TIL, about economics (Beware of the whale boats)


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Fox said:

    Yeah, I mean, I blamed business owners for it, whereas he's just like "whelp, somehow it happens", but we did basically say the same thing.

    No, I can quite explicitly spell out how it occurs. We have not continued far enough down that rabbit hole yet.

    But, people are paid what they are worth. They just don't always agree with assessments as to what they are worth. And artificially fucking with that equation will end up with it being righted by market pressures.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    Honestly, though, I can't wait until Our Google Overlordstechnological advancements finally automate all jobs and the concept of money becomes irrelevant, or more of a commodity than a necessity.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Fox said:

    Yeah, I mean, I blamed business owners for it, whereas he's just like "whelp, somehow it happens", but we did basically say the same thing.

    I mean, you're wrong to "blame" them in a negative way. He's write<lol> to mock you for that. But I give you credit for having a clue on that.

    @Fox said:

    I meant it more to imply that they would do it out of greed.

    It's what prices do. Your definition of greed seems to be out of whack:

    greed
    ɡrēd/
    noun
    intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.
    synonyms: avarice, cupidity, acquisitiveness, covetousness, rapacity; More

    Pricing something at the market sends important signals and prevents things like shortages. For instance, artificial scarcity of seafood via regulation causes prices to increase because of the mismatch between demand and supply. Then you get stuff like farmed fish, which helps satisfy at least some of the demand for seafood and reduces the pressure on fisheries. Just to pull an example out of thin air.

    But you'd prefer to "blame" the fisherman of greed for taking advantage of seafood customers.


  • Considered Harmful

    Will not occur, the human involvement will move up the tech chain. Like it has done so far.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Fox said:

    Honestly, though, I can't wait until Our Google Overlordstechnological advancements finally automate all jobs and the concept of money becomes irrelevant, or more of a commodity than a necessity.

    It sounds like NoPlace, but I'm not going to be holding my breath.


  • Considered Harmful

    NoPlace? But it would be a utopia!


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Gribnit said:

    Will not occur, the human involvement will move up the tech chain. Like it has done so far.

    What happens when there's nowhere higher to go for the vast majority of humanity?

    MIT's already automated bugfixing, how long before they automate programming entirely? And how long before that combines with the advancements Google's undoubtedly already working on for Deep Dream to provide the ideas for programs?


  • Considered Harmful

    Very likely, we will find something to do to maintain a structure that works okay with our existing evolved responses. So far, for each tech advance, we have moved up the chain. Nobody needs a self-licking ice cream cone.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    True, but it doesn't take an army of technicians to monitor an automated ice cream shop, and it damn sure won't take an army of truck drivers to supply it once self-driving trucks can unload themselves. And it won't take a team of construction workers weeks or months to build it, either.


  • Considered Harmful

    My, the things they are doing with computers these days.<!--​ Who will decide how much ice cream to make? Who will decide what kinds of ice cream everyone will like? Who will decide what constitutes ice cream? That shit takes power - why are we doing it again? How much power should go to ice cream - people seem to be fucking borked, they don't like the perfect ice cream we made - maybe we should cut back on the power for ice cream.

    @Fox, the Socialist Planning Problem is harder than Big Data.

    -->. DO YOU FUCKING WANT A WORLD WITHOUT ICE CREAM?


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    No, I want a world where I don't have to risk dealing with a snarky human being when I'm in a bad mood and need ice cream.


  • Considered Harmful

    Have a habit of being rude to counterstaff when you're in a bad mood, eh?


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    No, I just have a habit of being rude to rude people when I'm in a bad mood. If they happen to be on the other side of a counter when they're being rude isn't terribly relevant to my response.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Fox said:

    No, I want a world where I don't have to risk dealing with a snarky human being when I'm in a bad mood and need ice cream.

    My grocery store sells ice cream and they have self service checkouts.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Fox said:

    And it won't take a team of construction workers weeks or months to build it, either.

    But there will be a large group of union workers sitting there and watching it work, because raisins.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Fox said:

    No, I want a world where I don't have to risk dealing with a snarky human being when I'm in a bad mood and need ice cream.

