The iPhone is doomed, and Spain as well



  • @javispedro said:

    ...you should know that Spain's smartphone penetration level is currently not only the highest of the European Union but also higher than that of the United States.

    Oh, so it's just like America: all of the poor people have smartphones while sucking up welfare bennies.



  • @boomzilla said:

    Even though we've grown fabulously rich by historical standards...

    Are we? At the individual level? Sure, we can buy the latest electronic distraction from the real world, but can you say we're rich by historical standards when so many families have both parents working and are still drowning in debt? Where the cost of food, energy and housing get more expensive while wages stagnate, but it's not inflation because iPhones keep getting cheaper!

    I dunno, I'd say the average family has been getting less wealthy for awhile. Sure, they can afford more low-quality, made-in-China garbage, but you should expect that that stuff will get cheaper--that's just basic manufacturing and economics. Smartphones getting cheaper doesn't mean we're getting richer, it just means smartphones are getting cheaper--something they would have done anyway. But when everything else is getting more expensive?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Are we?

    Yes.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    At the individual level?

    Yes.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Sure, we can buy the latest electronic distraction from the real world, but can you say we're rich by historical standards when so many families have both parents working and are still drowning in debt?

    Yes I can. Because I read books about history.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Where the cost of food, energy and housing get more expensive while wages stagnate, but it's not inflation because iPhones keep getting cheaper!

    The cost of food, energy and housing is an order of magnitude lower than what it was in the past. The availability of all three is better than it has ever been in history; coorespondingly, the price of all three is lower than it has ever been in history.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I dunno, I'd say the average family has been getting less wealthy for awhile.

    I highly doubt it.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Sure, they can afford more low-quality, made-in-China garbage, but you should expect that that stuff will get cheaper--that's just basic manufacturing and economics.

    And it's good, because it helps the standard of living in China, India, Bangledesh, etc. to increase. I'm ok with slightly depressing the economy of the 320 million people in the US if there are 1.2 billion people in China benefiting from it. That's basic economics to me.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    But when everything else is getting more expensive?

    It's not though. The dollar amounts on price labels are going up, but incomes are going up faster. Generally speaking.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    But when everything else is getting more expensive?
    It's not though. The dollar amounts on price labels are going up, but incomes are going up faster. Generally speaking.

    That depends on how you split things demographically.  Incomes for some professions are increasing faster, but for many others income is stagnating.  Basically it's some jobs that used to be considered middle class are now lower class (or are headed that way).  In addition, jobs that are lower down haven't seen increases in income basically at all.  So I agree with you that people are, in general, better off but I understand the feeling that it isn't.



  • @locallunatic said:

    Basically it's some jobs that used to be considered middle class are now lower class (or are headed that way).

    What's killing the middle class is not bad economy, it's the Democrats and their bottomless mastercard approach to politics.



  • @morbiuswilters said:


    I dunno, I'd say the average family has been getting less wealthy for awhile. Sure, they can afford more low-quality, made-in-China garbage, but you should expect that that stuff will get cheaper--that's just basic manufacturing and economics. Smartphones getting cheaper doesn't mean we're getting richer, it just means smartphones are getting cheaper--something they would have done anyway. But when everything else is getting more expensive?



    No, it isn't. We, as Americans, are spoilt by the rather unusual state of affairs post-WWII. Things aren't SUPPOSED to get cheaper forever.

    And not everything is getting more expensive either. Unless you live in California or something, houses are actually either about the same, or slightly cheaper. My dad bought a 4bedroom 3bath house in a good neighborhood in the midwest in 1999 for 130k. Mom sold it for about the same in 2004. I honestly doubt the price of that house has gone up at all since then, considering the beating the real estate market took in 2008. The average monthly rent on apartments where I live hasn't fluctuated much since 2006 (my first apartment) either.

    Cars haven't gotten more expensive. Fast food is still the same price. Restaurants haven't raised their prices. Food in the grocery store is generally about the same, when adjusting for seasonal variations. My water bill hasn't changed much. Clothing is still cheap. Books haven't budged from about 5.99 - 7.99 per paperback.

    Overall, the only things that I've actually noticed getting more expensive are tuition, gas, and movie tickets. Whoopteedoo. Everything else is either the sameprice or significantly cheaper.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Yes I can. Because I read books about history.

    What are you talking about? The average family today is demonstrably worse off than a few decades ago. I thought the point about both parents working and still drowning in debt would make that clear. What makes you think it's any better?

    @blakeyrat said:

    The cost of food, energy and housing is an order of magnitude lower than what it was in the past.

    Where the hell are you getting this? Sure, they're cheaper than they were in the 19th century, but not when compared to the mid-20th.

    @blakeyrat said:

    And it's good, because it helps the standard of living in China, India, Bangledesh, etc. to increase.

    Okay, but that has nothing to do with what I just said..

