Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

theweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 309 posts

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#291

Post by AstralStorm »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #246
mumblemumble wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that you could read into the parent post is that, to the people it's giving the shaft to, modern crony capitalism doesn't seem particularly distinguishable from socialism in a lot of ways. You have the thing where the government is trying to control, or at least closely guide, the economy. You have the thing where those who are close to power subvert that to line their own pockets. You have the thing where…

The solution to crony capitalism isn't socialism, though. It's less "crony" - less ability to profit from government connections, which means less government control (or "guidance") of the economy. The government should prevent unfair competition, regulate externalities, and not much else.

What if the implemented solution is skipping the capitalism part and just going straight to corporatism? (Rule by corporate oligarchy.)

You have to make a really strong argument why it would be suboptimal - and without spherical cow level microeconomic lies.

Crony capitalism only causes problems because it is not transparent who rules, while generating waste from those that don't and fail.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#292

Post by AstralStorm »

douglaswlance wrote: post #285
rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly by buying stocks and it works: the SP500 doubled in the past 10 years, and I did far better than that. You can consider my investment as contributions, because I most certainly bought stocks from other rich persons and the stock markets is growing fast mostly thanks to the bank central policies (note that my free money never directly helped the company of which I bought stocks). I purchased an apartment too, a…

Any investment can fail. You spent money to bet on the price going up and won. Someone else lost. The markets aren't exclusively available to the rich. Anyone can buy and sell stocks. Successful people get to live better than the poor. That is why we should do more to encourage more poor people to live better by contributing more. The economy is not zero-sum.

Second part is a lie. Tried managing stocks on your own? And having no leverage?

It's not even close to competitive with hired specialists dedicated to the task. You cannot compete.

It is not contributions not success that makes people live better or longer. It is ownership, diet, mental health (including low stress) access to medical care. Check out how many of successful people actually live shorter or painful lives. Your argument only works for have-nots.

Economy is negative sum, unless you discount externalities. It does not break physics. Mined out and used up materials do not suddenly reappear. We just move the goalposts to have the same "positive money" outlook, keep everything from deflation. Until recently inventions (esp. energy and mining, then production efficiencies), made the economies grow. But it is not an infinite resource.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#293

Post by AstralStorm »

f1refly wrote: post #289
AstralStorm wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English example is the singular they. "It" has some additional implication on age.

Except the "singular they" doesn't exist and in basically a forced change of spoken language by a minority who thinks forcing people is a great way to accomplish things

There's no other way to enact change than force or consensus, or mix of these. Consensus is not going to happen. Languages change very slowly.

Royal We was forced, but in widespread use. This pronoun is an offshoot thereof. And other languages have even better pronouns than English. Check Chinese and Japanese.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#294

Post by bsanr2 »

jtcruthers wrote: post #61
bsanr2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because educating immigrants is cheaper? If you support immigrants, surprisingly, they tend to embrace the existentially important parts of your culture and integrate smoothly. But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color.

>But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color Lol, I feel like having a family is way too expensive and disagree that importing replacements is the only way to go. Giving birth shouldn't bankrupt you, and that has to be a huge reason young people (including me and my friends) are pushing off having children. Combine that with the overwhelming student debt crisis, I don't feel I can take on a child.…

Logically-speaking, why would you create people who will be a burden to a society in need for a longer period than people you could bring in from outside? It's a very similar issue to the adoption vs birth debate, which is exceedingly simple before emotional matters come into play: it's much better for society for childless couples to adopt parentless children.

Likewise, the answer to this immigration debate is exceedingly clear, until you throw overly emotional notions about culture and ethnicity and nationality into the mix.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#295

Post by bsanr2 »

DuskStar wrote: post #245
toomuchtodo wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great questions. I think we look with a critical eye but still make generous allowances for retirement savings vehicles. Keep in mind, the problem isn't people with single digit millions of wealth, the problem is those with tens, hundreds of millions, and billions of dollars.

But why are they a problem? Look, there's two kinds of taxes. One is to raise revenue, one is to punish behavior we don't like. Once you start describing the rich as a problem , it makes me think that this is the second kind of tax, and I really don't think that accumulating wealth, and helping out everyone else along the way by growing the economy, is something we should be punishing. If you say "the uber-rich ($10m…

>accumulating wealth, and helping out everyone else along the way by growing the economy

The latter doesn't follow the former. In fact, consolidation of wealth is a hindrance to volume of activity outside the bounds of the owner of that wealth's interests. Case-in-point: Wal-Mart has done gangbuster business over the last half century. They've grown our economy. Almost every community its touched has been devastated by this, from the destruction of other businesses within its purview; to the flooding of the market with cheap goods that - in many cases - do nothing for society in their cheapness, and which actually create issues of overconsumption and waste; to the negative effects their influence has had on the shape of welfare. It's not about what Wal-Mart does; its very existence at its size is destructive. The only positive thing it did was grow the overall economy, which is like celebrating a tumor growing your overall lean mass.

