hype over a certain resource e.t.c.
What makes you think I'm OK with it? I'm just saying it's what happens.Pretty much every time the power goes out in the summer, there are some people who go around and buy all the ice available. Sure, part of it goes to keeping the food cold, but a lot of it just gets put in dishpans to keep some room cooler than it otherwise would be, or dumped in a kiddie pool in the back yard to keep the beer on ice. Quite a bit of it melts on the back porch, never having been put to any use at all, but, hey, at a buck a bag, why not? If you needed it, you had it. On the other hand, the guy who needed a small cooler full to keep his medication cold but got to the store too late is just screwed.Lol why are you okay with this?
Yep. Agreed. So, like in the real world, next time people won't bother to buy generators to bring them to where people need them. No one gets generators? That's supposed to be a good thing?In this world, there are people like the first guy. Whatever the policy, it has to deal with the problems these guys cause. Some stores try limits, which sort of work, but then the same guy just makes trips through each checkout line with 2 bags at a time, and more than once I've seen people with far more than the limits with the clerk giving him a nasty look, but making the sale anyway. At, say, $5 a bag, he's more likely to think, "Do I really need more ice? A bunch of it just melted last time." And the guy with the critical need is much happier to pay $5 than to not have any at all.In this world people who tried price gouging everyone on PPE and alcohol gel got their stocks confiscated and redistributed for free to keep staff stocks high lol. In this scenario it's that one asshole who bought all the ice to resell it for $5 a bag being forced to give it to the guy who needs to chill their med stocks for free. Supermarket is happy because the price gouger already paid for it all, med stocks are chilled, price gouger gets gouged, world is good
This is just silly. In any economy of any size at all, any "market power" that exists is simply because government has decided to interpose itself. Otherwise, the guy who buys for the least, and has the lowest overhead, can afford to sell for the lowest price, which we know the consumer prefers.By the way, there's an easy way to keep from being exploited by gougers. Just don't buy from them. But don't even attempt doing the same with the taxing authorities. If you want to know who the real exploiters are, ask yourself, "To whom can I say, 'No'".Price gougers only arise in situations where supply can be constrained by individuals with outsized market power compared to actual consumers; in such cases where a commodity suddenly becomes critical or supply chains are suddenly interrupted, only an active elimination of predatory gougers is sufficient. If for example someone tried buying all of a certain antibiotic to resell to hospitals, "not buying" is not an option, as the need is constant and immediate. This is especially true for any resource whose supply is being unnaturally limited by a few gougers accumulating great stockpiles to induce an artificial drought in supply
OK. Mostly we can drink the water and breathe the air, except for the relative handful of places where government says it is in charge of water and air. Like for instance, Flint, MI or Jackson, MS.I get the feeling you are coming from a lesser developed country.I live in the UK. You can drink the tap water and breath the air, but give it some time, we're slowly sinking into the stone age ;(
Nope. There are always people who anticipate bizarre, tin-foil hat events. The massive big box stores are not this type. But they manage to find enough morons to blame "gougers" so that they can maintain their profit margins.If you live somewhere that options like this do not exist, where there are no sales except gougers, I feel sorry for you, though I can't really empathize as I have no frame of reference.Even countries with excellent supply in whatever resources can suddenly experience the conditions necessary to allow price gouging to exist, e.g. Covid-19, the blocking of the Suez Canal, Black Sea shipment blockade, sudden panic/hype over a certain resource e.t.c.
Heh I just read something that claims that "price gouging cannot exist in a free market".There are a few complete nonsense assumptions that everything in neo-classical economics is based on.
Apparently because if some company tries to price gouge, magically there are no natural barriers to entry (such as availability of natural resources, free capital, physical space, energy, etc.) for competitors to come in and replace supply.
I mean sure, there's a microchip shortage, let me instantaneously convert my food processing plant into an EUV chip fab.