    @blakeyrat said:

    'm ok with slightly depressing the economy of the 320 million people in the US if there are 1.2 billion people in China benefiting from it.

    So basically we're better off than we've ever been, but we're also depressing the economy? Consistency?

    @blakeyrat said:

    The dollar amounts on price labels are going up, but incomes are going up faster. Generally speaking.

    Bullshit. Many income brackets have basically been treading water for 40 years. Some have actually gotten poorer.



  • @Snooder said:

    Things aren't SUPPOSED to get cheaper forever.

    Of course they are, you idiot. What the fuck do you think advancements in productivity mean? Durr?

    @Snooder said:

    Unless you live in California or something, houses are actually either about the same, or slightly cheaper. My dad bought a 4bedroom 3bath house in a good neighborhood in the midwest in 1999 for 130k. Mom sold it for about the same in 2004. I honestly doubt the price of that house has gone up at all since then, considering the beating the real estate market took in 2008. The average monthly rent on apartments where I live hasn't fluctuated much since 2006 (my first apartment) either.

    So you're comparing prices during a bubble to post-bubble prices and saying "See, it's the same nominal values! Nothing has changed!" Do you not understand basic math?

    @Snooder said:

    Cars haven't gotten more expensive.

    Of course they have. Especially when you factor in all the advances in productivity that should have been driving prices down.

    @Snooder said:

    Fast food is still the same price.

    As when, a decade ago? This is also a case of "Hey, let's make things shittier and pump up productivity and we can keep selling garbage food for $1!"

    @Snooder said:

    Restaurants haven't raised their prices. Food in the grocery store is generally about the same, when adjusting for seasonal variations.

    You lying sack of shit. If you were here, I'd break your fucking face open for saying something so stupid.

    @Snooder said:

    Clothing is still cheap.

    "Yay, let's use more overseas slave labor and keep clothing prices low!"

    @Snooder said:

    Books haven't budged from about 5.99 - 7.99 per paperback.

    Oh yeah, the wild paperback book market--always a key economic indicator.

    @Snooder said:

    Overall, the only things that I've actually noticed getting more expensive are tuition, gas, and movie tickets.

    And housing. And food. And electricity. And health care.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Snooder said:
    Things aren't SUPPOSED to get cheaper forever.

    Of course they are, you idiot. What the fuck do you think advancements in productivity mean? Durr?

    @Snooder said:

    Unless you live in California or something, houses are actually either about the same, or slightly cheaper. My dad bought a 4bedroom 3bath house in a good neighborhood in the midwest in 1999 for 130k. Mom sold it for about the same in 2004. I honestly doubt the price of that house has gone up at all since then, considering the beating the real estate market took in 2008. The average monthly rent on apartments where I live hasn't fluctuated much since 2006 (my first apartment) either.

    So you're comparing prices during a bubble to post-bubble prices and saying "See, it's the same nominal values! Nothing has changed!" Do you not understand basic math?

    @Snooder said:

    Cars haven't gotten more expensive.

    Of course they have. Especially when you factor in all the advances in productivity that should have been driving prices down.

    @Snooder said:

    Fast food is still the same price.

    As when, a decade ago? This is also a case of "Hey, let's make things shittier and pump up productivity and we can keep selling garbage food for $1!"

    @Snooder said:

    Restaurants haven't raised their prices. Food in the grocery store is generally about the same, when adjusting for seasonal variations.

    You lying sack of shit. If you were here, I'd break your fucking face open for saying something so stupid.

    @Snooder said:

    Clothing is still cheap.

    "Yay, let's use more overseas slave labor and keep clothing prices low!"

    @Snooder said:

    Books haven't budged from about 5.99 - 7.99 per paperback.

    Oh yeah, the wild paperback book market--always a key economic indicator.

    @Snooder said:

    Overall, the only things that I've actually noticed getting more expensive are tuition, gas, and movie tickets.

    And housing. And food. And electricity. And health care.

    Those tennis-match replies make me dizzy. And it hurts my soul when I think of all the pain you go through with the multiple quotes copy-paste-trim operations in the editor.






  • @morbiuswilters said:

    What are you talking about? The average family today is demonstrably worse off than a few decades ago.

    I will maybe consider accepting "the average family in the US" or even "the average family in 1st world nations". But I will not accept "the average family". Sorry, no.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I thought the point about both parents working and still drowning in debt would make that clear. What makes you think it's any better?

    I'd need to see evidence that the number of families "drowning in debt" (however that's defined) is larger this year than a decade ago.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Where the hell are you getting this? Sure, they're cheaper than they were in the 19th century, but not when compared to the mid-20th.

    Evidence. Some more evidence.

    I might be wrong about housing, though. I'll fess up to that. Looks like inflation adjusted housing *has* gone up (in the US at least) since the early 70s.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Okay, but that has nothing to do with what I just said..

