91–100 of 299 posts
Decent Ultimate End would be: defense spending world wide=0
If growth becomes a zero sum game as “Economists” like this one would like, you better hope you live in country with a defense budget>0
The pandemic made it clear that elites are ok with mass death and debilitation. It may not be a conspiracy, but people in power simply don’t care. So the logical conclusion is that a lot of the most vulnerable people are going to perish, the hardier ones will hobble by in filthy conditions like what you see in old age homes today (but there will be a gun around if they wanna quickly end their misery). Structural chan…
I really wish posters on HN would be forced to specify who they are talking about when they say "the elites" because it's often so vague as to be meaningless grandstanding and allows people to engage in goalpost shifting. No one can even have a meaningful interaction with this comment. It's also trivial to come up with 'elites' who were not okay with mass death and debilitation.
Like, some people’s definitions are so warped that a millionaire small business owner (think someone who owns a successful downtown restaurant in a mid-sized city) is “the common man” while an artist who works at a coffee shop and lives in a rundown studio apartment is somehow “elite”.
Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially motivated to think otherwise. The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime. And the hopes that if they get lucky enough with the market they can retire early (or at all). This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting…
I don't think it's obvious. Growth and innovation go hand and hand. A tug of war between capitalism and socialism is essential for a healthy society that can solve exciting problems via markets. It's not perfect, but the growth model keeps society agile, with many options via startups and market competition. It gives us the toolbelt to solve complex problems quickly. It's challenging to start up industries and mainta…
I don't think economists use terms like 'growth' in a very consistent manner. For example: trees are constantly growing in a forest, and trees are also constantly dying, but the overall population size (number of trees in a forest) remains generally stable, in the absence of major changes in climate and animal predation of trees (such as clear-cutting forests). A lot of uses of growth in economics appear to be relate…
I also don't understand how they take into account innovation. A carrot was a carrot 1000 years ago, and is a carrot today. While the production of carrots certainly have increased manyfold between then and now, we also have innovations whose value we can't quantify in numbers but certainly are indicators of growth. What is the value of toothpaste compared with no toothpaste, and how much growth did the invention of…
Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially motivated to think otherwise. The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime. And the hopes that if they get lucky enough with the market they can retire early (or at all). This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting…
"The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime." ah so trade and supply/demand that are moved by "standard persons" = rich people, ah yes.
"This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting to guarantee financial security of elders and offload the risk to the individual." great idea, have people at governments mercy and build a voter block that is going to put the tick where they're going to be told to for some of that extra pension plan dough.
"...the rich benefit insanely more by market movements than a standard person does..." while also contributing the most tax revenue...
Honestly I think this is obvious to anyone who is not financially motivated to think otherwise. The biggest problem is the rich have created a system in which people's future (retirement) is basically linked to "the market" growing over their lifetime. And the hopes that if they get lucky enough with the market they can retire early (or at all). This system of course is built 100% on governments/employers not wanting…
Not really, half retired Americans live off Social Security alone, and another big chunk I'm guessing a quarter rely on it. Many others have property, business or keep working. I'm guessing its about 10-20% of Americans really have enough 401k savings to live off.
We can achieve economic growth through productivity growth, increasing outputs without increasing inputs through design and efficiency gains.
The economic growth we've experienced over the past 250 years has been an extraordinarily positive development in human history. We are experiencing serious consequences from this growth most notably climate change and the extinction crisis. We should absolutely consider the ecological costs of economic growth and work to minimize them. However we should try to fix these without dismissing the engine of economic growth that's lifted humanity out of the miserly wretched existence we experienced through most of human history.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really wish posters on HN would be forced to specify who they are talking about when they say "the elites" because it's often so vague as to be meaningless grandstanding and allows people to engage in goalpost shifting. No one can even have a meaningful interaction with this comment. It's also trivial to come up with 'elites' who were not okay with mass death and debilitation.
There isn’t a single person though. How about the ones that are actively wanting wage labor to keep going so they can keep getting richer? I do legitimately wonder, after you’ve earned your first few hundred million, why tf do you keep going.
There exist many working class people who wanted to get back to normal (polling demonstrates this), or at the very least wanted policies that tried to keep schools open. They also believe the things you're saying make you one of the elites. It's also easier for 'established elites' to want perpetual work-from-home since they're in work that best positions them to experience little economic pain doing that. It might even be somewhat elitist to dismiss this POV.
That's the problem with using such a vague term.
I have a heretical thought: the integrated circuit revolution has made capitalism and the economy in general look much better than it actually is.
Solow productivity paradox: “the computer age was everywhere except for the productivity statistics” - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to elaborate?
I haven't really read it to know the relevance, but I think this is the article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/graeber...
The "conventional account" of human history they describe is one that I personally have never heard espoused and I am not quite sure if anyone really ever believed.
I think I would prefer to read the general source material, I find professional "essayists" often tiresome to read.