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What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

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Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#411

Post by rsj_hn »

whatever1 wrote: post #405
roiboosxh wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot tax an asset that does not move. In what intervals would you do this? Your bank account would go to zero.

If the underlying asset is real (not speculative) and it grows, then it is income. So it should be taxed whether you spend it or not. But nobody wants this because we all know it’s pure speculation. That is why we call it “unrealized gains”. If everyone tomorrow tries to cash out their Apple stock, except from the first few, all the rest will get 1 cent each. There is no value in these tickets, just the power of comb…

The thing is, there is no need for people to be inventing their own accounting standards, particularly in the area of tax accounting. These debates about accrual versus cash based accounting have been hashed out long ago. Nothing material has changed just because there is a new tax initiative proposed.

There is such great risk in that to create self-serving definitions that the industry as a whole decided these terms needed standardization and definition.

Now we already have these standards, so let's just stick with them and all use the same meaning of "income" rather than switching to something based on personal intuition. If you want to change the tax code, change the tax code, don't try to redefine "income".

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#412

Post by mindslight »

dragontamer wrote: post #400
mindslight wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as anyone who has played Sim City 2000 knows that Los Angeles sprawl is far superior to living in a city .

I'm not proposing we cut off Hospital / school funding to make our mega-dense utopia with maximum tax $$$$ per population here. (Yes, I too have played lots of Sim City. I'm well aware of the unrealistic corners of the game). I'm simply pointing out that Factorio has a factory-like system that has the "buffering" problem innate to the game mechanics. As far as I can tell, the problem of buffering in real life is clos…

I'm making the general point that results from optimizing for any model are going to depend entirely on the assumptions baked into the model. I haven't played Factorio, but based on your description it sounds like it leaves out price signals because the player has omniscience. If a supply chain is directed by a centralized entity, then yes, keeping intermediate inventory doesn't do much. But our actual economy is based on distributed decision making coordinating through price signals. And so what inventory buffers allow a company to do is see that an in/out buffer is getting depleted, and then gradually raise bids/prices to compensate.

FWIW I think there's way too much discussion focus on the keeping of inventory, as it is just one of many ways that the system can have slack. Things like having some extra machinery so it's not all running 24/7, having enough employees so that there is no overtime on a regular week, or treating your employees well so that they'll go the extra mile - these are all ways that production can be ramped up quickly when needed, that don't exist if a business is trying to optimize every last bit of short term profit.

I agree that more people should learn system dynamics and modeling though, whether through games or otherwise.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#413

Post by reportingsjr »

Grakel wrote: post #191
legitster wrote: post #158

No, no, no! Stockpiling is not a solution to a bottleneck! In the grand scheme of things, having a couple weeks of extra inventory on hand will not help you weather a 100 year storm. But it will increase waste - inventory that you have to throw away when there are defects or when they become obsolete. Imagine trying to predict the run on lumber, and the solution was to have kept a bunch of lumber sitting in yards rot…

Quite the opposite, the lumber industry has been selling greener and wetter wood year after year. If they would stockpile the quality would increase, and they could build a cushion to fluctuating demand.

Do you have a source to back up either of these claims? 1. greener/wetter wood 2. quality increase from drier wood

There are standards for the moisture content in dimensional lumber. It's unlikely lumber yards are going to be selling wood that's outside of the standard ranges. Additionally, some of the soft woods are a PITA to deal with if they get too dry, as they are more prone to cracking when driving fasteners without drilling holes.

Much of the quality issues stem from having cut down most old growth forest and converting these past forests to farmland or suburban yards. The primary source for fir, spruce, and pine these days that are used for dimensional lumber come from managed farms. The trees are only grown as long as needed to harvest certain sizes of lumber. This leaves you with grain running in less than ideal directions and a lot of sapwood instead of heartwood.

To be honest though, most dimensional lumber people complain about is fine for the sort of framing it's used for. It's a lot more efficient to use wood the way we currently do, rather than clear cutting our now very rare old growth forests and producing high quality, wasteful lumber.