    I think that when you're posting there's some implicit "in the US" or "in North America" or "in Western Europe" in your brain. But you never actually typed that. So when I responded, I was thinking about the world population. Which is undeniably better-off in virtually every way since 1950.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    So basically we're better off than we've ever been, but we're also depressing the economy? Consistency?

    It was a hypothetical. But yes, I believe that raising the standard of living for 1.1 billion people is better than slightly lowering it for 320 million people. If indeed that is what is happening, which is far from clear, but you seemed to accept it as fact.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Bullshit. Many income brackets have basically been treading water for 40 years. Some have actually gotten poorer.

    "Poorer". But they have better houses than they did in 1950, when people were living in shitty falling-apart boarding houses or crummy rat-infested hotels. They have universal access to electricity, indoor plumbing (even in 1950, that was not a given in all of the US), a telephone, etc. They have much better police service, much better fire service, and their property is safer and more secure. The murder rate is down a significant amount. Their lifespan is much longer. If they own cars, their cars are far more efficient and far safer-- even more powerful on average. Access to technology and information nobody in 1950 could even imagine. The air is cleaner, there's no lead in gasoline, they're not constantly surrounded by smokers and chewers and spitters and litter*. There's orders of magnitude more varieties of beer. If they're minorities, ... wow. Multiply all the above by 5 times. If they're homosexual, multiply it by 10 times.

    You're defining "poorer" in a really weird way. One I don't agree with.

    ---

    *) Unless they play on a baseball team



  • @Ronald said:

    Those tennis-match replies...

    Huh?

    @Ronald said:

    ...make me dizzy.

    No they don't.

    @Ronald said:

    And it hurts my soul...

    What soul?

    @Ronald said:

    ...when I think...

    Lies!

    @Ronald said:

    multiple quotes copy-paste-trim operations in the editor.

    I've become quite adept at it. Besides, it's me job!

    @Ronald said:



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    I didn't know Naked Neck chickens could fly.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I will maybe consider accepting "the average family in the US"

    Of course I'm talking about the US. Who cares if some Frenchman gets a new bicycle?

    @blakeyrat said:

    I'd need to see evidence that the number of families "drowning in debt" (however that's defined) is larger this year than a decade ago.

    You'd need to go back further than a decade, since a decade ago we were merrily spending our way to disaster. Here's some data from the FRBSF. The household debt-to-income ratio in 1970 was less than half of what it is now. (Actually, these numbers don't quite line up with what I've seen elsewhere, but the general scale and trend are the same.)

    @blakeyrat said:

    Evidence. Some more evidence.

    Both of those are really weak. They are calculating using inflation-adjusted dollars, which is a metric designed to make prices seem stable over time. A much more useful metric would be finding the price of a kilowatt as a quantity of labor for the median worker. I started compiling data on this, but holy shit, nobody seems to have data on historical per-hour compensation (preferably broken down by income quartile) in nominal dollars. I also had trouble finding any data on historical, nominal electricity prices, but I did find this which has a chart on page 24 seeming to indicate that in 1970 the average price per-kWh was 2.5 cents, compared to 11.5 cents in 2010. That's a 4.6-fold increase, so the question is how did hourly compensation do during that period?

    The minimum wage increase for that period was exactly 5-fold, but that doesn't tell us how workers elsewhere fared--it's obviously easy to mandate an increase in minimum wage, but that doesn't mean the value of the work is increasing. It also doesn't show how many people had hours cut back or people who made more than minimum wage had pay cut. Suffice to say, I don't think you can show any significant decrease in electricity prices during that time period, but I don't have enough data to show a significant increase, either.

    Also, the numbers for housing are even more stark. It's definitely more than a 4.6-fold increase.

    @blakeyrat said:

    So when I responded, I was thinking about the world population. Which is undeniably better-off in virtually every way since 1950.

    Yes, this is true.

    @blakeyrat said:

    But yes, I believe that raising the standard of living for 1.1 billion people is better than slightly lowering it for 320 million people.

    I wouldn't disagree with that, necessarily, but I don't think those are mutually-exclusive. I think we could sensibly raise it all-around, but instead we are creating bubbles of unsustainable, artificial growth through massive debt accumulation. Ultimately this is going to fuck us and the rest of the world.

    @blakeyrat said:

    But they have better houses than they did in 1950, when people were living in shitty falling-apart boarding houses or crummy rat-infested hotels.

    I really don't think that's true. What's more, I'm using 1970 as a base, because it was at the peak of the post-war boom, and before monetary crisis gutted the economy and led households and governments to fall back on using to debt to stimulate new "growth". 1950 was only shortly post-WWII, and there hadn't been significant bounce-back from the Great Depression at that point.

    @blakeyrat said:

    The murder rate is down a significant amount.