    Roughly every 28 days?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Polygeekery said:

    @Fox said:
    And it won't take a team of construction workers weeks or months to build it, either.

    But there will be a large group of union workers sitting there and watching it works, because raisins.

    Just like the self checkout at my grocery store!


  • Considered Harmful

    @Fox said:

    I just have a habit of being rude to rude people when I'm in a bad mood. If they happen to be on the other side of a counter when they're being rude isn't terribly relevant

    So, you are right bang on-board with my "Make the lives of service workers miserable" plank, then.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @boomzilla said:

    @Polygeekery said:
    @Fox said:
    And it won't take a team of construction workers weeks or months to build it, either.

    But there will be a large group of union workers sitting there and watching it works, because raisins.

    Just like the self checkout at my grocery store!

    Actually, there's only one worker, maybe two, at any given point watching self checkout areas in most grocery stores. Not counting any security personnel, anyway, who're watching the entire store and not just the self checkout areas.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    Only if they're as insufferable as @Polygeekery, but that seems to be more common as your income increases, not vice versa.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    People with my income tend to not get that income from working front line in retail and service.

    🚎


  • Considered Harmful

    So after a service worker disagrees at you at length for days on a topic you care about, you might be a dick to them, if you're in a bad mood. Okay. :moving_goal_post: again.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    I'm pretty sure I was already being at least a little bit of a dick to him within my first five posts on this thread. If not, then I'll remember to make sure I am next time. But, there's also the point that I wasn't in a bad mood. Those Eat a Snickers commercials? Yeah, those aren't fiction. I'm not me when I'm hungry.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Fox said:

    Actually, there's only one worker, maybe two, at any given point watching self checkout areas in most grocery stores. Not counting any security personnel, anyway, who're watching the entire store and not just the self checkout areas.

    ...where jokes go to die. 😢


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @boomzilla said:

    @Fox said:
    Actually, there's only one worker, maybe two, at any given point watching self checkout areas in most grocery stores. Not counting any security personnel, anyway, who're watching the entire store and not just the self checkout areas.

    ...where jokes go to die. 😢

    /me wrings his paws diabolically


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Fox said:

    @Gribnit said:
    Have a habit of being rude to counterstaff when you're in a bad mood, eh?

    No, I just have a habit of being rude to rude people when I'm in a bad mood. If they happen to be on the other side of a counter when they're being rude isn't terribly relevant to my response.

    Have a habit of eating boogers when you're in a bad mood, eh?

    @Gribnit said:

    The fuck I'm not! @Lorne_Kates, can you get with this, or have you got your hands full*?

    Do I have my hands full*? Did you mean "full of Boomzilla's cock"? Because all I need for that is a pinky finger, and even then I have room to spare.

    Seriously, Boomy-- have you thought about becoming a woman? You're 99% of the way there anyways.

    @Gribnit said:

    http://goatse.cx

    Well, at least Jeff did one thing right with his Onebox implementation. Or it did try to serve that, and Onebox melted like a Ark Nazi.

    @Polygeekery said:

    I tend to find long hair on a woman more sexually attractive.

    Oh god yes.

    @Polygeekery said:

    That doesn't mean I wouldn't have banged Natalie Portman when she shaved her head.

    Though if she'd lied and worn a wig, I would have had to beat her to death afterwards.



  • @boomzilla said:

    that's kind of the problem that @flabdablet couldn't get his head around.

    Considering that it's a problem that has never actually occurred in any study where anything even vaguely similar to basic income has been tried, I've just got it classified under "more fantasy-land speculation that conservatives will pull out of their arses in an apparently sincere attempt to persuade everybody that we're already living in the best of all possible worlds".

