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Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

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Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#281

Post by dehrmann »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #53

From the article: It suggests that economic growth in a mature economy does not necessarily increase the pressure on the world's reserves of natural resources and on its physical environment. Jesse Asubel has been looking at "dematerialization" for a long time[1] but it has only been relatively recently, now with a couple of decades of additional data to look at, that it is getting the attention I think it deserves.…

> all exponential trends are s-curves

What does this mean for the stock market? And debt? Or really, what does an economy look like when it's done growing, but stable?

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#282

Post by Reason077 »

syshum wrote: post #218
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being way over dramatic. 99% of the time the unit makes sense and is the same for comparable products.

Even with in the exact same product but different sizes I seem them use different units to make to hard to figure out which size provides the best value

That seems odd to me. Wouldn’t the store want you to purchase the bigger product, and thus spend more money?

You’d think it would be in their interest to display the per-unit price comparison, to emphasise where a bigger package is better value.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#283

Post by DoingIsLearning »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #116
pjmorris wrote: post #96

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of i…

In the EU, shops are required to display the price per , i. e. all coffees have a (usually smaller, but readable) Euro/500g price. There used to be an even more drastic law proscribing certain sizes and disallowing all others. Flour would only be available in 500g and 1kg bags, for example. They got rid of it, possibly because they got sick of people making fun of EU regulations (that's what happened with the famous…

For accuracy sake, the banana curveness ratings were a lie created by Rupert Murdoch's tabloids.

This was flamboyantly repeated and amplified by the current UK Prime Minister who was then 'journalist' Boris Johnson.

There is quite literally an archive in the European Comission containing, clarifications regarding lies and misrepresentation of facts (the large majority of which created by UK newspapers).

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/curved-bananas/

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#284

Post by safgasCVS »

pjmorris wrote: post #96

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of i…

'That put a lot of credit in to the economy, which shows up as economic growth.' - Unfortunately its not quite true!

Fractional reserve banking (FRB) as is taught in most econ textbooks and courses is a myth. There's a very nice paper by the bank of england debunking this (Money creation in the modern economy). The idea behind QE and bailing out the banks was to create lending and liquidity in the market largely via the FRB mechanism however that failed to materialise for reasons the bank of england paper goes into but basically banks don’t lend out their reserves as the theory expects but it’s the process of lending that creates deposits not the other way around. The money given to banks didn't result in increased lending but instead went into financial markets buying up assets. There was some wealth effect going on so people with some assets got richer and then spent more but overall it was a really trickled down effect.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#285

Post by Reason077 »

divbyzer0 wrote: post #277
benibela wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not remember ever seeing price per 500g

Yep, every item I see is price per kg. I can't think of exceptions.

In the UK it is typically either per 100g or per kg. Or per litre or per unit. Depends on the category of product.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#286

Post by adrianN »

dehrmann wrote: post #281
ChuckMcM wrote: post #53

From the article: It suggests that economic growth in a mature economy does not necessarily increase the pressure on the world's reserves of natural resources and on its physical environment. Jesse Asubel has been looking at "dematerialization" for a long time[1] but it has only been relatively recently, now with a couple of decades of additional data to look at, that it is getting the attention I think it deserves.…

> all exponential trends are s-curves What does this mean for the stock market? And debt? Or really, what does an economy look like when it's done growing, but stable?

Look at the Japanese economy for an example of stability without growth.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#287

Post by Reason077 »

pjmorris wrote: post #96

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of i…

> ”a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk.”

This is a common phenomenon in the UK, and there’s a name for it: Shrinkflation.

It’s a way to raise prices by stealth by not actually changing the price, but by shrinking the product instead.

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#288

Post by OJFord »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #251
tialaramex wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"used to be" prior to World War 2. The loaves shrank (and ingredient quality worsened) as part of rationing. After the war better ingredients became available but loaves remained 14oz, which is slightly less than 400g. Conveniently 14oz is not enough under 400g to count as "undersize" in the regulations, so generously filled 14oz tins produced compliant 400g batches when Britain went metric.

Hmm, never knew that. :) I knew of the Bread Act that set it 1lb/2lb, and the Middle Ages origins that worked "backwards" - when the price of the loaf was fixed and the weight of the loaf was varied as the price of wheat changed.

In some sense that makes much more sense - the people are starving? Well, supply more grain then.

Doesn't quite gel with modern manufacturing, though!

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#289

Post by nfellaby »

Reason077 wrote: post #287
pjmorris wrote: post #96

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of i…

> ”a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk.” This is a common phenomenon in the UK, and there’s a name for it: Shrinkflation . It’s a way to raise prices by stealth by not actually changing the price, but by shrinking the product instead.

#Toblerone-gate [0]

[0] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37904703

Re: Americans Are Using Less Steel, Paper, Fertilizer, and Energy

#290

Post by ozim »

pjmorris wrote: post #96

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of i…

It is not "crapification", my take on is "replaceability". People hail washing machines from communism era as really good, working for 30 years (they don't take into account survivorship bias but that is another point).

Earlier you could afford only one pair of shoes for your entire life. Lots of physical things could be inherited because they were valuable and they were really expensive.

You would not let your kids inherit your shoes now. The same with buildings. Kids will probably want to have their "own dream house" not stick with their parents dreams. Those kids probably will also have to move to other state or other city because jobs their parents did will no longer be there, and they will have to find their own place to get a job. Son of a carpenter is not going to be a carpenter. You want buildings easily replaceable. Buildings should last not more than 100 years and be easy to recycle.

That said, all stuff that would be replaceable, should also be easy to repair

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