    It's down since 1970 because of the mid-60s surge in violent crime, but it's only about on-par with 1950 and it's still higher than the mid-50s.

    @blakeyrat said:

    If they own cars, their cars are far more efficient and far safer-- even more powerful on average.

    Also much more expensive.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Access to technology and information nobody in 1950 could even imagine.

    Of course, but that's a silly argument. Increases in technology and information are something that have happened pretty much constantly for centuries. And while you can quantify that as a type of wealth, it's not the same thing as an increase in what your productive labor can purchase.

    @blakeyrat said:

    There's orders of magnitude more varieties of beer.

    Okay, I lose.



  • Meanwhile, my video card is back to the supplier, because some Chinese assembler had too much to drink and picked the wrong screws from the box and when the gravitationally bound item didn't fall apart they were like, 他妈的*, and packed it in.

     

    *) fuck it



  • @dhromed said:

    Meanwhile, my video card is back to the supplier, because some Chinese assembler had too much to drink and picked the wrong screws from the box and when the gravitationally bound item didn't fall apart they were like, 他妈的, and packed it in.

     

    ) fuck it

    Did you scan the card for bugs? A memo from the DHS that was leaked mentioned that the Chinese intelligence services were using defective equipment to track shipments and map out distribution paths because they could not crack the encryption on the Fedex servers and they wanted to know how to optimize traffic flow in the Macau peninsula.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @boomzilla said:
    Even though we've grown fabulously rich by historical standards...

    Are we? At the individual level? Sure, we can buy the latest electronic distraction from the real world, but can you say we're rich by historical standards when so many families have both parents working and are still drowning in debt? Where the cost of food, energy and housing get more expensive while wages stagnate, but it's not inflation because iPhones keep getting cheaper!

    As compared to history where both parents were working more hours than now and ate meat a couple times a week if they were lucky?

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I dunno, I'd say the average family has been getting less wealthy for awhile. Sure, they can afford more low-quality, made-in-China garbage, but you should expect that that stuff will get cheaper--that's just basic manufacturing and economics.

    Yes. Cheap junk from China instead of expensive junk from closer. And that we have the capability to manufacture and distribute like that? A nice benefit of wealth.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Smartphones getting cheaper doesn't mean we're getting richer, it just means smartphones are getting cheaper--something they would have done anyway. But when everything else is getting more expensive?

    It's difficult to compare, since some things get cheaper and others don't and the currency inflates. But it's not just smart phones. Don Boudreaux has a series of posts (I linked the first one I found) where he looks at prices from old Sears catalogs and compares to their website today. He looks at things like basic clothing, gardening and appliances (other posts are more themed...the link seems to be whatever they were promoting on the web page that day). The measurements are based on some sort of "typical non-supervisory worker" at various times (e.g., 1957, 1975 and today). Part of the idea is to debunk the myth of "good manufacturing jobs" vs today's jobs in terms of how long it takes to earn enough to buy certain things. I can only remember one or two things where it was even close.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    I will maybe consider accepting "the average family in the US"

    Of course I'm talking about the US. Who cares if some Frenchman gets a new bicycle?

    Since in many ways we're following in their footsteps, their experiences can be instructive. For instance, apparently moving towards "renewable energy" in order to reduce CO2 emissions means that you have to increase emissions by generating electricity using diesel generators (or allow sick people to die).

    It kinda reminds me of how stuff fell apart in Atlas Shrugged. It will be interesting to see if Brits just shrug and go along with shittier lives without electrical power (like billions of people around the globe) or do something about it. But I'm damn sure I don't want to go down that path here.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    I will maybe consider accepting "the average family in the US"

    Of course I'm talking about the US. Who cares if some Frenchman gets a new bicycle?

    Don't you think that information might be kind of important to put in your post?

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I wouldn't disagree with that, necessarily, but I don't think those are mutually-exclusive. I think we could sensibly raise it all-around, but instead we are creating bubbles of unsustainable, artificial growth through massive debt accumulation. Ultimately this is going to fuck us and the rest of the world.

    If you weren't lying about your age a few threads ago, here's a quote from a song you might not even know:

    @REM said:

    It's the end of the world as we know it! And I feel fine.

    I'm sick to death of people predicting the end of the world which never happens. Goddamned. Pollution is going to kill us all! The ozone layer will kill us all! Nuclear war will kill us all! Peak Oil will kill us all! Fuck when I was a kid, we thought africanized honey bees would kill us all.

    You're just spewiing out another doom and gloom prediction which is fucking wrong. The last 2 economic bubbles haven't ended the world or significantly affected our quality of life, and the next one (when it comes) won't either. Fucking relax. Here's another song you've never heard of: It's a Wonderful World. A few years ago, some guy published a book where he found literally every quality-of-life statistic he could think of, measured the numbers back as far as they could go, and found that life is improving in literally every single measurable way. It's not on my bookshelf at the moment, but I'll post the title as soon as I remember it.

