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WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

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Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#251

Post by webmaven »

sroussey wrote: post #201
xfs wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Yanis Varoufakis' account of the history leading up to the collapse of Bretton Woods very telling: As the combined costs of the Vietnam War and the Great Society began to mount, the government was forced to generate mountains of US government debt. By the end of the 1960s, many governments began to worry that their own position, which was interlocked with the dollar in the context of the Bretton Woods system,…

We are generating mountains of debt yet again, unfortunately.

> We are generating mountains of debt yet again, unfortunately.

We never really stopped.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#252

Post by rbanffy »

patrickk wrote: post #218
christophilus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another plausible explanation I’ve heard is that you had a massive influx of new consumers (baby boomers) entering the workforce. You almost can’t avoid inflation in that scenario.

Another one adding to your point is huge number of women entering the workforce all at the same time. You are drastically increasing families' spending power and discretionary income = inflation. Of course, when you double the supply of something, the price drops, which could partially explain stagnating wages. But in the early post-WWII decades it was a big win. Nowadays the negative consequences of moving away from…

> You are drastically increasing families' spending power and discretionary income = inflation.

At the cost of decreasing their mobility, which prevents them from competing in nationwide labor markets, pushing down local market labor cost.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#253

Post by speeder »

rbanffy wrote: post #232
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the great decoupling fascinating and I don't think it gets enough study. There are a couple other things that I think contributed: The massive increase of women joining the labor market in the US just after 1970 largely as a consequence of the widespread adoption of oral contraceptives in the young population. [1] The People's Republic Of China was formally admitted to the UN in 1971, and following that in 197…

> The massive increase of women joining the labor market in the US This drives down the cost of labor. If, to make ends meet, you need two people working, they won't be able to easily move to pursue better employment unless both find employment at the same place at the same time, or that the new offer is significantly better than the previous one. As this would depress salaries everywhere, that's very unlikely.

What is very unlikely? I do not understood what you meant.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#254

Post by roywiggins »

DickingAround wrote: post #119
backtoyoujim wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm OK with the "Move Fast & Break Shit" crowd staying far from my medical history thankyouverymuch.

If you don't mind, why exactly? You're worried the care will get screwed up? Or you worry that someone will steal that data and charge more for insurance? I'm just wondering about why exactly the paradigm doesn't totally work here. I get that we don't want medical devices failing, but that's different than charting. And I get it that we don't want everyone to have your data. But risking that someone does a data copy…

Because reducing health-care costs seems to always mean increasing healthcare profits. Why would they pass those cost reductions on?

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#255

Post by rbanffy »

speeder wrote: post #253
rbanffy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The massive increase of women joining the labor market in the US This drives down the cost of labor. If, to make ends meet, you need two people working, they won't be able to easily move to pursue better employment unless both find employment at the same place at the same time, or that the new offer is significantly better than the previous one. As this would depress salaries everywhere, that's very unlikely.

What is very unlikely? I do not understood what you meant.

Moving to a different geography for a substantially higher compensation. The same phenomenon depresses compensation everywhere, so chances are most people won't be able to find compensation that's enough to keep the family going.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#256

Post by Zviedris »

I would say that the end of Bretton Woods could shift people attitude away from money. Why keeping dolars that does not have real value? Invest in property. So money reserves lower, property gets more expensive. And expensive property takes away working class income as rent and ability to afford housing. Actually it takes away ability to negotiate as you don't have spare income to put away for rainy day.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#257

Post by renw0rp »

OliverJones wrote: post #141

Uncle Milty (Milton Friedman) published, on Sept 12, 1970, The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctr... This doctrine of irresponsibility was gobbled up by businesses. It gave them (us) permission to switch from the post-WW2 cooperative way of doing business to an extractive model: get the most you can from workers, suppliers, host c…

Good that you have your scapegoat. Looks like he has invented greediness

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#258

Post by CarelessExpert »

justinzollars wrote: post #202
Afforess wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our currency is being debased at a rate we have never seen. Looks at $1 gasoline. Looks at $2 eggs. Looks at $3 gallon of milk. Debased. Sure thing. (Maybe gasoline is an unfair example, but essential good prices are largely unchanged in the last decade. The point stands)

Sounds like you are going down with the ship. Its completely irrational to believe you can print yourself into prosperity. I could just as easily point to Tech stocks, Tesla, gold, silver, bitcoin or any other inflated commodity as a counterpoint.

> Its completely irrational to believe you can print yourself into prosperity.

This is clearly a straw man.

MMT provides an alternative theoretical basis that might explain the apparent disconnect between money supply and inflation:

https://www.investopedia.com/modern-monetary-theory-mmt-4588...

> According to MMT, the only limit the government has when it comes to spending is the availability of real resources, like workers, construction supplies etc. When government spending, meaning the amount of money introduced into the economy, is too great with respect to the resources available, that's when inflation can surge if decision makers are not careful.

Re: WTF Happened in 1971? (2019)

#260

Post by thehappypm »

Zviedris wrote: post #245
thehappypm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If gas was $.10 / gallon, everything we consume would be cheaper because every single thing we buy is transported in trucks. A huge portion of what you pay for at the supermarket is the raw cost of getting a good to the shelf from the farm/factory. If gas was $.10/gallon, cars would be cheaper. We wouldn't need ridiculously complex gas engines tuned to yield another 1 mpg, or electric cars with $30,000 of Lithium-ion…

If transportation is so expensive then why a lot of stuff is made in China? How cheap gasoline would afford you to rent a flat?

Oh, lots of ways cheap gas would help me afford a flat! First of all it takes a ton of energy to build a home, so housing would be fundamentally cheaper. Then, every month, I'd be spending less money on heating or air conditioning. I'd also be spending less of my own money on transportation (either through less gas costs, or buses/trains being cheaper). Then since goods are cheaper at the store, I have more money to spend at the store.

There is one mode of transportation that is currently REALLY cheap and that's huge ships. That's why we import so much from China -- sending a huge ship across the ocean is really cheap. If all forms of transit were that cheap (trucks, flights) the world would be very different.

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