I think what the author meant to say is that price gouging cannot exist in the long term in a truly free market, but that is almost irrelevant for practical purposes, because people are impacted adversely in the short term just as much (arguably even more, because of compounding effects) as the long term. It also misses that in a truly free market, any entity with gouging power is able to consolidate resources and increase their ability to "gouge" in more markets in the future.
Its a soft science based around human activity, what assumptions do you expect them to make?This might sound a bit simplistic; but how about they make assumptions that aren't obviously wrong?
The whole study is pointless if you're just going to go "well people might not do what we guess anyway"
You're forgetting about the Millions being pumped into perpetrating the Wrong theories. Rich gotta stay rich, and they got the dough to back it up.Its a soft science based around human activity, what assumptions do you expect them to make?This might sound a bit simplistic; but how about they make assumptions that aren't obviously wrong?
The whole study is pointless if you're just going to go "well people might not do what we guess anyway"
Now, I do understand the value in a good basic model, but if you are going to use this model for anything in the real world then having it be fundamentally wrong is really stupid.
Its like engineers trying to build a bridge operating under the assumption that said bridge would exist in a frictionless vaccum, not only is it stupid, but its going to get a lot of people killed.
This is relevant because like bad structures horrible economic policy can and does kill people.
And there are totally branches of economics that don't make these stupid assumptions, so even though its a soft science they can just... look at all those other not-stupid economists?
But I think the "work from home" movement is really about taking AWAY worker benefits in the guise of rewards.You're uh... just figuring that out? :P
"See, we can all just pay less to the Government, and we'll all get richer!Well... no, deducting work expenses is legal and easy and also the IRS makes it mandatory to have free tax software available (I use it).
...of course, only I can afford the accountants and corporate structure to get away with it, whereas you will probably crumble if the IRS even looks at you.
But Progress!" ::Capitalist Hat::
Which, for the viewer at home's benefit since you already know this, means"See, we can all just pay less to the Government, and we'll all get richer!Well... no, deducting work expenses is legal and easy and also the IRS makes it mandatory to have free tax software available (I use it).
...of course, only I can afford the accountants and corporate structure to get away with it, whereas you will probably crumble if the IRS even looks at you.
But Progress!" ::Capitalist Hat::
The main problem I would have brought up is that it doesn't actually reimburse you for the expenses, it just means you aren't TAXED on them, so you're still on the hook for the actual cost, and your employer isn't either way.
I mean sure the transition is tough, but what if instead of needing 1000 people in a city to do office building maintenance and janitorial, those 1000 people are free to do something else?That's called "not having jobs anymore". What, do you think they're going to learn to code? In this economy?
When industries (or individuals) yell about their suppliers having "excessive pricing", is this emotion-based, or is it based on some kind of objective criteria? More philosophically - if you were a regulatory agency trying to determine if the pricing was excessive, how would you know?Nope. It just means "asking more than I hoped to pay".
Or more basically, isn't "excessive" always a relative term, not absolute?
Is it even possible to come up with a (fair?) criteria for excessive? If supply meets demand at some price, how is that excessive?
The argument is if you had a society that didn't need janitors then you'd be better off than if you do need janitors. Sure if you already have a society that needs janitors, and transition to a society that doesn't need them, then you repeat the endless historical pattern of "oh heavens my livelihood was replaced by progress."On the other hand, we're rapidly running out of shit for people to actually do, especially if they're unskilled. And if people run out of shit to do they just kinda starve to death.
Yes it sucks for the individuals caught in the transition, but it's better for society. It's like the broken window fallacy because you're spending money on janitorial staff that you wouldn't need at all if you didn't have millions of square feet of office buildings. Yes they have jobs, but it's literally just pushing dirt around. Just like paying people to clean up broken windows - yes you employ them, but that's about it.
Also if your home office makes you spend more on internet, HVAC, and "printing" (do people still do that!?) by more than you save from having no commute - I unequivocally say that You Are Doing Something Wrong. I mean you're more than welcome to keep working in an office if you want, but for me, it's not worth the tradeoffs.