    The world is an awesome place. It gets better every fucking year. Humans are awesome creatures, when problems arise we have all of these mechanisms to adjust to them long before they get to "world ending" proportions. Half the time the problems solve themselves anyway, or were never problems in the first place. You're wrong. So smile and shut the fuck up.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I really don't think that's true. What's more, I'm using 1970 as a base, because it was at the peak of the post-war boom, and before monetary crisis gutted the economy and led households and governments to fall back on using to debt to stimulate new "growth". 1950 was only shortly post-WWII, and there hadn't been significant bounce-back from the Great Depression at that point.

    Pretty sure you said you were using 1950 as your base, but fortunately for you I'm too lazy to open a new tab and check.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Also much more expensive.

    Only if you're looking at absolute dollars. Cars are significantly cheaper now than they were in 1986. Let me ask a stupid logic-based question: if you truly think cars are more expensive now than in the past, what explains the sheer amount of them, compared to decades past? Do you honestly believe literally every one of those cars was bought with unsustainable loans?





  • @morbiuswilters said:

    ...I'm using 1970 as a base, because it was at the peak of the post-war boom...

    The problem when discussing economic issues (or indeed anything which fluctuates over time, apparently randomly) is that it is basically pointless picking a specific time, and comparing it to another specific time. Even in a very stable economy with no overall upward or downward trend, there will be local maxima and minima, which people will be tempted to try and explain in some way, when the only general explanation is that "sometimes variables have to have a different value to what they have at other times".


    So, of course, if you pick a local maximum like a boom in the 1970s, its going to look like a downward trend... because you've only got two points of data: now, and some arbitrary point in the past which was better than now.


    Conversely, I'm sure Blakey has a completely different arbitrary point in the past, one where quality of life was lower than now. Both of you are kinda correct, but you're having different arguments.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Of course they are, you idiot. What the fuck do you think advancements in productivity mean? Durr?


    That's not how it works. Nobody is going to sell you a product for less when market saturation has been achieved and there's no more demand to go around. That's a recipe for bankruptcy. They'll just pack more shit in and sell you a better product. Compare the cars sold today to cars sold in the early-mid nineties. I remember when "power windows" were an "extra". Now, it's standard on every car. Same with radios, power locks, or freaking power steering.

     

    @morbuiswilters said:

    So you're comparing prices during a bubble to post-bubble prices and saying "See, it's the same nominal values! Nothing has changed!" Do you not understand basic math?

    But that's the period we're talking about right? From the end of the nineties til today? Cause if you are trying to convince people that the US standard of living isn't better since the 70s and 80s, we'll you're just retarded. Look, the simple truth is that people buy bigger houses today than they used to. Yeah, a single income-earner can't pay the mortgage on a "typical" house the way he could back in the halcyon days of yore. But guess what, a "typical" house didn't use to be a 2500 sqft McMansion with a 3 car garage and 3 living rooms.

    @morbuiswilters said:

    Of course they have. Especially when you factor in all the advances in productivity that should have been driving prices down.


    Not that I've seen. And as noted earlier, that's not how productivity increases work.

    @morbuiswilters said:

    You lying sack of shit. If you were here, I'd break your fucking face open for saying something so stupid.

    Unless you shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joes or something, food is and always has been really fucking cheap in the US (since the subsidies of the mid 20th century). We're not exactly starving here, if you hadn't noticed.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Snooder said:
    Overall, the only things that I've actually noticed getting more expensive are tuition, gas, and movie tickets.

    And housing. And food. And electricity. And health care.



    Except housing and food isn't more expensive.And I haven't exactly noticed the price of cough medicine skyrocketing. Nor are glasses or routine dental care suddenly crazy high. When people say "health care is expensive", what they mean is that cutting edge life-saving medical care is expensive. Well no shit. And yes, that includes the fact that your health insurance premiums are high. See, if your health care insurance has to cover cutting edg, life-saving medical care, then the expensive-ness of that stuff will perforce be reflected in high premiums. Trust me, it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough or anything.

    Maybe electricity is more expensive. I can imagine that rising gas prices would have an effect on the cost structure of a gasoline powered power plant. I haven't really noticed it though, but most of my apartments have had power included in the bill and I've switched power companies just about every year so I'm not the person to ask on that one.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    See if you're going to do an end-of-the-world scenario, sorry but the best one has already been taken.

    Killer bees?

    Meh.

    This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper, but a funting enormous bang.



  • @Snooder said:

    Things aren't SUPPOSED to get cheaper forever.

    Yes they are. At least in the long run. That's what technology does. A pile of rocks can be turned into a car (and we got plenty of rocks) the only thing that stands in the way is not having a machine that turns rocks into cars. That's why we keep making better machines to turn things into better things, so that there will be more and therefore be cheaper. What economy is supposed to do is distribute those things among people and motivate people to make more things.



