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Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

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Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#61

Post by lotsofpulp »

magduf wrote: post #52
vxNsr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet for decades the quality of life of hundreds of millions of Americans is lower than that of people in other, poorer developed countries. This statement is wildly ignorant or intentionally misleading, you are claiming that at the very least 2/3 of all americans have a quality of life worse than other poorer countries. this is simply a false unsubstantiated statement.

No, it's completely true. Most Americans do not have a better quality of life than most Swedes, most Danes, or most Germans.

I think part of many Americans' quality of life definition is the possibility to hit it big and end up in the top 10% and have an even better life than most Swedes/Danes/Germans. Temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#62

Post by RPLong »

magduf wrote: post #52
vxNsr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet for decades the quality of life of hundreds of millions of Americans is lower than that of people in other, poorer developed countries. This statement is wildly ignorant or intentionally misleading, you are claiming that at the very least 2/3 of all americans have a quality of life worse than other poorer countries. this is simply a false unsubstantiated statement.

No, it's completely true. Most Americans do not have a better quality of life than most Swedes, most Danes, or most Germans.

There is no objective measure of quality of life. It might well be that you personally would rather be poor there than here, but it's not an objective and verifiable statement, and it could easily go the other way. It depends on which factors that you, personally, rate highest.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#63

Post by pizzazzaro »

nabnob wrote: post #45

I agree with some of the points being made in this article, but there's definitely better resources on this topic. The paper mentioned in the article, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox", is very thorough and easy to read even for someone (like me) who doesn't have a background in economics. The key point made in that paper is that modern antitrust legislation only looks at price when determining whether a monopoly is harmi…

Thank you for addressing the only point on this list which shows any promise - a renewed commitment to Trust Busting.

I have a similar take on technology - new industries are nice, but without some serious push, each is going to take time to get started. If we wait for the "market" to drive solar panel adoption by itself, foreign competition is going to choke out domestic firms.

This list lost me at more Supply Side "Economics". Both US political parties have been trying variations on this theme continuously since 1980. As far as Im concerned, this is the problem, not the solution. The same goes for disingenuous Corporate Libertarianism, German-style subsidies, and whatever other model you can invent to pretend this still works.

The real solution? Workers need to tell their bosses, "F%$k You, Pay Me." In all seriousness, driving for Uber or Lyft is just a way to devalue your vehicle for pay that rarely keeps pace with such and gas.

Inflation continues, even as workers see their pre-inflation average wages remain constant. Its almost like the economy doesn't really include us anymore.

Your economy is struggling? Maybe you should pay us enough to participate, boss.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#64

Post by komali2 »

>Among their recommendations is preventing tech platforms from vertically integrating into different lines of business, where they can potentially favor their own services and harm rivals. In this view, Facebook shouldn’t be allowed to own Instagram.

Weird, I would argue that Facebook buying Instagram was a horizontal integration.

Amazon buying cloudflare is more something I'd think is vertical but it's possible I just don't understand the terms.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#65

Post by FiveSquared »

dnautics wrote: post #54

No mention of ending inflation, which is a deliberate state-driven policy to steal from the poor to give to the rich and make the state "look good" by lowering the metric of unemployment: https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/the-case-for-hi... "even in the long run, it’s really, really hard to cut nominal wages. Yet when you have very low inflation, getting relative wages right would require that a significan…

In heath care, education, etc. It is deliberate. Otherwise, it is due to the natural change in the economy. Prices will always rise as more money is in the country. In a theoretical free market, inflation always exists due to the money supply as more money is required. The Fed is tampering with the money supply to induce growth. Growth in money supply = inflation in a vacuum.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#66

Post by xtian »

hevi_jos wrote: post #42
fallingfrog wrote: post #30

You can buy and sell almost anything under capitalism. You can buy or sell property. You can buy or sell pieces of a company (stocks). You can buy or sell human labor. And the way that businesses make money is by essentially arbitraging some market, for example by buying something in one place and selling it somewhere where it is more expensive, or by buying labor and selling the products of that labor at a profit. B…

