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Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

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Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#21

Post by haberman »

nateabele wrote: post #6

This article is terrible. Not only is it full of false comparisons, but every example cited as a supposed failure of capitalism or free markets is actually the direct result of government intervention. A friend challenged me when I mentioned this, so I wrote a full take-down: https://gist.github.com/nateabele/cffa0c54ab0385bbba37

I watched the video you linked under the text "kids' version", concerning fractional reserve banking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8

I believe that video contains a significant error. Around 13:00-16:00, it claims that a fractional reserve ratio of 9:1 with an initial capitalization of $1111.12 can lead to overall debt of almost $100,000 being issued. I believe this is incorrect and misunderstands how fractional reserve banking works.

The video's scenario is that a bank has a $1111.12 capitalization, no depositors, and issues a $10,000 loan to a customer who immediately writes a check for the $10,000 amount (which then gets deposited at another bank). The video seems to think that this bank can continue operating by fulfilling the check with $8888.88 of "debt money" that it just made up.

I'm pretty sure that the bank (call it A) has become insolvent and the check will not be able to be deposited at bank B. Bank B has no reason to accept Bank A's IOUs -- they aren't real money. If bank A doesn't have enough hard cash to satisfy the checks written by both its depositors and its loan customers, the bank has become insolvent and has to close its doors. So in reality, the 9:1 ratio means that $1111.12 of real money can only become $10,000 in "debt money", total, not $100,000.

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#22

Post by Theodores »

Paul Mason is a very good television journalist although he has moved away from the BBC to Channel 4. Good that he may be, I don't feel the urge to read any of his books on how the post-Capitalist world is supposed to work out.

Recently in an old book shop I found a shelf full of ideas from around the dot com era of how our post-whatever society was going to be. I feel that Paul Mason's books are doomed to go to this same shelf of 'forgotten dreams'.

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#23

Post by gaius »

seibelj wrote: post #2

The article is a chain of economic fallacies. > Modern economies are increasingly based around information. Information "wants to be free"—as the saying goes—but free things are bad for capitalism, because capitalism is about competition and making profits. Tons of companies are based on providing information. Even if the information is public, sorting it and providing it efficiently has real value (such as google).…

Haha I always laugh at people who quote "information wants to be free" out of context. In the original speech in which the phrase was coined, the very next sentence was "information wants to be expensive".

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#24

Post by rvense »

haberman wrote: post #21
nateabele wrote: post #6

This article is terrible. Not only is it full of false comparisons, but every example cited as a supposed failure of capitalism or free markets is actually the direct result of government intervention. A friend challenged me when I mentioned this, so I wrote a full take-down: https://gist.github.com/nateabele/cffa0c54ab0385bbba37

I watched the video you linked under the text "kids' version", concerning fractional reserve banking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8 I believe that video contains a significant error. Around 13:00-16:00, it claims that a fractional reserve ratio of 9:1 with an initial capitalization of $1111.12 can lead to overall debt of almost $100,000 being issued. I believe this is incorrect and misunderstands how fr…

There are no such ratios, money multipliers are a myth. Money is created from nothing when banks lend.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#25

Post by bsbechtel »

jondubois wrote: post #12

I like the idea of basic income but I don't like the idea of raising income tax. I think capital gains tax should be raised and there should be a special tax on passive income. All Passive income sources are essentially small monopolies - If you own an asset from which you derive passive income without having to work at all; the dynamics of this are not so different from a corporation having a monopoly over an indust…

Remember capital gains on stocks are levied after a 35% corporate income tax, making the effective rate of taxation 50%.

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#26

Post by simonh »

jessaustin wrote: post #11
brianwawok wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got $0 in government subsidisation? You don't use public roads? The police don't service you? You didn't get a free public education?

I take it you are privileged enough to spend most of your time in areas served by fairly complete road systems. You could be responding to someone who does not, especially since that person lives in "one of the lowest income counties in a state that is well below the national average". There are no "roads" as you would identify them in many such places. They do have jeep trails etc. but no government built them.

It really doesn't matter. All the modern (not literally home made from the raw materials) goods and commodities they have were delivered in very large part on mainstream infrastructure. Roads, railway, through airports and cargo ports, etc. That includes every vehicle they drive, the fuel they burn, clothes they wear, food they eat. The electricity they use, even the fuel they use to run generators if they're off the grid (and the generators themselves). The cost of all that has to some extent been subsidised.

Modern economies and technological supply and support chains are so massively integrated that this is unavoidable. Yet most of us are obliviously unaware that they even exist.

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#27

Post by [deleted] »

merpnderp wrote: post #13
jondubois wrote: post #12

I like the idea of basic income but I don't like the idea of raising income tax. I think capital gains tax should be raised and there should be a special tax on passive income. All Passive income sources are essentially small monopolies - If you own an asset from which you derive passive income without having to work at all; the dynamics of this are not so different from a corporation having a monopoly over an indust…

The simple answer is that they're risking their capital. If someone buys a tent house, they now have an asset that can burn down (insurance only making them partially whole), or get a renter who draws out zero payments for months. Or just the bottom falling out of the market. Risk should be rewarded.

[deleted]

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#28

Post by jokoon »

Well I'm 30 and have been unemployed all my life. I'm safe at home, trying to make a game. Jobs aren't necessary anymore. That's what the industry and automation are for. In a way, you can say capitalism allows the development of industries, which in the end seems to reduce the necessity of having capitalism in the first place.

I didn't read the article, but I always sense there is this weird belief that "people must work and belong to something so that society can function". I can't really express it. What bothers me is that somehow, even after the new deal and social programs, not having a salary or income is seen as some sort of a bad thing, and often, it will be a bad thing for your mental health (isolation, lack of personal goals).

I guess that is what people don't like about capitalism, is that it builds an inability for anyone to share and live in communities normally, because the political argument of altruism seems to lead to communism and soviet evils. It's really hard to make a link between capitalism and the lack of fulfillment, despite the increase in wealth, but at some point I'm sure people would prefer an economy which isn't so focused on growth, but rather on long term development.

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#29

Post by icebraining »

haberman wrote: post #20
jMyles wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be undiplomatic, but there's no way I'm going to encapsulate this is an HN comment. Books! You must read books! If you want something really easy to start with (albeit a surface scratcher), try The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul. I don't even understand why anybody thinks that the default position is that everyone benefits from police. The burden is on you to prove that one.

> The burden is on you to prove that one. If every modern society has chosen to have police, I think the burden is on you to prove that every modern society is wrong.

The truths of which the masses now approve are the very truths that the fighters at the outposts held to in the days of our grandfathers. We fighters at the outposts nowadays no longer approve of them; and I do not believe there is any other well-ascertained truth except this, that no community can live a healthy life if it is nourished only on such old marrowless truths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enemy_of_the_People

Re: Welcome to the Post-Work Economy

#30

Post by paulryanrogers »

jokoon wrote: post #28

Well I'm 30 and have been unemployed all my life. I'm safe at home, trying to make a game. Jobs aren't necessary anymore. That's what the industry and automation are for. In a way, you can say capitalism allows the development of industries, which in the end seems to reduce the necessity of having capitalism in the first place. I didn't read the article, but I always sense there is this weird belief that "people must…

You feel safe (as in comfortable?) in whose home? Some people find it unacceptable to live with their parents/siblings/benefactors indefinitely.
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