What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922) • Hacker News Board

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#501

Post by VirusNewbie » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #424

Manuel_D wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really the case? Inflation favors debtors over creditors, the upper class tends to be the latter not the former. While it is the case that the value of savings goes down, the lower class are much less likely to save.

It's not the case, but people keep wringing their hands about how inflation robs the poor of the ~$500 they have in their savings accounts, while ignoring how much it helps the middle-class mortgage owner who is in fixed-rate debt for a million dollars. They get away with it because they don't make the distinction between price inflation and asset inflation. The cost of bread doubling is a huge problem for the poor,…

Let's use an example that might look familiar.

If inflation robs the poor person of the $500 and helps the middle class person with a mortgage.... all other things being equal, we transferred wealth from the poor person to the middle class person. yay, with me so far?

By the same account, if the middle class person is helped a little bit by inflation, (but also has some cash) the rich person who is leveraged many times over into 10 properties, and has most of their wealth in equities (which themselves are leveraged because of corporate debt) is going to be even better off after the increase in money supply.

Their share of the pie grew and the middle class persons maybe grew, but not relative to the rich person. Therefore, that is wealth transfer.

The majority of US equities is held by the upper class and corporate debt dwarfs consumer debt (including mortgages).

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#502

Post by Ancapistani » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #487

Ancapistani wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my eyes, nuclear weapons are both much less and much more terrifying that they seem to be considered by most people. The smallest nuclear devices aren't anywhere close to as large as commonly believed. An M28 "Davy Crockett" with a yield of 20T - 0.02kT - isn't that much different from a conventional GBU-43/B MOAB, which has a yield of 11T. Tactical nuclear weapons are basically a faster and more effective version…

>Tactical nuclear weapons are basically a faster and more effective version of conventional strategic bombing. "Little Boy", the first weapon used in combat (in Nagasaki), had a yield of 15kT. That resulted in an estimated 66k deaths and 70k injuries. Compare that to the firebombing of Tokyo, which killed ~100k civilians and burned the homes of over a million more. Two points: The first bomb was on Hiroshima, and kil…

> The first bomb was on Hiroshima, and killed many more people.

Ugh. I hate when I do that. I don't know why I reversed them, other than the fact that I've been commenting on HN all day instead of working and probably just got overwhelmed :).

> Second, there's a huge difference between a conventional bomb and a nuke of the same size simply because of the fallout.

This applies much less to airbursts than groundbursts, and airbursts are the norm for modern weapons.

That's not to say it's not there - it is - but it's significantly less of an issue than commonly believed.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#503

Post by VirusNewbie » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

wbsss4412 wrote: post #308

VirusNewbie wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflationary monetary policy is wealth transfer into the upper class without most people realizing it. Wealth, be it institutions or individuals, will always push for central banking as it entrenches their power.

> inflationary monetary policy is wealth transfer to the upper class without people realizing it. Going to need some evidence to back up that statement. Without centralized banking you essentially have no set policy one way other the other. I can understand why one would take issue with the current governance structure, but I don’t agree that letting money randomly fluctuate with no mechanisms for intervention to be…

My evidence is arithmetic? Someone who is leveraged with debt into assets now owns a larger piece of the pie (which we can loosely define as wealth) than they did before if the money supply increases compared to people who aren't levered into assets or just hold cash.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#504

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #381

RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once put a stool on a coffee table to put up a few curtains and the leg of the stool went through the surface of the coffee table. That surface is more or less paper mache by my book. Maybe the "paper" in the "mache" is not as finely ground and instead made of more granular wood chips, but its definitely made of a thin lamination of wood grounds held together by some adhesive. Its light as a feather though, so that…

I find IKEA's materials work remarkable - their materials are finely engineered to be light and pretty enough, and, at the same time, being sufficiently strong to bear the loads it's designed to. I'm writing this on an IKEA desk with 4 big monitors and 2 laptops, plus an assortment of external drives and docking stations. It's certainly not designed to bear my weight on 4 small spots, however, so I wouldn't even try…

I have these $5 end tables that are going on 10 years of use. They are just basic 4 post tables with square tops, but they are light enough that I can pick them up by edge with one hand while laying on the couch, but are still like 20"x20". They've all been relegated to shop use anymore, yet they are still perfect.

All of my previous ikea desks are also spending their sunset years toiling away in the shop. The oldest one is 20 years old and I use it for assembling heaving parts because nothing sticks to whatever plastic coating they use on their desktops.

Also, the obligatory note that Ikea does sell solid wood furniture. It's made of softwoods, like pine or fir, but if you put it together with wood glue, it will absolutely outlive you. I have a dresser that's survived six moves where I never bothered to unload it.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#505

Post by pydry » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

zionic wrote: post #490

pydry wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They can siphon off the wealth of an entire nation by printing money. It’s an irresistible temptation A) Which makes it basically another form of tax. B) The raising of which always driven the wealthy into fits of rage no matter how necessary or beneficial.

No the wealthy love this because their debt becomes cheaper to service while their assets skyrockets. Inflation primarily hurts the non-asset owning poor.