Even though I do need to get out of my basement (office) more often. ;D
Uh, we still got factories and farms. Those folks do not get to work from home.I mean... farmers usually live somewhere on their farms. :P
...good point! :PUh, we still got factories and farms. Those folks do not get to work from home.I mean... farmers usually live somewhere on their farms. :P
The "Middle Class" continue to be suckers: Middle-income Americans think prosperity is within reach (https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/31/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html)$40-$140k is one hell of a wide range for them to survey, I wouldn't put the six figs guys in the same bracket as the five, but divide them into lower mid, mid and upper mid
“thriving financially, being able to cover living expenses, handle emergencies, and pursue life goals without significant tradeoffs.”
You also probably want actual data, and not a survey that justifies your position... ;DThe "Middle Class" continue to be suckers: Middle-income Americans think prosperity is within reach (https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/07/31/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html)$40-$140k is one hell of a wide range for them to survey, I wouldn't put the six figs guys in the same bracket as the five, but divide them into lower mid, mid and upper mid
Eh, I know I'm biased, but given the definition of prosperity:Believing in the middle class makes you a sucker.Quote“thriving financially, being able to cover living expenses, handle emergencies, and pursue life goals without significant tradeoffs.”
How does this make the middle class 'suckers', even at the lower end of the bracket? You can absolutely achieve that definition on $50k/year, although it is highly geographically dependent.
It's also extraordinarily dependent on personal preferences: what is a "significant tradeoff"? All of life involves tradeoffs; this definition is pretty vague.
You also probably want actual data, and not a survey that justifies your position... ;D"Do you believe in freedom?"
Believing in the middle class makes you a sucker.Everyone knows being an asset-rich income-poor fallen aristocrat trapped in a gilded castle atop a lonely mountain slowly liquidating what is left of their once venerable house to vulgar bankers, or being an asset-poor income-poor hiker turned-bog dweller who regularly gets mistaken for a cryptid and whose family misses them very much are the only valid forms of class division. All others are simply unacceptable
They don't exist. They died off years ago.
You're either Rich or Poor.
The whole "Middle Class" is cover for the Rich to slum or the Poor to flaunt.
It's also not about "income" as the one-and-only determinant. Do you have assets? Hm?
Assets are the real definition of wealth. Anyone that distracts from that is pulling some kind of scam.
I mean - I don't understand these statements of certainty with no backing data. It's a stretch to say that there is no middle class, only rich and poor. Like I really want to know what definitions are used there, and why the actual definitions are deemed invalid and an oppressive scam?It's a popular belief of people who are middle class and don't want to be because they listen to too much punk music.
Either you need to sell your labor to survive, so you're lower class, or you do not.Right, that's exactly the kind of take that you get from people who are incredibly wealthy from a historical perspective but suddenly aware of the increasing precarity of their economic circumstances and deeply resentful of their parents for failing to immanentize the eschaton. Thanks for the great example.
Prisoners are forced cheap labor, but okay.
Prisoners are forced cheap labor, but okay.Prisoners are not required to work in the US and only 61% did at collection of the latest available statistics.
Prisoners are forced cheap labor, but okay.Prisoners are not required to work in the US and only 61% did at collection of the latest available statistics.
Depends on the state, from google several states including California have laws mandating prisoners be forced to work. (https://www.capradio.org/articles/2023/05/12/california-is-one-of-16-states-that-allows-forced-labor-but-a-constitutional-amendment-seeks-to-change-that/)I'm aware. You do see how that's totally irrelevant to my point, right? What matters is that there are prisoners who don't "need to sell [their] labor to survive", not that some do sell their labor.
(13th Amendment is explicit that slavery is still totally cool so long as they're a convict: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.")
It is aimed at categorizing the UK population in particular, so it probably won't match other countries as well (Massive Student Debt burden is a very American problem, for example).The lack of property ownership at all income levels, in contrast, seems to be spreading from the UK to the US...
US rate 65.9% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/184902/homeownership-rate-in-the-us-since-2003/),Yes, but when we have them, they're bigger.
