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Economic Termites: Monopolies not noticeable enough for most of us

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

#71

Post by GiorgioG »

alephnerd wrote: post #65
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.

Dunkin's are a franchise, but they're using Dunkin's hardware, software, etc. It's absolutely within their ability to track (and force franchisees to track) inventory. It's also within Dunkin Corp's ability to give stores the capability to provide refunds from the retail locations.

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

#72

Post by palata »

talkingtab wrote: post #54

I have an axe to grind, so let me be clear: I believe there is strong evidence that we have moved from something approaching a democracy to a corpocracy. I expect many people will tune this out, but here is the question, crucial one. Who Benefits? Do the laws that are passed benefit the common people or corporations? You figure it out. Please do not bother with the whole trickle down nonsense, unless you want to buy…

I think that we see everywhere that we are reaching the end of a system. Everything has been pushed to its limits.

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

#73

Post by nothercastle »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #43
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…

Some factors on my list of sentiment drags: * Manufacturers reducing product quality without buyers' knowledge. E.g., Pyrex or some SSD makers. * Shrinkflation: grocery stores selling slightly smaller-sized packages without buyers' knowledge. E.g., containers that used to be square, staying equally wide (for shelf space facing) but less deep. * Widespread Terms and Conditions / EULAs that undermine previously reliabl…

I see a lot of stuff decrease in quality and increase in price. Just this year 2024 bikes in the 2k range now are shipping with garage tier SRAM groups instead of last year where they had Shimannos. If you want to good stuff it’s 2700 now. Paying more for less is a real drag

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

#74

Post by teeray »

alephnerd wrote: post #65
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.

The comment was about stores not being empowered to cancel orders to the detriment of the customers, not about the reasons why that order was cancelled. The point stands if, say, the store was suddenly closed due to a burst pipe. Corporate is counting on there being enough friction in calling them on the phone to prevent people from doing it altogether.

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

#75

Post by deskr »

I think this will definitely fuel the maker movement.

Inevitably, some of those makers will start up a business. Small scale at first, but some might grow. I don't know if it'll grow into a real threat though.

But I do know that most of MBA Termites I know don't give a damn if their current workplace tanks. As long they'll hit their bonus targets for the year, they are good.

https://makercity.com/book/factoids/

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

#76

Post by fjdidianabak »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #57
raizer88 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it," - Jeff Bezos

That’s a pretty weird take to me. Crime stats and polling of people’s perception of crime show this as clearly the wrong approach for instance. Most studies show that no matter what direction crime is going in, a substantial majority of people think their neighborhoods are safer and that everywhere else is basically a war zone that is getting worse. There’s a total disconnect locally/nationally in perception that is…

I dunno, it seems in line with most stereotypes being more true than false [1]. “Common sense” is often derided in online spaces like this, but when there hasn’t been a massive media / social effort to convince the population otherwise [2], it’s pretty reliable.

Taking a quick glance at the articles you linked shows the same behavior as those reporting on the economy - defining disingenuous targets so they can claim their headline is true. To tie this back to anecdotes, I think it comes down to trust. When my neighbor says they’re afraid to lose their job due to housing, food, childcare being a lot more expensive I dont see any motivated reasoning behind that statement. On the other end, economists (and all the articles you linked) have many incentives to distort the truth. On average anecdotes are going to come from a more truthful place - both because you trust the source and know their biases.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/2018...

[2] https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/41556-americans-m...

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

#77

Post by nothercastle »

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.

The metrics are likely comparing 2020 item and 2024 item and assuming it’s the same thing but the manufacturer cleverly gutted the 2024 item of all quality parts and just kept the name

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

#78

Post by llm_trw »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #57
raizer88 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it," - Jeff Bezos

That’s a pretty weird take to me. Crime stats and polling of people’s perception of crime show this as clearly the wrong approach for instance. Most studies show that no matter what direction crime is going in, a substantial majority of people think their neighborhoods are safer and that everywhere else is basically a war zone that is getting worse. There’s a total disconnect locally/nationally in perception that is…

>Crime stats and polling of people’s perception of crime show this as clearly the wrong approach for instance.

The only crime stat you can trust is murder and that's because bodies can't be hidden (easily).

Everything else gets swept under the rug.

When I wanted to report my car broken into I was hung up on three times because of a poor quality line, which was fine before I told them what I was calling for. When I went there in person I had to wait 40 minutes for someone to take my report and give me a reference number for my insurance.

Crime is absolutely massively under reported.

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

#79

Post by alephnerd »

GiorgioG wrote: post #71
alephnerd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Dunkin's are a franchise, but they're using Dunkin's hardware, software, etc. It's absolutely within their ability to track (and force franchisees to track) inventory. It's also within Dunkin Corp's ability to give stores the capability to provide refunds from the retail locations.

> It's absolutely within their ability to track (and force franchisees to track) inventory

Depends on whether or not the franchisee has implemented inventory tracking correctly.

> It's also within Dunkin Corp's ability to give stores the capability to provide refunds from the retail locations

That's the franchisee's decision at that point. Dunkin's corporate was out of the loop in that transaction and as such is reticent.

Dunkin's tends to hold its franchisees to a lower quality bar imo.

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

#80

Post by pydry »

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.

Housing went up globally because of local policies all across the world all at the same time, huh?

Perhaps housing went up because of a global increase in wealth inequality.

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