Have you met the non asset owning poor? They have debt. LOTS of debt.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#506

Post by peakaboo » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:29 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #99

overthemoon wrote: post #35

It's interesting to compare this to the WEF future projections: https://www.forbes.com/sites/worldeconomicforum/2016/11/10/s... Especially with regards to this passage:: "In 2022 [economic development] will be as finished as it is to-day in England. American wealth will then be either developed or known, and all of it will belong to somebody. There will be no more opportunity in America than there is in England to-da…

> Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better Let me translate “you are slaves and you rent everything. We base your ability to purchase on a social credit score. But we let you rent houses in our artificially limited VR world.” I don’t make much of predictions like these. It’s ALWAYS a safe bet to assume people will lose liberty. To the point the FED was created in 1913, research w…

I don't think the US is free at all, and would be interested in seeing facts that back it up. I see a country run like a corporation, where media, tech and science are carrying out very specific instructions from their handful of billionaire owners to steer the ship where they want it to go.

You can think what you want in the US but you cannot express it publicly if you have a significant following. You will get blocked, censored, ridiculed etc.

Maybe you mean something else with freedom? Freedom to carry out work and get payed for it? Sure.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#507

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #381

RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once put a stool on a coffee table to put up a few curtains and the leg of the stool went through the surface of the coffee table. That surface is more or less paper mache by my book. Maybe the "paper" in the "mache" is not as finely ground and instead made of more granular wood chips, but its definitely made of a thin lamination of wood grounds held together by some adhesive. Its light as a feather though, so that…

I find IKEA's materials work remarkable - their materials are finely engineered to be light and pretty enough, and, at the same time, being sufficiently strong to bear the loads it's designed to. I'm writing this on an IKEA desk with 4 big monitors and 2 laptops, plus an assortment of external drives and docking stations. It's certainly not designed to bear my weight on 4 small spots, however, so I wouldn't even try…

I haven't bought IKEA in a while; the last time I did, they used a lot of MDF, which is rather heavy for its strength...

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#508

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #424

Manuel_D wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really the case? Inflation favors debtors over creditors, the upper class tends to be the latter not the former. While it is the case that the value of savings goes down, the lower class are much less likely to save.

It's not the case, but people keep wringing their hands about how inflation robs the poor of the ~$500 they have in their savings accounts, while ignoring how much it helps the middle-class mortgage owner who is in fixed-rate debt for a million dollars. They get away with it because they don't make the distinction between price inflation and asset inflation. The cost of bread doubling is a huge problem for the poor,…

Something like 70% of the population has no savings of any kind.

You know that the arguments about poor grandma with $500 life savings are bullshit, because everyone making them would happily let grandma die for a buck.

The only reason resource extraction types care about inflation is that most use debt to avoid taxation, and increase interest rates hurt their return on assets. Because the perversion of the US Senate has happened, we care more about corn companies, oil drillers, etc than anyone else.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#509

Post by throwawayyear22 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

verisimi wrote: post #271

lettergram wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better Let me translate “you are slaves and you rent everything. We base your ability to purchase on a social credit score. But we let you rent houses in our artificially limited VR world.” I don’t make much of predictions like these. It’s ALWAYS a safe bet to assume people will lose liberty. To the point the FED was created in 1913, research w…

This is a very hard conversation to have on HN. It is impossible to consider that the whole of society has been created and planned in advance. To think that the upper classes manage everyone (they always did), that the schooling system produces people that are incapable of seeing the outside the box (and yet believe that they are free, nay - they 'know' it), that finance is the main weapon in the wealth extraction,…

"This is a very hard conversation to have on HN."

Yes because it implies there is a conspiracy requiring God-like abilities to plan the long term outcomes of a multitude of decisions and actions many of which have conflicting goals.

What is more probable, that the current situation just emerged organically or that some elite group has conspired and executed flawlessly to make the world just like it is ?

There are subcontractors who work for my CM in China and I doubt they are paid much. It wasn't my plan to create wage-slaves and if I paid my CM more they would just likely pocket the difference. I'll admit I contribute to to problems you describe but that's very different than having intent and control.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#510

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #501

vkou wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the case, but people keep wringing their hands about how inflation robs the poor of the ~$500 they have in their savings accounts, while ignoring how much it helps the middle-class mortgage owner who is in fixed-rate debt for a million dollars. They get away with it because they don't make the distinction between price inflation and asset inflation. The cost of bread doubling is a huge problem for the poor,…

Let's use an example that might look familiar. If inflation robs the poor person of the $500 and helps the middle class person with a mortgage.... all other things being equal, we transferred wealth from the poor person to the middle class person. yay, with me so far? By the same account, if the middle class person is helped a little bit by inflation, (but also has some cash) the rich person who is leveraged many tim…

All things are not equal. I know someone who was the CEO of a small hospital network.

When he retired, his compensation was greater than the sum of salary for the entire company. The company paid for his Tesla lease, but orderlies making $12/hr had a uniform deposit deducted from their first few checks.