  • @Snooder said:

    it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough

    No, that would be the insurers.



  • @spamcourt said:

    What economy is supposed to do is distribute those things among people and motivate people to make more things.

    This is exactly why it is undesirable for a pure free market to consitute the whole of the economy. A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to the wealthy who, by gaining control of those, become even more wealthy. Concentration of wealth is an inbuilt, unavoidable side effect of the pure free market, and unchecked concentration of wealth leads to unchecked concentration of power, which is socially destructive.

    The free market's wealth creation dynamo needs to be harnessed to a wealth redistribution mechanism to stop it spinning out of control, and this is the fundamental economic justification for taxation and the welfare state.

    The only real world economic sector that currently operates in an almost completely pure free market is organized crime, which unfortunately seems to have become something of a role model for multinational corporations in other sectors.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @flabdablet said:

    A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to the wealthy who, by gaining control of those, become even more wealthy.

    What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck? That's what non-free markets do.

    @flabdablet said:

    The only real world economic sector that currently operates in an almost completely pure free market is organized crime, which unfortunately seems to have become something of a role model for multinational corporations in other sectors took its cue from governments.

    FTFY



  • @flabdablet said:

    This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper, but a funting enormous bang.

    That's not a terrible disaster movie from 1978. I'm lost.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Snooder said:
    You know, whenever I hear people talking about how America is shit lately, or how politicians have just run the country over the cliff, I wonder if they've ever been to a country that's actually been run over a cliff.

    Clearly you haven't traveled very much within the US, then. There are areas where unemployment is simply absurd.

    @Snooder said:

    I dunno about you, but I have a job. Everyone who graduated with me, even in the horrific nightmare of 2008, also has a job.

    I have a great job, but most of the people I know either don't have a job or are in financial peril.

    @Snooder said:

    ...I can't really blame the economy for my own mistakes.

    Unlike you, I don't have any mistakes to blame on the economy. I've just been repeatedly fucked-over by the economic situation.

     

    Did you graduate in the top 10% of your high school class? Go to either an ivy league school or a top flight state school on scholarship? Major in a useful and marketable subject? Get a decent GPA at said college? Get the appropriate internships? Go to grad school to further burnish your credentials? Are you personable and great at remembering faces? Do you take the time to develop and maintain a network of professional connections and acquaintance? Do you have a useful portfolio of side projects to keep your skills sharp and demonstrate proficiency to potential employers?

    If you haven't done all these, then yeah you've made mistakes.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @flabdablet said:
    A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to the wealthy who, by gaining control of those, become even more wealthy.

    What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck? That's what non-free markets do.


    I believe he's referring to that thing where the more money you have, the easier it is to make more money, thus causing rich people to become richer faster than poor(er) people become richer.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @flabdablet said:
    This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper, but a funting enormous bang.

    That's not a terrible disaster movie from 1978. I'm lost.

    Graphics remind me of Hidden and Dangerous.



  • @spamcourt said:

    @boomzilla said:
    @flabdablet said:
    A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to the wealthy who, by gaining control of those, become even more wealthy.

    What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck? That's what non-free markets do.


    I believe he's referring to that thing where the more money you have, the easier it is to make more money, thus causing rich people to become richer faster than poor(er) people become richer.


    True, sorta, but in the long term that tends to get balanced out by the fact that poor people tend to be much more motivated than rich people. So over time the wealthy but lazy lose their position to the poor but ambitious unless laws are put into place to stop social mobility. Granted, in this scenario by "poor" I mean "educated middle-class." The actual poor people are just fucked. But they would be fucked under any system, so whatever.



  • @boomzilla said:

    As compared to history where both parents were working more hours than now and ate meat a couple times a week if they were lucky?

    What the fuck, are you people only capable of drawing comparisons to the 19th century? Do you just not know of the mid-20th century?

    @boomzilla said:

    Cheap junk from China instead of expensive junk from closer.

    Well, the "junk" seemingly was better-made when it came from the US (or Japan.) And besides, I don't care about the price of TVs, luxury devices that should go down in price over time.

    @boomzilla said:

    Don Boudreaux has a series of posts

    I skimmed the one you linked. It seems ridiculous. A $20 pair of "adult athletic shoes" in 2013 aren't going to last a month. I can guran-fucking-tee you the value is lower than a pair of $10 shoes from 1975.

    Also, I take exception to his choosing 1975, since that was in the midst of the massive currency devaluation of the 70s. Of course things were tight then. I would be more interested to see prices from 1965-1970.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    If you weren't lying about your age a few threads ago, here's a quote from a song you might not even know:

    Of course I know that song. How would I not know that song? (Sidebar: Does Michael Stipe's voice make anyone else want to wring his fucking neck?)

    @blakeyrat said:

    I'm sick to death of people predicting the end of the world which never happens.

