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[wierd]

No, communist economies are command economies.  The govt owns ALL production, and sets production goals.  This has historically led to systemic shortages, gross mismanagement, etc.


This is to be avoided.


The kind of mixed economy I am suggesting, is a form of regulation, done through market forces. Private enterprise is still very much a thing, and the only restraint they have (other than normal things like truth in advertising etc..) is that there is competitor they cannot overturn in the market, distorting the price downward (from their desired max saturation of pricepoint)

The prices the fed sets need to be derived from evaluation of market health, overall. It would need its own agency to field it.

[hector13]

No no, the Republicans will say it’s COMMUNIST because the GLORIOUS FREE MARKET should not be stifled by SPURIOUS GOVERNMENT REGULATION.

Unless the companies involved give them money then they receive subsidies. But those are different from COMMUNIST SUBSIDIES STIFLING THE FREE MARKET

[wierd]

You just need to spin it as guaranteed pork for their states.

Those products have to be made SOMEWHERE.  Assignment of manufacturing or distribution hubs in (politically) key states, would guarantee that pork.

[LordBaal]

Basically an antimonopoply regulation so no one can swing ths whole market towards them by any means.

Ideally free market should not be tampered with beyond anti monopoly, safety, enviroment, consumer rigths laws, etc... as Wierd points out the goverment owning all means of production (being the ultimate monopoly in fact) simply do not work, trust me on this please.

[wierd]

In this case, there is a problem with introducing a UBI.  (which, due to the unstoppable tide of automation, even in creative work, is GOING to become a necessity.)


If you just rain money down, then everyone will raise their prices.  For a historical precedent, see how the addition of women to the US labor force initially caused a consumer boom, followed by the market's reaction:  Inflation + wage stagnation.


The market's reaction to a UBI, will be to incorporate the UBI in all prices, such that it effectively vanishes. (which then, makes it impotent at its stated objective-- supporting people with a livable, if spartan, stipend since it is now impossible to keep people employed.)  This is exactly what happened with the "added income" of a 2 earner household. Now, both spouses not only have to work, but also have to work multiple jobs.


By introducing a mechanism by which the govt can apply "soft pressure" on prices of necessary consumer goods (Food, medicine, housing, et al.) you can prevent the market from capturing the UBI like that.

It would also be a powerful anti-monopoly tool, yes. 

[McTraveller]

The counter-argument is, why do you need "the government" to apply soft pressures like that?  What is preventing opportunistic capitalists from coming in and supplying 30% of a market at 5% lower prices?  Or reverse it - what would make a government more able to do that than another capitalist?

Consider something as "simple" as that insulin production. If we got rid of continuous patent protections, and let them expire when they should have, would we need the government to produce it?  On the flip side, what does it mean (and this is a question for those who really have lived through state control of industry, I don't have any non-academic experience with it) for the government to produce something?

I suppose I'm in the camp that thinks you can use other existing antitrust concepts - if you enforce them - to address many pricing issues. Make it more difficult for M&A to prevent consolidation, that sort of thing.

As for UBI - yeah that has been discussed many times here. Trying to implement UBI as new money creation is a fool's errand; it really has to be generated by real productivity and investment, not by manipulating accounting ledgers.

[wierd]

Major one, is that the Fed has basically bottomless pockets.

This is not so with any startups attempting to produce this kind of upset.  The end-stage of market capitalism, is oligopoly, then monopoly.  To prevent that end-game, various antitrust laws have been introduced, but all have been neutered pretty hard;  In the news recently, have been many reputable stories of oligarchs conspiring to fix prices at high points, and thus to avoid any true competition of any kind.**


In order to cause the necessary competition, you need a large player to go against its own (financial) interests.  This is a nonsequitor.



Now then-- Should the fed forcibly enter the market, it would be able to secure the necessary production equipment and labor, through the force of its bottomless capital. (No matter what the GOP likes to say, deficit spending of a nation that has a national bank, is by no means the same as it is for you or I.)  It does not have to worry about foreclosure, or shareholders. It can simply set to work producing product.

Ideally, the prices it will set will be "Profitable."  This is because forcing a pricepoint that is not profitable, would initiate a pricewar death spiral.  That is not the goal here. Instead, it is to establish a viable, but "still substantially lower than conspiratorial price-fixing schemers want" price in the market.  Since it is still profitable, the enterprise's returns can be diverted to the UBI. Those working the factories supplying the products, would have govt jobs, with quality healthcare and pay-- and since they would represent a large chunk of the workforce, it would force new dialog on what a "standard pay package" is. Win, Win, Win.