    @Polygeekery said:

    artificially fucking with that equation will end up with it being righted by market pressures

    which sounds plausible provided you refuse to think about countervailing market pressures caused by increased opportunity to supply.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    No, really, they're right. If we bothered to give every single American citizen living in poverty a basic stipend of $5 a day, it would cost about eighty-five billion dollars a year, or 0.5% of our GDP for 2013 (or, in other words, dilute the pool of income in the US by a fraction of a percent), and obviously large grocery store chains would have to recuperate the lost profits resulting from that miniscule dilution of our money by raising the price of things like a loaf of bread by a dollar or more, leading to the poor people once again being unable to afford enough food to survive. Never mind the fact that the government already pumps ungodly sums of money like that into individual corporations all the time without causing 100% inflation. [spoiler]Plot twist: the real reason they'd raise the price of bread and whatnot is because of the increased demand of 46.5 million more people being able to afford to actually buy enough food to live on, not the dilution of our money. Or, in other words, because they can.[/spoiler]


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    Well, he is not talking about $5/day. He is talking about giving every family more than the money required to raise them above realistic poverty levels. So, more than $20K/year. So, more than 10 times what you said.

    And where the fuck does $5/day get you basic living? Are we now one of those countries they advertise on TV to try and guilt you in to giving money?


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Fox said:

    Plot twist: the real reason they'd raise the price of bread and whatnot is because of the increased demand of 46.5 million more people being able to afford to actually buy enough food to live on, not the dilution of our money. Or, in other words, because they can.

    You really have no idea how supply and demand works do you?

    Plot twist: If a company just arbitrarily raises prices, without a total monopoly and control of production, some other astute businessman will put them out of business.



  • @Fox said:

    No, really, they're right. If we bothered to give every single American citizen living in poverty a basic stipend of $5 a day, it would cost about eighty-five billion dollars a year, or 0.5% of our GDP for 2013 (or, in other words, dilute the pool of income in the US by a fraction of a percent)

    Does that include the costs necessary to implement and maintain such a program?

    Also, we have a tough enough time raising NASA's budget by another 0.5% of GDP to make Neil deGrasse Tyson happy, so allocating what might seem like a small fraction of GDP to a seemingly worthy cause is not an easy proposition.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Polygeekery said:

    Well, he is not talking about $5/day. He is talking about giving every family more than the money required to raise them above realistic poverty levels. So, more than $20K/year. So, more than 10 times what you said.

    That would be about 1 trillion dollars a year, which is quite a bit of money that the government doesn't actually have, and that might actually have some tangible effect on the value of our currency, though I kind of doubt it, considering the government still has thrown that much money around a lot in the past 15 years anyway.

    @Polygeekery said:

    And where the fuck does $5/day get you basic living? Are we now one of those countries they advertise on TV to try and guilt you in to giving money?

    Where? Assuming that is your only form of income, the 99 Cent Store, mostly. Hell, if you used one of your dollars a day to get membership to a gym, that'd give you a place to put clothes, maybe even a place to wash them, somewhere to shower, and you'd have $4 left over to do with as you please. In a 99 cent store, that could get you, last I checked (admittedly over a decade ago) 13 packets of ramen noodles, a bottle of multivitamins so you don't get malnourished, a small pack of water bottles, and still leave you a dollar you could take to McDonald's to get a warm meal you don't have to find a microwave to cook. It's not a good life, but it's better than begging on a street corner or stealing just to survive, and you might even have enough free time to find an actual place to live with the other $24 a week you'd have left over.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Plot twist: If a company just arbitrarily raises prices, without a total monopoly and control of production, some other astute businessman will put them out of business.

    True, provided that there isn't any incentive for collusion between the agents.



  • @Fox said:

    the real reason they'd raise the price of bread and whatnot is because of the increased demand of 46.5 million more people being able to afford to actually buy enough food to live on

    And shortly thereafter, they'd all start competing with each other on price to tap into that increased business, just like they do right now, and the bread prices would fall again. Unless, of course, the increased sales volume caused enough supply chain restriction to make their costs rise. Which would again be temporary, even if new businesses needed to enter the market, which they would in short order, what with everybody having more capital available.

    The thing about people who argue against the effect of basic income on market economics grounds is that they simply refuse to think about how markets actually work. They're at least as attached to the labor theory of value as any Marxist, and to the "objective" value of money as any Ayn Rand goldbug.

    A dollar is worth what you can get in exchange for it. Full stop, rule off, end of definition. And this does not cease to be true if we, as a society run according to the rule of law, make a collective decision that one of the things we can exchange a dollar for is an assurance that nobody needs to have no choice but to sleep rough and/or starve for the lack of it. The welfare state does not "distort" the market; it participates in it.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Groaner said:

    Does that include the costs necessary to implement and maintain such a program?

