Inside Japan’s Disposable Housing Market • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside Japan’s Disposable Housing Market

#41

Post by rcthompson » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 6:21 AM UTC

nosuchthing wrote: post #35

rcthompson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it's a fallacy that things need to be constantly thrown out and replaced for an economy to be healthy. If someone doesn't have to spend $1000 on new appliances, it's not like that thousand dollars disappears from the economy. Either the person spends that money on something else or sticks it in their savings account and the bank loans some of it out for someone else to spend. (This is basic econ theory, s…

The Parable of the broken window; Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assuredly bear witness to the fact that every one of the spectators, were there even thirty of them, by common consent apparently, offered the unfortunate owner this invariable consolation – "I…

Yeah, that's the passage I was thinking of when writing my comment.

Re: Inside Japan’s Disposable Housing Market

#42

Post by bane » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

nosuchthing wrote: post #39

bane wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone doesn't have to spend $1000 on new appliances, it's not like that thousand dollars disappears from the economy. Yes it does. Modern economic systems are built on consumerism. Saving large sums of money acts like a vacuum on currency and brings markets to a halt. Flowing money lubricates the economy. That's basically the sum total of the most recent economic crisis, money wasn't moving, so two presidentia…

That theory is based on the assumption that an economy requires consistent purchase of the same products, so in that theory planned obsolescene is great. Yet, the alternative to consumers continuously replacing "old" gear with slightly newer gear is not that a person just deciding they don't want to buy anything and placing that money in savings, they than have money to buy OTHER things, or for entertainment, travel,…

> they than have money to buy OTHER things, or for entertainment, travel, festivals, trips to mars, adding a 3rd story to their house, et cetera.

Believe it or not, there really is only so many other things that people will buy before you start thinking to yourself "hmmm...I'm not using these things at all and they're taking up space, perhaps I should stop buying useless things".

It's like my Steam account, hundreds of games I'll never have time to play and I have no idea why I bought them. So I've stopped paying attention to Steam Sales and Bundles.

There's only so many appliances, couches, nick-nacks, clothes, electronic goods that you can fit in your house, and only so much time per year to travel. At some point (and this really happens), you just stop buying stuff you don't need to and it just gets piled into various forms of savings.

Re: Inside Japan’s Disposable Housing Market

#43

Post by nosuchthing » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #42

nosuchthing wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That theory is based on the assumption that an economy requires consistent purchase of the same products, so in that theory planned obsolescene is great. Yet, the alternative to consumers continuously replacing "old" gear with slightly newer gear is not that a person just deciding they don't want to buy anything and placing that money in savings, they than have money to buy OTHER things, or for entertainment, travel,…

> they than have money to buy OTHER things, or for entertainment, travel, festivals, trips to mars, adding a 3rd story to their house, et cetera. Believe it or not, there really is only so many other things that people will buy before you start thinking to yourself "hmmm...I'm not using these things at all and they're taking up space, perhaps I should stop buying useless things". It's like my Steam account, hundreds…

That's great though, once a person has a considerable savings they invest in new and local businesses or other endeavors, else they simply begin buying more high quality items.