The over-aggregation of wealth is the problem. A wealth tax is the direct solution (it does not have to be permanent or perennial). Wealth flight is a fantasy, and for anyone who tries, the federal government has access to the resources necessary to make sure everyone pays their fair share.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#296

Post by jtcruthers »

bsanr2 wrote: post #294
jtcruthers wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color Lol, I feel like having a family is way too expensive and disagree that importing replacements is the only way to go. Giving birth shouldn't bankrupt you, and that has to be a huge reason young people (including me and my friends) are pushing off having children. Combine that with the overwhelming student debt crisis, I don't feel I can take on a child.…

Logically-speaking, why would you create people who will be a burden to a society in need for a longer period than people you could bring in from outside? It's a very similar issue to the adoption vs birth debate, which is exceedingly simple before emotional matters come into play: it's much better for society for childless couples to adopt parentless children. Likewise, the answer to this immigration debate is excee…

Me having two children are not destined to be "burdens to society in need (sic?) for a longer period than people you can bring from outside". That is certainly not guaranteed. I'm not sure it's even statistically more likely than not. So I'm very hesitant to take that as gospel.

And my personal beliefs about life and what it means to be human in my very finite time here goes far beyond "well the economics work out better if I'm barren forever and the government imports immigrants with higher birth rates due to being from a third world country". I strive to have a complete, well rounded life with a loving family. At the end of the day, my life goal is not to live an " economically logical" life void of emotions. I have 90 years here, if I'm lucky. I AM going to live a full life.

There is nothing wrong with immigration, but the fact of the matter is you can't strip all emotion out of the equation. You can say its overly emotional to want your own family instead of importing people with completely different cultures and values, but the drive to reproduce has been in the works for 3.5 billion years. Having others reproduce for you so the government can get an extra dollar out of isn't enough of an incentive to kick the repro drive.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#297

Post by [deleted] »

bluedino wrote: post #99
wayoutthere wrote: post #8

In the US, it's less active protest and more things like slacking off heavily at work because it's a treadmill we can't win. We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income. We as a nation have basically told people "no, you can't have a comfortable life or save for retirement because your parents' generation still needs to get 10% annual growth to make their retirement mat…

>> We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income. Pride? Character? Respect from colleagues?

[deleted]

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#298

Post by AnimalMuppet »

AstralStorm wrote: post #291
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to crony capitalism isn't socialism, though. It's less "crony" - less ability to profit from government connections, which means less government control (or "guidance") of the economy. The government should prevent unfair competition, regulate externalities, and not much else.

What if the implemented solution is skipping the capitalism part and just going straight to corporatism? (Rule by corporate oligarchy.) You have to make a really strong argument why it would be suboptimal - and without spherical cow level microeconomic lies. Crony capitalism only causes problems because it is not transparent who rules, while generating waste from those that don't and fail.

First, why do I have to make the really strong argument? The default position is the status quo; if you think it should be changed, you have to make the really strong argument as to why it would be better. You have the burden of proof; the status quo does not.

But corporatism isn't the answer, on even a superficial look. Crony capitalism generates waste from those who fail because they are locked out. But corporatism is wasteful, too, of those who in an open system could have tried and succeeded, but in corporatism are locked out and know it, and therefore don't even bother to try.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#299

Post by mumblemumble »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #298
AstralStorm wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the implemented solution is skipping the capitalism part and just going straight to corporatism? (Rule by corporate oligarchy.) You have to make a really strong argument why it would be suboptimal - and without spherical cow level microeconomic lies. Crony capitalism only causes problems because it is not transparent who rules, while generating waste from those that don't and fail.

First, why do I have to make the really strong argument? The default position is the status quo; if you think it should be changed, you have to make the really strong argument as to why it would be better. You have the burden of proof; the status quo does not. But corporatism isn't the answer, on even a superficial look. Crony capitalism generates waste from those who fail because they are locked out. But corporatism…

How about market capitalism?

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#300

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mumblemumble wrote: post #299
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, why do I have to make the really strong argument? The default position is the status quo; if you think it should be changed, you have to make the really strong argument as to why it would be better. You have the burden of proof; the status quo does not. But corporatism isn't the answer, on even a superficial look. Crony capitalism generates waste from those who fail because they are locked out. But corporatism…

How about market capitalism?

I think that answers both my issue and AstralStorm's. It's also the alleged status quo. I think I agree with AstralStorm that the current situation, if not full crony capitalism, at least has more crony capitalism in it than we generally think.
Post reply on HN