    No, it doesn't, admittedly. But for some reason I get the feeling that county clerks don't have enough to do every day, so we could just add it to their job descriptions to save money.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Groaner said:

    Also, we have a tough enough time raising NASA's budget by another 0.5% of GDP to make Neil deGrasse Tyson happy, so allocating what might seem like a small fraction of GDP to a seemingly worthy cause is not an easy proposition.

    A single company, the one working on the F-35 program, has already gone 1% of GDP over their 1.3-trillion-dollar, and they're seven years behind schedule. It seems like it's really easy to raise budgets.



  • @Fox said:

    A single company, the one working on the F-35 program, has already gone 1% of GDP over their 1.3-trillion-dollar, and they're seven years behind schedule. It seems like it's really easy to raise budgets.

    For line items pertaining to defense, OASDI, or Medicare, yes.


  • Considered Harmful

    Hi. Nobody has to sleep rough or starve for the lack of a dollar, I assure you. Give me a dollar.



  • I don't believe you. No dollar for you.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Fox said:

    That would be about 1 trillion dollars a year, which is quite a bit of money that the government doesn't actually have, and that might actually have some tangible effect on the value of our currency, though I kind of doubt it, considering the government still has thrown that much money around a lot in the past 15 years anyway.

    Ask any economist what dumping $1T/year in to economy will do. The business owner will not have to do anything. Inflation would fuck everyone before they had a chance to.

    Or, you can tax everyone for it, which is taking $1T/year from American people. You also have the option of just tacking it on to the deficit, which also has the effect of artificially raising the monetary supply, and inflation.

    The market corrects itself. You can fuck with it and you with it, but it resets itself to where it should be.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    Or, you can tax everyone for it, which is taking $1T/year from American people.

    To be fair, it would also be giving $1T/year to American people.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Gribnit said:

    Hi. Nobody has to sleep rough or starve for the lack of a dollar, I assure you. Give me a dollar.

    Uh.

    What.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @flabdablet said:

    The thing about people who argue against the effect of basic income on market economics grounds is that they simply refuse to think about how markets actually work.

    We say the same thing about you. You think you can just give money away without devaluing it.

    Why stop at just basic living expenses? Why not give everyone a million dollars? Make everyone a millionaire.

    You know why not, because then millionaires would be the new poverty level. You cannot just dump money in the economy and not have people work for it. You are changing every dynamic in play, and markets will not react well to that.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @flabdablet said:

    To be fair, it would also be giving $1T/year to American people.

    To be fair, there are losses along the way. Or do such things not exist in your SJW utopia?


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election Banned

    @Polygeekery said:

    @Fox said:
    That would be about 1 trillion dollars a year, which is quite a bit of money that the government doesn't actually have, and that might actually have some tangible effect on the value of our currency, though I kind of doubt it, considering the government still has thrown that much money around a lot in the past 15 years anyway.

    Ask any economist what dumping $1T/year in to economy will do. The business owner will not have to do anything. Inflation would fuck everyone before they had a chance to.

    Or, you can tax everyone for it, which is taking $1T/year from American people. You also have the option of just tacking it on to the deficit, which also has the effect of artificially raising the monetary supply, and inflation.

    The market corrects itself. You can fuck with it and you with it, but it resets itself to where it should be.

    We've had relatively little inflation despite the US government dumping MORE than $1T/year for over a decade.



  • @Polygeekery said:

    You are changing every dynamic in play, and markets will not react well to that.

    And again with the "booga, booga, booga, markets". That's the best you've got?


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Fox said:

    We've had relatively little inflation despite the US government dumping MORE than $1T/year for over a decade.

    And they have done so in attempts to stem inflation and deflation. In an economy of fiat currency, you have to add money as an economy grows in order to stabilize the currency.

    But if you add it just because you feel bad, bad shit happens.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @flabdablet said:

    And again with the "booga, booga, booga, markets". That's the best you've got?

    The best I have is the truth? Yeah, I suppose so...



  • You can't handle the truth.


  • Considered Harmful

    What if you do it to celebrate your 'lection?


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