What socialism system are you talking about? Just name one socialist country that applies your ideal scenarios. IMHO this system only exist in your mind, it is not real. Countries that people say are Socialist like those in the north of Europe, are really capitalistic societies. I have known plenty of real socialist countries in the world, and they only share misery. In those socialist countries, like Venezuela or Cu…

Both capitalism and socialism have been applied in the kinds of totalitarian contexts you are describing. The real question is more fundamental: for whose benefit does government exist? Is it for the powerful or the powerless?

There is a vast ocean of possibilities between paying everybody the same and regressive class-preserving exploitation disguised under lofty free-market ideals.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#67

Post by clairity »

d_burfoot wrote: post #38

A lot of analyses of capitalism miss out on the fact that the problems it creates vary widely by sector. Warren Buffet said that if "a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down." That's because the airline industry didn't return profits to investors; instead the vast value created by the industry accrued overwhelmingly to the public,…

> “That's because the airline industry didn't return profits to investors; instead the vast value created by the industry accrued overwhelmingly to the public, because of competition.“

rhur?

competition is essential to capitalism; monopoly returns to investors are not. no one is even guaranteed a profit. you describe exactly how capitalism is designed to work.

this kind of basic misunderstanding is part of why we’re in the mess we’re in. economics and finance should really be required in high school.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#68

Post by pseudolus »

posterboy wrote: post #51
pseudolus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Anti-trust isn’t equipped to deal with anything because it’s arbitrary and vague. That's something of a gross mischaracterization of antitrust law. The Sherman Act and other laws provide various guidelines as to what constitutes anticompetitive conduct. Through the succeeding decades since the introduction of antitrust legislation courts have also consistently built up case law that provides further guidance.

You are arguing in favour of the above argument. If case law has to be established on a case by case basis, then because the law is a priori insufficient.

No individual statute can encompass all possibilities hence the need for case law to clarify the law - it's a distinguishing characteristic of common law systems and, at least with respect to interpretation of statutes, also civil law systems.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#69

Post by chasd00 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #43
chasd00 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the concept of labor in socialism is outdated. Consider Facebook, do all the uses who generate the content and activity that gives Facebook its value count towards "labor" and therefore should participate in the rewards of that labor? If everything was still physical factories, staffed by humans, and creating physical widgets then I can at least understand the socialist view. However, in the current market labo…

>>> do all the uses who generate the content and activity that gives Facebook its value count towards "labor" and therefore should participate in the rewards of that labor? yes. I have contributed a small part of labor, but probably more importantly I have sold my Intellectual Property - my Personal data, to Facebook who then monetise it and give me no cut of the proceeds. It is an interesting framework from fallingf…

If you sold them something then you should send them an invoice. Or, did you agree to their terms and conditions of using their website/mobile app voluntarily?

This makes no sense to me.

Re: Seven Fixes for American Capitalism

#70

Post by FiveSquared »

pizzazzaro wrote: post #63
nabnob wrote: post #45

I agree with some of the points being made in this article, but there's definitely better resources on this topic. The paper mentioned in the article, "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox", is very thorough and easy to read even for someone (like me) who doesn't have a background in economics. The key point made in that paper is that modern antitrust legislation only looks at price when determining whether a monopoly is harmi…

Thank you for addressing the only point on this list which shows any promise - a renewed commitment to Trust Busting. I have a similar take on technology - new industries are nice, but without some serious push, each is going to take time to get started. If we wait for the "market" to drive solar panel adoption by itself, foreign competition is going to choke out domestic firms. This list lost me at more Supply Side…

True, companies have so much money. Where that's money going! Paying off "creative accounting debt" and stock buybacks, which make shareholders happy but undermine the economy in the long run.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/123115/4-rea... https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/does-a-stock-buyback-a...

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