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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

#121

Post by epolanski »

nequo wrote: post #115
Spooky23 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two Americas, the one that HN folks inhabit and the underclass. The former is doing great. The latter has grown and shifted. I grew up in a rural community that was in the process of unraveling from a prosperous farming and light industrial area to a rural slum. There are zero operational farms in that area today. The one I worked for as a teen was in continuous operation since the Dutch colonial period. Th…

> There are two Americas, the one that HN folks inhabit and the underclass. > The former is doing great. This is at odds with what I've been hearing on HN and in adjacent places. For a year or two now, people have been saying that finding a job in tech has become much harder. Some say that it hasn't been this bad in a decade. Some say it hasn't been this bad since the dotcom bubble burst.

Just because IT sector has lows, doesn't mean it's a bad one suddenly.

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

#122

Post by lupire »

citizenpaul wrote: post #100
GiorgioG wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is basically a variation on tragedy of the commons. The solution is right there in front of everyone and "simply" requires everyone to do it coordinately. I've told this solution to numerous people, just log onto your bank website and click "dispute" and thats it you are done. Nope, they either don't believe me or are afraid of doing it because "banks". They continue to just allow crappy businesses to effectivel…

Why do you believe that people who think Starbucks is bad are the people who love Starbucks? The vast majority of people aren't coffee snobs.

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

#123

Post by pixl97 »

robotcapital wrote: post #61
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 electi…

>polarized electorate

And I would add with a polarized media whos parent companies fortunes depend on which people get elected. The amount of corporate financed propaganda out there is out of control.

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

#124

Post by gruez »

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…

>This is legal because the US Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC granted personhood to corporations.

This is a misunderstanding of Citizens United v. FEC. From wikipedia

>The court held 5–4 that the freedom of speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, nonprofit organizations, labor unions, and other associations.

It didn't grant "personhood to corporations". That was already a recognized concept centuries before.

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

#125

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #118
nequo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are two Americas, the one that HN folks inhabit and the underclass. > The former is doing great. This is at odds with what I've been hearing on HN and in adjacent places. For a year or two now, people have been saying that finding a job in tech has become much harder. Some say that it hasn't been this bad in a decade. Some say it hasn't been this bad since the dotcom bubble burst.

It’s harder than it was a few years ago to find a six figure upwardly mobile job. This is a different world from the one where hundreds of thousands are committing suicide with fentanyl.

[deleted]

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

#126

Post by Der_Einzige »

apsec112 wrote: post #101
Spooky23 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two Americas, the one that HN folks inhabit and the underclass. The former is doing great. The latter has grown and shifted. I grew up in a rural community that was in the process of unraveling from a prosperous farming and light industrial area to a rural slum. There are zero operational farms in that area today. The one I worked for as a teen was in continuous operation since the Dutch colonial period. Th…

Since 2016, real (inflation-adjusted) wages have risen quickly for people in the bottom quartile, while for upper-income workers they've been stagnant. Obviously, most people on HN are still better off than manual laborers, but the gap has narrowed substantially (a big reversal from 1995-2015) and that's a good thing. https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...

I keep telling everyone I know about this and literally zero people believe me!

So done with Americans finally getting into boom times and still feeling like it’s 2008. No one here ever wants to admit that they have it good.

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

#127

Post by detourdog »

gruez wrote: post #114
pydry wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Housing went up globally because of local policies all across the world all at the same time, huh? 1. source for "Housing went up globally"? 2. You don't really need every jurisdiction to by NIMBY for global house prices to go up. For instance if half the world is NIMBY and the other half is "meh", and housing prices in the NIMBY half went up 50% while the other half stayed the same, you'd still observe that "Housin…

In Massachusetts we have to follow international building codes with some commonwealth wide modifications.

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

#128

Post by PartiallyTyped »

torpfactory wrote: post #53

I have a theory that one of the core problems is that American businesses just expect to make too much money. Everyone seems to be aiming for 30% gross margin or more, and then working to get monopoly power or regulatory capture in order to achieve that. When I work with businesses in China they sort of expect cutthroat competition and I'm sure they're not seeing 30% margins. Low a behold stuff is a lot cheaper there…

> I have a theory that one of the core problems is that American businesses just expect to make too much money.

If you pay attention to certain board meetings, earnings calls, and so on, or if you had the opportunity to work for certain companies, you'll find people talking about the growth of growth, i.e. second order. It seems that the notion of sustainable growth is just gone. Corporations chasing lofty goals in absurdly short timeframes.

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

#129

Post by pixl97 »

harimau777 wrote: post #56
ponector wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Even if that's the case, that's a problem. First, it's bad for society to write people off. Are people going to be willing to contribute if they aren't sure whether they might be the next write off? Second, a small number of disenfranchised people can still cause a lot of problems if they get despirate.

I mean, this is true. And these days these people don't even need to be real. Kick off a few hundred thousand bots along with a visible ad campaign corresponding with how bad things are and you can get the people in the "not great, not terrible" camp thinking the end of the world is here.
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