UK rate 64.3% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/804446/property-tenure-distribution-in-the-united-kingdom/)
eh, home ownership looks like it's always about equal. UK has gone from a bit higher in 2003 (70.9% vs 68.3%) to a bit lower nowadays but they more or less track out the same trends and within a couple of percentages from each other.
US rate 65.9% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/184902/homeownership-rate-in-the-us-since-2003/),Idk what it's like in USA but if you look at home ownership by age it's just all pensioners (https://www.statista.com/statistics/321097/distribution-of-home-owners-in-england-uk-by-type-of-home-financing-and-age/) and working age people do not own homes
UK rate 64.3% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/804446/property-tenure-distribution-in-the-united-kingdom/)
eh, home ownership looks like it's always about equal. UK has gone from a bit higher in 2003 (70.9% vs 68.3%) to a bit lower nowadays but they more or less track out the same trends and within a couple of percentages from each other.
Idk what it's like in USA but if you look at home ownership by age it's just all pensioners (https://www.statista.com/statistics/321097/distribution-of-home-owners-in-england-uk-by-type-of-home-financing-and-age/) and working age people do not own homes
Those are two different statistics. Loud Whispers has posted a statistic that shows that, surprisingly, people pay off more of their debt over time and therefore have less debt when they're older.Idk what it's like in USA but if you look at home ownership by age it's just all pensioners (https://www.statista.com/statistics/321097/distribution-of-home-owners-in-england-uk-by-type-of-home-financing-and-age/) and working age people do not own homes
The USA seems to stabilize after you pass the 35+ range instead (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1036066/homeownership-rate-by-age-usa/) of massively spiking.
Those are two different statistics. Loud Whispers has posted a statistic that shows that, surprisingly, people pay off more of their debt over time and therefore have less debt when they're older.It is home ownership split by financing, to get the total just add the two together
Well yes, but I assumed you wanted to know the split in the US, which obviously the other statistic doesn't provide. If you didn't actually care about that, then, sure, never mind; I just thought that's what you were getting at since it's what you posted.Those are two different statistics. Loud Whispers has posted a statistic that shows that, surprisingly, people pay off more of their debt over time and therefore have less debt when they're older.It is home ownership split by financing, to get the total just add the two together
But Wednesday’s move to significantly bump prices, marked an acknowledgment by Iger of the media giant’s intent to squeeze more revenue out of streaming by pushing consumers to the advertising-supported plans, which have proven to be more profitable.
“The advertising marketplace for streaming is picking up,” Iger told investors on the quarterly earnings call. “It’s more healthy than the advertising marketplace for linear television. We believe in the future of advertising on our streaming platforms, both Disney+ and Hulu.”
I was just about to post that here.QuoteBut Wednesday’s move to significantly bump prices, marked an acknowledgment by Iger of the media giant’s intent to squeeze more revenue out of streaming by pushing consumers to the advertising-supported plans, which have proven to be more profitable.
“The advertising marketplace for streaming is picking up,” Iger told investors on the quarterly earnings call. “It’s more healthy than the advertising marketplace for linear television. We believe in the future of advertising on our streaming platforms, both Disney+ and Hulu.”
What a bizarre world.
I was just about to post that here.Not least to say the practice of spending billions to acquire and produce franchises, whilst simultaneously streamlining all franchises with strict creative control so all media pieces are "modular" and interchangeable with all their media arms (including, painfully enough, the need to make them fit in with their theme park goals), and you get this insane frankenmedia monopoly where they alienate the franchise's original fans by producing an incredibly watered down and generic product that appeals to no one in particular. Which wouldn't be so bad economically if they didn't come with budgets that exceed the economy of entire countries and get pumped out every two months
After pouring billions and billions of dollars into constructing supposedly revolutionary streaming platforms, and decimating the business models that had offered the industry stability for decades, the ultimate product looks awfully similar to what companies and consumers were trying to break free from in the first place. (https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/08/10/media/disney-plus-streaming-prices-reliable-sources/index.html)
Lahaina residents worry a rebuilt Maui town could slip into the hands of affluent outsiders (https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-maui-lahaina-housing-prices-shortage-d8902c3ea55a8ec4d9938865f3f749f7)Sad but true. Disasters like covid or climate change turbocharge the pressures already exerted on powerless communities
I think that is good guess...