    Did I say "end of the world"? We've been getting poorer and less free for quite some time, and I imagine that will only continue. So, yeah, serfdom, but that's not going to be the end of the world.

    @blakeyrat said:

    The world is an awesome place. It gets better every fucking year. Humans are awesome creatures...

    No it isn't. No it doesn't. No we aren't; we're vile, horrible animals. Sure, there's goodness in there, but it tends to be drowned out by our frequent spasms of genocide, murder, enslavement and exploitation. Most people are tacky, shallow, ignorant and lacking in any kind of moral conviction. I don't know how you could see otherwise.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Cars are significantly cheaper now than they were in 1986.

    Probably, but I wasn't talking about 1986.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Let me ask a stupid logic-based question: if you truly think cars are more expensive now than in the past, what explains the sheer amount of them, compared to decades past?

    More people? Accumulation of cars over time?

    The 1968 Ford Mustang retailed for around $2600 and was a kick-ass car. Assuming the lowest minimum wage of the time--$1.60--it would take a worker 1625 hours to buy one. The MSRP for a 2014 Mustang is $22,200. With a minimum wage of $7.25, it would take 3062 hours to buy one. So almost double.

    Now, you could say "Well, cars of today are more efficient, more reliable, less polluting and safer!" and that's certainly all true. But it also ignores the fact that: 1) those features hardly double the price of the car; and 2) technological advances become cheaper over time.

    You could also point out that the base model of 2014 is significantly powerful than the base model of 1968, which is also true. But the upgrade cost for 1968 was significantly cheaper than the upgrade cost for 2014.



  • @eViLegion said:

    The problem when discussing economic issues (or indeed anything which fluctuates over time, apparently randomly) is that it is basically pointless picking a specific time, and comparing it to another specific time. Even in a very stable economy with no overall upward or downward trend, there will be local maxima and minima, which people will be tempted to try and explain in some way, when the only general explanation is that "sometimes variables have to have a different value to what they have at other times".

    Yes, clearly. And I'm not disputing that, for example, things are better now than they were in the 1850s. That would be dumb. But if you look at general trends, things generally improved over time. However, since 1970, things have stagnated (or even dipped) for the majority of Americans. It started with the 70s currency devaluation, which caused "stagflation" and aided an energy crisis. And the currency devaluation started as a result of several factors such as the growing Great Society welfare state and the very costly, protracted war in Vietnam.

    Eventually the currency was somewhat stabilized in the late 70s, and there was even some economic recovery in the 80s, albeit short-lived. Eventually it became the fashion to drop interest rates to try and goose the economy, something which persists until today and our effective negative interest rates. This lead to debt-fueled bubbles and the resulting misery and economic stagnation.



  • Sick of this.



  • @Snooder said:

    Compare the cars sold today to cars sold in the early-mid nineties. I remember when "power windows" were an "extra". Now, it's standard on every car. Same with radios, power locks, or freaking power steering.

    Those aren't very costly add-ons, and part of why they are standard is because they're so damn cheap. Sorry, you are really missing the point here.

    @Snooder said:

    Yeah, a single income-earner can't pay the mortgage on a "typical" house the way he could back in the halcyon days of yore. But guess what, a "typical" house didn't use to be a 2500 sqft McMansion with a 3 car garage and 3 living rooms.

    How is that a higher standard of living? Most of those houses are fucking garbage that won't last a half-century. Now, I'll grant you that people are buying bigger, shittier houses (and working extremely hard to pay for them, and sometimes facing foreclosure) but how the fuck could anyone claim this is an improvement?

    @Snooder said:

    Not that I've seen. And as noted earlier, that's not how productivity increases work.

    You clearly don't understand basic economics. WHAT THE FUCK.

    @Snooder said:

    Unless you shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joes or something, food is and always has been really fucking cheap in the US (since the subsidies of the mid 20th century). We're not exactly starving here, if you hadn't noticed.

    Um.. okay. Did I say we were starving? I said food was more expensive (or at least as expensive), even as productivity and efficiency have exploded. How can you look at that and say "Yeah, that makes sense!" If it takes significantly less capital to create food, but that food costs you the same labor, how do you not see that as being fucking wrong?

    @Snooder said:

    When people say "health care is expensive", what they mean is that cutting edge life-saving medical care is expensive.

    No that's not what I'm saying, you fucktard. Sure, cutting-edge, live-saving treatment is expensive. A doctor's visit to get a prescription I've had for 10 years refilled costs $220. How do you think that compares to a few decades ago? Do you realize how cheap it used to be to get something like stitches or anti-biotics? Try breaking your arm now and see if it costs less than $3000.

    @Snooder said:

    Trust me, it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough or anything.

    Sure they are. Of course, so are the malpractice lawyers and the government.

    @Snooder said:

    gasoline powered power plant.

