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WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

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Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#161

Post by budlightvirus »

Supermancho wrote: post #126
treeman79 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always underestimate the cost of regulations. Even when good, the cost is big. Health care is a good example. Keeping patient data private is a good thing. However it’s also absolutely crushing in its impact in the industry. Tiny projects can take months or years. HIPPA terrifies so many IT people. Driving away top developers.

> HIPPA terrifies so many IT people. Driving away top developers. I've worked in healthcare tech stacks. It's like saying the GDPR is driving away top developers. Not true in the slightest. The problems with making money in healthcare are business related, not developer related. HIPAA is just another set of rules to abide by when creating systems.

Same. I got a lot of stress from worrying about patient safety, but HIPAA was always just another set of requirements to meet.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#162

Post by rhacker »

wyldfire wrote: post #22

Some of these graphs are laughable and are candidates for "Spurious Correlations" [1]. Childhood obesity is not due to the US getting rid of the gold standard. [1] http://archive.is/9VFmh

It still falls under the title - "WTF happened in 1971?" Also, you can clearly see that obesity is a modern problem and I think it is related to a certain kind of apathy that has happened and likely related to income stagnation, as well as drug and alcohol use.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#165

Post by tboyd47 »

jrk wrote: post #144
tboyd47 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the OPEC oil crisis drive the price of oil higher? But then you say that the problem is that oil prices saw a massive decline. So which is it? When I look at the graph of oil prices between 1970 and 2020, I see it jumping around between $20 and $160, but they are always higher than they were in 1970. What exactly are you saying is the problem with oil prices? Are they too high or too low?

> The period of growth was a period of massive decline in the price of energy. This is referring to the decades before 1970, not after the oil crisis. > We've since had 50 years of stagnation in energy prices. This is the period of 1970-2020. The price of oil has oscillated (jumping around, as you say) during this period, but the overall price of energy has not had a clear long-term trend. The earlier poster's argume…

Thanks. I prefer the Nixon dollar float theory. The OPEC oil crisis was only 6 months. And as you say, oil prices in general have not had a clear trend. So those don't seem related to what is being presented on WTF Happened in 1971.

When the government can print money willy-nilly, it can finance any boondoggle it wants to. This free money would pull qualified people away from more productive endeavors. It makes sense that this trend would, over time, impoverish society and enrich those in Washington's orbit.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#166

Post by Ericson2314 »

I highly recommend https://www.versobooks.com/books/3717-automation-and-the-fut... (or read https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii119/articles/aaron-benana...)

It's a solid back-to-the-basics refresher. Without making causal guesses, the stats clearly show that demand stopped absorbing increasing supply, the Keynesian feedback loop was broken, and everything went to shit since.

The causes seem numerous and intricate but a few observations:

- As pointed out in https://phenomenalworld.org/interviews/trade-wars-are-class-..., everyone trying to be exporters in general leads to a glut. Here is sort of the origins of that, with the US "overproducing" as it exports to a post-WWII destroyed world, then Japan and Germany coming back to try to export more, and then everyone else thereafter.

- From the perspective That 1930-1970 is the anomaly, cycles of destruction and rebuilding are a hack to help create enough labor scarcity for society to function better.

- We'd be better of making labor scare and compelling investment in physical capital by shrinking the workday than starting world wars!!

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#167

Post by rhacker »

swalsh wrote: post #153
wyldfire wrote: post #22

Some of these graphs are laughable and are candidates for "Spurious Correlations" [1]. Childhood obesity is not due to the US getting rid of the gold standard. [1] http://archive.is/9VFmh

So many aspects of our lives can potentially be linked back to the economy. Not really trying to make the argument that it is directly related, but income and obesity are highly correlated. Cheap calories often are bad calories. If going off the gold standard impacted the distribution of wealth. It might be plausible that could impact obesity. * again, not aruging for or against the correlation. Just pointing out tha…

I'd say it's a correlation.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#168

Post by 0-_-0 »

ehnto wrote: post #140
ohyes wrote: post #109

This is clearly because 1970 is the Unix epoch when this version of the simulation began. It took about a year for things to get sufficiently out of whack so that stuff started to diverge in a noticeable way. I hope our implementors are proud of me for making reference to the simulation that we're all in.

The simulation the implementers are in doesn't allow for nested references.

Hey, don't crash the simulation! I haven't had dinner yet.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#169

Post by cambalache »

bluedino wrote: post #34

Would increases in computers and automation have anything to do with it? And have wages really gone down? As a whole, we're richer than ever. We own more possessions, have bigger houses, spend more money on luxuries, etc.

Define "we" and define "rich".

Because if by "we" you mean, anyone who has a blue collar job and/or "just" went to a state school, and if by "rich" you mean, able to afford a house,have the luxury of one partner (usually the woman) to stay home, medical costs in any eventuality, send their kids to college, then you are sadly mistaken.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#170

Post by ocommentator »

refulgentis wrote: post #129
thanhhaimai wrote: post #121

The biggest reason for the wage drop is the trade with China. The US and China started trading in 1971: https://apjjf.org/2013/11/24/Dong-Wang/3958/article.html As with any economic question, it's usually not due to one reason. The combination of energy price and workforce age comes into play. But the biggest trigger of all was the trade with China. That put a serious pressure to job competition, and led to significa…

Many, many, many, more of "the 99%" benefited than the theoretical benefit of opening the US to competition did to "the 1%". https://ourworldindata.org/exports/share-of-population-livin...

Exactly, it would be interesting to look at the growth in real income and income equality from a global perspective.
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