Interesting anecdote: one of my utility companies sent me a notice saying they will no longer accept credit/debit card accounts for auto-pay due to "high costs and other policies of the processing companies."
Have we passed peak credit-card? Or is this just a sign that it's now cheap enough (due to changes in the ACH network/laws) that these companies are doing their own processing?
I have to laud your ability to find the absolute worst interpretation of any phenomenon.I've been screwed by the electric company. Watch the news, and you'll probably see that I am not the only one.
The example EuchreJack gave isn't even a story about someone being screwed by a company, anyway, but, at most, by a law that allows for charges based on estimated usage and not what you actually got. Even then, it'll be corrected for on the first bill after they can actually check the meter anyway, so it's not actually a big deal.This is only true if you have enough money in your bank account to cover the overcharge, and you do NOT have anything that you urgently need to purchase with those funds. In my case, I got hit with a $2000 auto-deduction from my account. Thankfully, I had slightly more than that, and a secondary account to pay other expenses. I'm not sure most people would have been so well-off...
This is only true if you have enough money in your bank account to cover the overcharge, and you do NOT have anything that you urgently need to purchase with those funds. In my case, I got hit with a $2000 auto-deduction from my account. Thankfully, I had slightly more than that, and a secondary account to pay other expenses. I'm not sure most people would have been so well-off...I mean, yeah, if you're going to allow bills to be paid out of your account without even knowing what they are first, then yes, you're going to need a considerable emergency fund to cover it. But that's the breaks.
Interesting anecdote: one of my utility companies sent me a notice saying they will no longer accept credit/debit card accounts for auto-pay due to "high costs and other policies of the processing companies."
Have we passed peak credit-card? Or is this just a sign that it's now cheap enough (due to changes in the ACH network/laws) that these companies are doing their own processing?
So with my autopays - I get my bill before the withdraw date. So I have an opportunity to call the billing department before the withdrawal. Something like a $2000 electric bill would immediately be a red flag - that's more than I spend in a year.Mind you, this was several years ago, so I don't recall ALL the details, but I think the autopay hit about a day after I received the bill.
Are your auto-pay systems not set up that way? It shouldn't be possible to get charged before you know how much it will cost, even for "pay as billed" accounts.
Credit or debit card autopay has just the same problems, although the credit card one at least means you don't need to pay it off right now, if you're the kind of freak who carries a balance. Disputing the charges isn't a solution because the charges are entirely legit and legal. You'll need to have a bigger emergency fund no matter what, because you've agreed to pay a bill without knowing what it will even be.If you dispute the charge on a credit card, it becomes the Utility Company's job to Justify it to the Credit Card Company.
If you dispute the charge on a credit card, it becomes the Utility Company's job to Justify it to the Credit Card Company.That doesn't change the rules of the game at all, because the charge in the example is completely legitimate and legal. There is a law saying that they can charge that amount, and then credit your account later if it turns out to have been wrong. The credit card company is going to rubber-stamp it so hard your head will spin and then you still have to figure out how to pay it off.
It totally changes the rules of the game.
WHY THE FUCK AM I ARGUING WITH YOU TWO ABOUT THIS!?
No I agree with EJ here - if you don't use a CC, it's a lot more difficult to dispute a charge. The CCs have a much stronger arm to deal with chargebacks or whatever it's called than the average person. That also sounds like complete trash or corruption that it took a year to get that overcharge corrected.No, I'm talking about the specific example EuchreJack cited. An electric company had some kind of technical problem with their meters, so they charged based on estimated usage, which is industry standard. With physical dial meters like we have here, they can even charge estimated usage normally - here, meters are checked every other month, with estimated charges in the off months. Customers then complained that the estimated usage was much higher than their actual usage, but they're allowed to do that, and it's corrected for in the next bill based on actual usage. You won't be able to charge that back.