    What. The. Fuck. I just..



  • @flabdablet said:

    @Snooder said:
    it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough

    No, that would be the insurers.

    No. Insurers make pretty modest profit, and they do it via investment, not premiums.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @flabdablet said:
    @Snooder said:
    it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough

    No, that would be the insurers.

    No. Insurers make pretty modest profit, and they do it via investment, not premiums.

    It's called the float. That's how Warren Buffet made the foundation of his fortune, with the float from Geico.



  • @Snooder said:

    If you haven't done all these, then yeah you've made mistakes.

    Huh? You seemed to intertwine a few actually useful things with a bunch of bullshit. Of course, you flunked out of a tier four law school, so it's no wonder you apparently don't comprehend the road to success.



  • @spamcourt said:

    @boomzilla said:
    @flabdablet said:
    A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to the wealthy who, by gaining control of those, become even more wealthy.

    What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck? That's what non-free markets do.


    I believe he's referring to that thing where the more money you have, the easier it is to make more money, thus causing rich people to become richer faster than poor(er) people become richer.

    So what? The question isn't "Who has the biggest pile of wealth?" it's "Is everybody doing better off overall, and are we optimizing the wealth creation across-the-board." And when the US welfare state started expanding in the mid-60s, that entirely went off the fucking rails and started killing the middle class.



  • @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @flabdablet said:
    @Snooder said:
    it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough

    No, that would be the insurers.

    No. Insurers make pretty modest profit, and they do it via investment, not premiums.

    It's called the float. That's how Warren Buffet made the foundation of his fortune, with the float from Geico.

    Yes, I know, thank you. I didn't want to introduce even more confusing terms for people who don't understand how basic markets work.



  • @Snooder said:

    The actual poor people are just fucked. But they would be fucked under any system, so whatever.

    What the fuck are you talking about? Poor people benefited significantly from wealth creation, just as everyone else did. (And modern "poor" Americans are laughable: they have 500 channels of cable, smartphones and brand new cars. The difference is they went from being part of wealth creation to being the recipients of wealth transfer, which has been a fucking disaster for their self-sufficiency, upward mobility and the middle class who foots the bill..)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ronald said:
    @morbiuswilters said:
    @flabdablet said:
    @Snooder said:
    it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough

    No, that would be the insurers.

    No. Insurers make pretty modest profit, and they do it via investment, not premiums.

    It's called the float. That's how Warren Buffet made the foundation of his fortune, with the float from Geico.

    Yes, I know, thank you. I didn't want to introduce even more confusing terms for people who don't understand how basic markets work.

    Here is the translation for programmers: the float is how you double money by going long on "bool" market or short when running budget on a string.





  • @Ronald said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    @morbiuswilters said:
    @flabdablet said:
    @Snooder said:
    it's not like doctors or hospitals are raking any extra dough

    No, that would be the insurers.

    No. Insurers make pretty modest profit, and they do it via investment, not premiums.

    It's called the float. That's how Warren Buffet made the foundation of his fortune, with the float from Geico.

    Yes, I know, thank you. I didn't want to introduce even more confusing terms for people who don't understand how basic markets work.

    Here is the translation for programmers: the float is how you double money by going long on "bool" market or short when running budget on a string.



    I hate you.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Ronald said:
    Here is the translation for programmers: the float is how you double money by going long on "bool" market or short when running budget on a string.



    <img Deleted for sanity>

    I hate you.

    You didn't already???



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @Ronald said:
    Here is the translation for programmers: the float is how you double money by going long on "bool" market or short when running budget on a string.



    <img Deleted for sanity>

    I hate you.

    You didn't already???

    Naw, Ronnie's okay.




  • someone talking 'bout me?


  • @Ronald said:

    Ew.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @spamcourt said:

    @boomzilla said:
    @flabdablet said:
    A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to the wealthy who, by gaining control of those, become even more wealthy.

    What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck? That's what non-free markets do.

    I believe he's referring to that thing where the more money you have, the easier it is to make more money, thus causing rich people to become richer faster than poor(er) people become richer.

    Yes, but he's ignoring the fact that under a non-free market, the rich just take shit from the poor people. In a free market, the rich people have to sell something to the poor people to get their money, so at least the poor people get something. And, of course, more poor people become non-poor people in a freer market.

    Really, to fix his quote, we would say something like, "A free market, by its very nature, allocates scarce resources to where they are most valued."



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    The world is an awesome place. It gets better every fucking year. Humans are awesome creatures...

    No it isn't. No it doesn't. No we aren't; we're vile, horrible animals. Sure, there's goodness in there, but it tends to be drowned out by our frequent spasms of genocide, murder, enslavement and exploitation. Most people are tacky, shallow, ignorant and lacking in any kind of moral conviction. I don't know how you could see otherwise.

    You’ll find the people here the same.


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