Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

thebignewsletter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 457 posts

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#31

Post by yuliyp »

michaelt wrote: post #18
Closi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesnt that likely demonstrate insufficient resource/capacity rather than OPs point that there are too many bureaucrats?

In my country, you wouldn’t need an in person ‘appointment’ to merely change an address on a driving license. Seems rather inefficient to have offices all over the state, appointments, inefficiencies like missed appointments, and the waste of citizens’ time, for a process that can be done by mail.

Moving states requires validating the information from the previous state too. It's not a matter of the new state just updating an entry in its database. It's an entirely new entry. Given that, in person validation makes sense.

Moving within a state is simpler, and indeed can be done online in most states.

Granted in many countries there's a national ID system. Also a part of the point of government-issued IDs is that there's more validation around its issuance, and many other parts of society take advantage of that.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#32

Post by tekla »

sneak wrote: post #16
passwordoops wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot whenever antitrust is brought up. Do you have concrete examples of how, say, the DMV or Kansas Board of Consumer Welfare costs society more that, say, UnitedHealth's price gouging, Microsoft's SaaS, or Google and Apple's backdoor deals with Apple or Amazon's practices?

How about the wars the US is fighting directly in 13 different sovereign countries presently? That’s gotta be slightly costly.

Damn I must have missed this news. What countries is the US at war with?

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#33

Post by sodality2 »

spicyusername wrote: post #6

I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…

This is related to a phenomenon that writer Kyla Scanlon has called the “vibecession” - a disconnect between the economy’s metrics deemed to indicate its health, and the general populace’s perception of it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#34

Post by kjellsbells »

spicyusername wrote: post #6

I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…

Two fine examples of this myopia are the basket of items that economists and government statisticians use to calculate inflation rates, and the nature of the jobs that are considered to measure labor force participation. Or perhaps more strictly, the metrics that those groups put out that the media choose to report on. CPI isnt always the best metric and something like healthcare costs are better tracked in the PCE metric. So you get this situation where CPI says "not bad, boys" and the consumers have a wildly different point of view.

For labor participation, full employment is not great if everyone is working crappy jobs. I dont know if there are better metrics buried in the government's output, but it perhaps would be more in keeping with lived experience to track participation with dependence on supplemental sources of income. if you need a second job, or charity/government help, just to survive, then you dont have a "living job". That sort of thing isnt captured by LFP stats.

To be clear, I do trust the govt stats in places like the UK and US. I just think they are measuring the wrong things.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#35

Post by doe_eyes »

What I find odd about the article is that it does very little to substantiate its core claim - that the reason the economy is broken are small monopolists-but-not-really-monopolists who are trying to fleece you.

It opens with the example of rising construction costs. The only remotely relevant example here is Autodesk, but by the article's own admission, "the cost of these products remains relatively minor". And that's an overstatement: they are negligible. I guess Assa Abloy is another example, but really - mini-monopolist power? It's one of countless lock manufacturers. You can buy Schlage, Kwikset, ABUS...

In fact, no serious study of the construction industry pins cost increases on stuff like that. There are far more powerful factors at play. The laborers you hire want to be paid more than before (and the government is rising minimum wages). Compliance is getting costlier due to ever-evolving building codes, environmental and energy regulations, and zoning. Customer expectations are increasing (higher finish, more sqft). To the extent the materials are getting expensive, it's usually not your lumber mill being greedy.

I don't expect every opinion piece to offer irrefutable proofs, but there is really no effort to build a case for that claim at all.

Plus, I think the article falls for the classic trap of "rising prices are not inflation, it's ".

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#36

Post by citizen_friend »

ponector wrote: post #23
spicyusername wrote: post #6

I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…

The answer is simple. Some consumers are feeling terrible and they are vocal about it. People mostly are ok and not talking about it.

Alternative theory: the metrics don’t describe our full economic experience.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#37

Post by nutrie »

DarkContinent wrote: post #28

Re LinkedIn as an example of an economic termite: It's certainly true that LinkedIn is the go to for white collar professionals seeking to make their resumes visible passively to recruiters. But isn't life still easier with LinkedIn than in the before times, when recruiters would dig deep to get folks' phone numbers and then have to call each of those people individually? (I think the modern equivalent would be email…

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's not the point. Lawyers tend to puff their smokescreens, convincing people antitrust agenda is difficult. It isn't. Once you start eating a certain amount of the pie, the rules of the game change for you, and you only, because you become too strong, causing imbalance and threatening stability.

I'm sure LinkedIn's legal department employs an army of antitrust specialists frequently dealing with accusations from their competitors. That's a good thing.

There's one position you never wanna be in: When you don't have a choice, and it doesn't matter whether you're a company or an individual. Autodesk is one prime example of a long-term nasty sales behavior significantly distorting the market. Last but not least, democratic governments around the globe have been failing to enforce these laws, not to mention these are in many cases too permissive in the first place.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#38

Post by mistermann »

I'd be surprised if there is a single person in this comment section who would not defend to the death the root cause of all of this: fake democracy.

I used to hate Moloch, and hope for him to die, slowly. I've given up and switched sides: I now cheer him on, I may be his very biggest fan. You all deserve what you get, and I hope it gets even worse. I hope your enjoyment level on this planet reaches parity with that of the people of Palestine.

PS: I am very sorry for being political, I will try really hard to improve. After all, none of this is really a big deal, I am personally doing quite nicely for myself thank you very much so why should I complain? It is not rational. I will try to be more rational.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMr8FGyBL/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMr8FgQeE/

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#39

Post by hobs »

DarkContinent wrote: post #28

Re LinkedIn as an example of an economic termite: It's certainly true that LinkedIn is the go to for white collar professionals seeking to make their resumes visible passively to recruiters. But isn't life still easier with LinkedIn than in the before times, when recruiters would dig deep to get folks' phone numbers and then have to call each of those people individually? (I think the modern equivalent would be email…

2022 Stack discontinued their job posting options as it was not viable.

Re: Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

#40

Post by AbstractH24 »

spicyusername wrote: post #6

I very much agree with the premise that economists unduly focus on a few metrics of dubious quality - labor force participation, personal consumption expenditures, market capitalization, wage growth, etc - and overfit them to construct a coherent narrative about the "strength" of the economy and what the experience of living in that economy must be like. There's a story right now being peddled by all the talking head…

Why do you exclude the possibility that talking heads in news and politics are pedaling the idea that consumers feel it’s terrible?

Most everyone I know seems to be living it pretty good with much less concern for the future. Certainly compared to 2023 and even compared to 2019.

Post reply on HN