I can't say I've looked into any laws that "make it legal for companies to overcharge so long as they refund it later." I suspect there are probably laws that make it look like that, but not carte-blanche, otherwise why wouldn't companies basically just constantly overcharge by $100s, sit on the cash for a year or whatever, and just pay you back the amount with no penalty? Even if not protected by CC company lawyers, this doesn't happen constantly, which it would if companies could just "overcharge and refund way later" whenever they wanted.
Stealing $3 million still probably gets you less time in jail than shoplifting goods at a fraction of that amount.I'm just glad the Sackler bankruptcy got overturned. It wouldn't make sense for people to get killed over dealing grams of weed whilst a cartel dealing in billions of opiate pills got off free
Er, you might want to put away the champagne. I'm reasonably sure the Supreme Court is hearing the case so they can expand Bankruptcy Protection to more Ultra-rich people. Or maybe they're fishing for more bribe money, it's hard to tell with the Supreme Court...Stealing $3 million still probably gets you less time in jail than shoplifting goods at a fraction of that amount.I'm just glad the Sackler bankruptcy got overturned. It wouldn't make sense for people to get killed over dealing grams of weed whilst a cartel dealing in billions of opiate pills got off free
Er, you might want to put away the champagne. I'm reasonably sure the Supreme Court is hearing the case so they can expand Bankruptcy Protection to more Ultra-rich people. Or maybe they're fishing for more bribe money, it's hard to tell with the Supreme Court...>:[
Unrealized income is not a loss. (You cannot lose more than you spent.)-Disney says unrealised income is loss
...Consider what happened when the USSR dissolved and businesses became "privately owned"... The bulk of the workers lost out greatly and only a few people gained wealth. The Argentinian workers realize that this would happen to them as well.
I find it absolutely hilarious when an anarcho-capitalist wants to transfer the ownership from the state to the workers and socialists scream - "over our dead bodies!"
The airline was nationalized in ‘08, and hasn’t made a profit since. It’s projected to lose more than $100 million this year, and improvement over last years losses of ~$250 million.
Privatizing it will cost jobs, benefits, working conditions, and the consumer as they cut unprofitable routes.
Consider what happened when the USSR dissolved and businesses became "privately owned"... The bulk of the workers lost out greatly and only a few people gained wealth. The Argentinian workers realize that this would happen to them as well.Yes, but in the post-USSR no one transferred anything directly to workers. (at least in Ukraine) There were privatization certificates but they didn't work in this way.
But that's exactly what I mean - if you can actually buy a house - it's way better than renting, isn't it?
I mean if home values go up, but you have a fixed mortgage (and why wouldn't you!?), then in inflation-adjusted terms you are paying less and less per month for an appreciating asset.
If you are paying rent - you are likely paying increasing amounts of cash with no asset accrual. I mean unless your area literally has no available homes to buy, and no land to buy to build-to-suit, I can't imagine how renting is better than buying.
I mean isn't that one of the pillars of how younger generations are getting systemically harmed, because there is no available equity to buy, and the property owners are extracting rents instead?
what do you mean payments start to balloon - once you buy a house, the price you pay per month stays constant until you refinance or move.
And house prices are high because *gasp* people are paying those prices, even at high interest rates! So clearly people were willing to pay inflated prices.
