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

61–70 of 457 posts

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

#61

Post by robotcapital »

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…

Part of the problem is that that “intuition” changes based on how you the ask the question and who you ask it to. A good example of this is polling that shows Americans as a whole believe the country’s finances will be worse off a year from now at twice the rate as their own personal finances[0]. So I’d argue that even anecdotes and intuition need to be taken with grain of salt, particularly given that it’s an election year with a polarized electorate.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/05/23/views-of-the...

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

#62

Post by nonameiguess »

VincentEvans wrote: post #10
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?

Haha, DMV… I just moved to North Carolina, and the next available appointment at the DMV to change the address on my driver license is in September (it’s beginning of June as I am writing this). When I moved the last time in a different state - the appointment to change my address on my driver license was same week and took about 15 mins, most of which I spent trying to get a decent picture. So I “know” it doesn’t ta…

This isn't really the DMV's doing on its own. Same thing happened when I moved to Texas (or at least when I first needed to get a driver's license). In both cases, the root cause is GOP control of a purplish state trending blue shutting down offices and restricting ID services on purpose to suppress voting turnout.

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

#63

Post by fallingknife »

photochemsyn wrote: post #47

The fundamental problem all these examples are linked to is the rise of centralized power in the economy, and the antidote has been known for a long time, see this 1952 book by John Galbraith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Capitalism > "...private decisions could and presumably would lead to the unhampered exploitation of the public, or of workers, farmers and others who are intrinsically weak as individuals…

The utility sector has a 10% profit margin. Hardly an example of a monopoly abusing its position. If utilities were nationalized the maximum possible gain is 10% and the potential loss is the unlimited capacity of the government to waste resources.

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

#64

Post by carlosjobim »

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…

> Our method for understanding the economy is flawed

There is no misunderstanding. In the Soviet Union, the rulers and their media would every day report on how fantastical the economy was doing and how production was beating records etc. Get used, because this will continue for the rest of your life.

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

#65

Post by alephnerd »

teeray wrote: post #48

My most recent instance of this is online ordering with Dunkin’ Donuts. The app has no feedback to indicate what items are in stock, so it’s possible to order things that can’t be fulfilled. If you don’t want their substitute, the store cannot cancel the order. You have to call an 800 number and plead your case. Sure, it’s not a huge hardship, but it’s another instance of making the cancellation path more difficult t…

Dunkin's are franchises.

What you're describing is an inventory cataloging issue caused by limited quality and inventory control from corporate over franchisees.

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

#66

Post by throwaway63467 »

patrickmay wrote: post #44
throwaway63467 wrote: post #21

I think in many areas the name of the game is to move the entire market to a place where no real competition is possible. Housing in most parts of the world is a good example, there’s no reason prices for housing should’ve gone up 300-400 % above inflation as we really haven’t run out of space in most places, yet here we are. I have a hard time believing this is just the outcome of unfortunate market conditions, it s…

Housing costs are primarily due to zoning and other local and state government policies that limit or prohibit construction.

And these policies come into place all by themselves?

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

#67

Post by nothercastle »

tomrod wrote: post #58
reaperman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The areas I might agree with this for construction would be something like lumbermills - where we have plenty of timber available but there’s a bottleneck of capital for mill capacity and they’ve been able to raise prices sharply in the past few years. Investors don’t want to pay to build enough capacity to bring prices down because then only older paid-off mills would win a pricing war if there were any excess capac…

Economic theory asserts that where there is profit to be made you will find entrants. So unless something stops entrants for mills (ie funding availability) we should anticipate economic profits to decrease.

Eventually maybe but the Capitol investment is high and only a few firms are in the market place who are capable of playing. If they enter they expand they will decrease their own margins and that’s generally not desirable. Why take risks if you don’t have to and you can live out your tenure as ceo collect big bucks and Retire without any. Everyone wants to run their business slowly into the ground US steel and K-mart style

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

#68

Post by GiorgioG »

teeray wrote: post #48

My most recent instance of this is online ordering with Dunkin’ Donuts. The app has no feedback to indicate what items are in stock, so it’s possible to order things that can’t be fulfilled. If you don’t want their substitute, the store cannot cancel the order. You have to call an 800 number and plead your case. Sure, it’s not a huge hardship, but it’s another instance of making the cancellation path more difficult t…

Dispute the charge with your bank - you did not get what you paid for, and it's not on you to chase them down and waste your time. If/when enough people do this, they'll get their shit together.

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

#69

Post by CoastalCoder »

kjellsbells wrote: post #34
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 m…

Could someone explain why the parent comment is down voted?

I don't notice anything off about it.

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

#70

Post by kiney »

doe_eyes wrote: post #35

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…

There's a very simple reason why it does very little to substantiate its core claim: The claim is simply wrong and therefore can't be substantiated
Post reply on HN