Increasing lumber stockpiles isn't going to solve any of these issues.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#414

Post by stainforth »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #96
whatever1 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“cause reduced private ownership of large companies, resulting in a reduced ability to handle 100-year flood events.” How the market speculation on the value of a company can affect its resiliency ? If tomorrow everyone sold Apple stock for 1 cent, why would Apple the company care ? Same revenue, same costs. Give me a break with the importance of the stock casino.

It would impact Apple's ability to raise money on the stock market tho.

Don't they have 250 billion in Ireland or something? What money do big companies need to raise?

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#415

Post by reportingsjr »

blhack wrote: post #181
legitster wrote: post #158

No, no, no! Stockpiling is not a solution to a bottleneck! In the grand scheme of things, having a couple weeks of extra inventory on hand will not help you weather a 100 year storm. But it will increase waste - inventory that you have to throw away when there are defects or when they become obsolete. Imagine trying to predict the run on lumber, and the solution was to have kept a bunch of lumber sitting in yards rot…

He's not suggesting stockpiling, he's suggested increasing the amount of RAM in the system (to us a computer analogy).

And a counterpoint to this, bufferbloat, which caused lots of unnecessary latency issues in networking for years.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#416

Post by JaimeThompson »

human wrote: post #373
JaimeThompson wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In large portions of the united states people who own homes have their property taxes go up most every year based on the value of their home. Seems a bit strange to me to treat, in this respect, peoples homes differently.

That’s because you pay those taxes in exchange for services from your municipality. And let’s admit it, it’s stupid that your payment is proportional to the value of your house. How is the city budget correlated with house values?

And they pay taxes in exchange for services as well. And it isn't stupid as if the cost was, for example, divided up equally between all residents a very large portion of them would be unable to live in cities due to the increase in cost.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#417

Post by robomartin »

notacoward wrote: post #407
robomartin wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you post the part number someone might be able to help you.

More likely, another HNer who knows of a supply will use that information to "hustle" their way into a bigger profit. I'd strongly advise against sharing the part number.

Glass half full vs. half empty?

While I agree with you in general terms, I still prefer to think people, at a fundamental level, are good and like to help each other. Yes, I know, silly.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#419

Post by wahern »

roiboosxh wrote: post #380
whatever1 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the two is true: 1) The market value of a company is true, aka the owners of this company must be taxed for the real value growth in their portfolio (since it constitutes income), even if they do not sell 2) It’s a casino, a share is just a ticket that may worth nothing or a billion. In that case we don’t need tax protections. The owners of the tickets must be taxed only when they cash out. The governments sho…

You cannot tax an asset that does not move. In what intervals would you do this? Your bank account would go to zero.

> You cannot tax an asset that does not move.

Property tax taxes an asset that doesn't move, literally and figuratively. Before financial markets exploded, and especially in agrarian societies like the United States at its founding, a property tax was effectively a wealth tax. (It still is a wealth tax, technically speaking, it just no longer reaches the wealth of the richest in society.)

> In what intervals would you do this?

In whatever interval you'd like. Presumably yearly. But don't companies have to "mark-to-market" for their quarterly reports?

> Your bank account would go to zero.

This is already the case with inflation, very deliberately so.

I can't say I'm a fan of a wealth tax. And in any event I don't think it'll ever happen in the U.S. But the reasons for disliking a wealth tax are more complicated than the above.

Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?

#420

Post by lr4444lr »

whatever1 wrote: post #56
flurie wrote: post #45

The buried lede is an assertion that a tax on unrealized capital gains will cause reduced private ownership of large companies, resulting in a reduced ability to handle 100-year flood events. Along the way, there are a bunch of other assertions that serve as prerequisites, like the idea that these companies can cultivate better employee loyalty and plan for longer horizons. How much do we know about how true that is,…

“cause reduced private ownership of large companies, resulting in a reduced ability to handle 100-year flood events.” How the market speculation on the value of a company can affect its resiliency ? If tomorrow everyone sold Apple stock for 1 cent, why would Apple the company care ? Same revenue, same costs. Give me a break with the importance of the stock casino.

The board of directors would almost certainly buy back all their shares if that happened, and find a time to resell once the mass insanity ended for insane profit.
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