This is all just an artifact of forcing companies to keep their profits and losses "scoped" to their company. If a company like an airline could treat the benefits to society as its own gain, even if it was spending more money than it made, then that value could be treated as profit due to that company.This is the principle behind having public roads and national health services. In times of yore in the UK you used to have loads of privately maintained roads with toll gates to pay for the upkeep of certain bridges and roads. But by nationalising this service and allowing everyone to use the roads, commerce exploded and the public benefit more than paid for itself. Same deal with public healthcare; people in good health pay taxes and get work done, and a strong public healthcare system facilitates even more profitable private healthcare research. Similar things could be said for good port infrastructure, good passenger rail at cheap prices, good internet infrastructure and availability. If you want to go one step further, I find it very funny that in the UK our Tories are ardent free market disciples and would swear by Adam Smith as their Lord and Saviour. Yet Adam Smith will tell them the best economic system is one in which a free peoples possessed of capital are able to allocate their own labour and capital in accordance with their own will. So naturally the conservatives endeavour to create consolidated markets and slash the social protections which allow free peoples to build up the savings which become their future investment capital. It's terrible now that young people in this country start at the bottom of the career ladder already crippled by debt, all of their surplus capital siphoned off by rising costs and excessive rents. Especially since much of these costings like energy bills or rents do not circulate into very productive endeavours at all, resulting in an extraction of real value, not a production of real value
Basically this is externalized profit, which is the oft-neglected twin of externalized costs. That is, benefits to society not realized by the companies or individuals providing them, just as there are costs to society not realized by the companies or individuals incurring them.
Until we figure out a way to account for these costs and benefits other than money flow, we'll continue to have this situation.
I don’t know that the government should be “the investor of last resort” for video games. It’s tricky though, because Art is often not all that profitable in the business sense, but it is good for society. So it hinges on the extent to which games are Art, versus just unsuccessful or likely-to-be unsuccessful business ventures.Is it more moral that the government be "the investor of last resort" for movies?
I can’t say I know the right amount of public spending for things like this… and even if you know the right amount, how do you pick who among the many requesters, gets the grants?
Maybe we should ask the AI… ;D
Unrelated: IMF is saying that world government debt to GDP is now approaching 1:1. I'm not sure how this is possible other than in the bizarre world of finance. It seems odd that you can have the entire world population in debt to itself for the entire annual output of the world. Seems like a bookkeeping issue :PBecause it's not "the entire world population in debt to itself", it's the set of world governments in debt to big bankers. :P
(Yes I know that's not how sovereign debt works, or debt in general, but it's an amusing thought process.)
Wow, no wonder people are screaming about how hard it is to repay college loans these days. When I graduated, I felt I was pushing my limits with my loan-to-income ratio of only 50% - but it was at an interest rate of 6.5%, so I have no tears for those screaming about the interest rates a few years ago.
An oil industry executive has been banned from joining the board of ExxonMobil after a merger with the company he headed.Clearly, the FTC does not understand the role of oil industry executives. It seems to me that he's quite qualified for the role!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/02/oil-boss-driving-up-petrol-prices-colluding-rivals/Spoiler: From the article (click to show/hide)
Interesting - rather than "about 1000 dollars per year", what is it in terms of hours of minimum wage where you are? Or in terms of, how does "100 dollars per month" compare to say your monthly rent/house payment, or how much groceries for a month typically cost? How does "1000 dollars a year" compare to a starting salary once you'd graduate? (When I graduated college, my starting salary for one year was basically the cost of two years of my college; That is, my private college cost about $25000 a year*, and my first salary after graduating was about $50000/year.)
I never like simple currency conversion; I prefer comparing to actual cost of living things.
For example, where I live and my family situation, our housing costs (house payment, utilities) costs about 2.5x what we spend on groceries for my family.Spoiler: * (click to show/hide)
For those who don't know, this (https://fortune.com/2024/05/12/housing-market-crisis-us-vs-japan-vacant-homes-abandoned-properties/) is our future in the United States. If you can hold out, and save, the housing crisis will fix itself, and swing the other way.This is a common misconception based on a false assumption about population dynamics. The US population is projected to continue expanding until nearly the end of the century, and quite possibly longer. Japan's has been falling for over a decade to reach this point (falling significantly faster than the US population is projected to even after the turning point), and they have extremely low immigration. As "Boomers" die or otherwise vacate their houses, there will be - already are - "too many Gen Xers" ready to snap the properties up, followed by "too many Millennials", and so on. The Japanese dynamics don't apply because there's no point, at least for a very long time, when the pressure actually relaxes.
Our crisis is too many Boomers sitting in their homes. That ain't gonna last forever.