**
In 2011, Samsung and a number of other LCD panel makers, were caught red-handed in a price fixing scheme to avoid having the prices of their displays go down.
https://www.cnet.com/news/lcd-makers-fined-388-million-for-alleged-price-fixing/

More recently, Starkist tuna was caught price fixing as well.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starkist-price-fixing-starkist-to-pay-100m-fine-in-tuna-price-fixing-case/

Last year, a rather large case was put together against many large drug makers.. For price fixing.
https://www.agg.com/news-insights/publications/recent-generics-price-fixing-filing/

in 2019, there was a rash of large food companies getting caught up in price fixing.
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/big-food-takes-its-turn-in-the-price-77879/

Just 3 days ago, Tyson foods settled a series of cases on.. you guessed it-- Price fixing.
https://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/weekly-poultry-digest-tyson-settles-price-fixing-cases


To combat the price fixing problem, you need a large player, that will not make such deals.

[McTraveller]

To combat the price fixing problem, you need a large player, that will not make such deals.

If only I thought the government could be immune to such deals... 

[wierd]

While I am sure the backroom deal making would be attempted, changing the prices to be sky high (which is what would be necessary for the oligarchs to avoid the soft pressure), would be VERY public, and impossible to contain.

Unlike a private corporation, a government agency has public accountability and oversight.  A sudden, mysterious price increase would be very visible, and impossible to defend.


The oligarchs are clever, and might negotiate small price raises over X year timeframe though.  However, given the "Live quarter to quarter" nature of most big oligarch enterprises, that kind of long term strategizing is kinda laughable.

[Teneb]

No, communist economies are command economies.  The govt owns ALL production, and sets production goals.

Not necessarily, that's just for Marix-Leninist communism. and you can debate that if it's even real communism because it doesn't involve the workers owning the production.

But uh, that's not really ameripol.

[LordBaal]

Oh well, I can tell you here goverment production was nothung more than pure malice. Every single industry they got their hands on was utterly destroyed. How many of yoy would have bet 20 years ago that Venezuela would be importing fuels?

Here it meant the gummit simply took over many private factories and "gave them to the workers", in practice it was a simple change of hands, more incompetent hands, generally followed by massive layoffs to include more "loyal" personel to the payroll, again most of the time completely incompetent.

For the already state owned enterprises, factories, services and industries (yes, Venezuela has almost 60 years dabling the waters of socialism, not a single political party here is right wing, not the old or the new ones, 100% of them is suscribed to International Socialist) the last 20 years of 20th centry socialism left them in ruins too.

No matter if it was private or state owned, everything centralized here has crumbled to ruins, sometimes quite literally. In the case of companies the combination of blatant and rampart corruption, paired with layoff of key personel (or them leaving for greener pastures) and hiring of new people only by political or personal convenience instead of capacity meant the death of all of them.

Honestly I cant think of much more, have no power at the moment and my battery is already low.

[wierd]

Indeed.

There is a reason why I want the vast majority of any market the govt would get involved with to remain private.  This is precisely that reason. 


The purpose of the govt production is not really to supply product; It is to drive down prices to viable levels. If the govt run operations fail to operate properly, the private oligarchs are there quite ready to take your money, and supply you with product.

[LordBaal]

Amen to that.
Goverment has no bussines producing anything, but providing infraestructure and setting and enforcing fair rules.

[MrRoboto75]

providing infrastructure is producing something.

[misko27]

That is clearly not Ameripol but in the loosest possible definition of it.

In significantly less-loose definitions of Ameripol-related news, or at least Near-Ameripol news, (as in "so far from God and so near the United States" news), the President of Mexico has been infected with Coronavirus. 67, and with a heart attack in 2013, the demographics bold ill for Mr. López Obrador, who this month said "The worst is ending, we are coming out of it." as he has continued to say for the past nine months or so. Mexico topped 1,803 deaths on Thursday, smashing the record of 1,500 set earlier in the week. Mexico has suffered nearly 150,000 deaths, fourth highest of any country, and is known for their underreporting; as of December of last year they had suffered 250,000 more deaths than expected for the year, indicating deaths could be higher still.

To answer the question my mother asked, namely "why has he not been vaccinated??", the answer is he was going to be vaccinated alongside the rest of his age group in mid-March. Good press for sure, but there are other shortcomings to this strategy as we can see.