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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

#171

Post by izacus »

estebank wrote: post #95
izacus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the exact same mistake as the poster you're answering to warns about - you're mixing the objective reality ("absolute crime numbers") to percieved reality of population. If the population percieves themselves unsafe and unhappy, your numbers don't really mean much to them because to restore happy society you need to look at *perception* and fix the reasoning behind it. Making the crime stats number go d…

> you need to look at perception and fix the reasoning behind it. Many times that perception is shaped by the media we consume, which has no obligation to have any connection to the reality on the ground. At that point whatever is done to improve the reality doesn't have to have any impact on people's perception.

Which means that the fix is to change the media not the metrics. That's the gist of the argument - if your improvements of "reality" aren't making people happier, you're changing the wrong metric. In this case you need to change the media, not crime stats.

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

#172

Post by johnwatson11218 »

losthalo wrote: post #153
johnwatson11218 wrote: post #81

This is the time for AI assisted efforts to merge with open source to deliver alternatives to all these Big Company type proprietary software solutions. I have been thinking of what it would cost to create enterprise workflow and document management but based on nodejs. Perhaps targeting the business markets of a smaller country such as Pakistan could be a way to get real world feedback before larger markets are targ…

The problem is the cost to shift to a new product, not cost of the product.

Not sure what you guys are trying to say here but I have seen, with my own eyes, large enterprise software systems that end up being so fragile it makes you laugh. The incumbents in this space make dinosaurs look like spring chickens by comparison.

There are millions upon millions of dollars being spent on stupid, outdated software that simply does not work. The main thrust of my original comment was that - "you thought open source was impressive? wait until the rise of AI powered open source". I think the highly arcane world of enterprise software is similar to being a travel agent in the mid to late 90s.

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

#173

Post by gruez »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #159
gruez wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think this goes the other way around. Our method for understanding the economy is flawed and is not properly capturing what all consumers know intuitively, things kind of suck, even when you have a job and even when you're still buying things. It seems kind of lazy to observe that anecdotes contradict statistics, and then conclude that it's the statistics are wrong without providing any empirical evidence to the c…

Anecdote would be saying that some individual over on 4th Street feels that things aren't that great. "Consumer sentiment" (or whatever name) is actually a statistic. So now you're at two statistics, one that measures economic activity in jobs and output, and the other that measures peoples' intuitive feel of the economy. I think the gap between them might be that peoples' confidence was shaken by inflation reignitin…

But polls show that around of population are flat out wrong on certain objective measures, like GDP, the S&P 500 index, and the unemployment rate[1]. If they can't get basic factual questions right, why should we put much stock in their "intuitive feel of the economy"?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll...

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

#174

Post by 1oooqooq »

sodality2 wrote: post #33
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

that is not a thing and that page will probably be gone soon.

that is at most an attempt to control the narrative, and throw the growing inequality under the rug as some sort of mass hysteria. lame.

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

#175

Post by mperham »

chii wrote: post #163
carlosjobim wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But there was shortages of everything in the USSR. What shortages are there in the US?

Try to get an appointment to see a doctor.

Food deserts.

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

#176

Post by sodality2 »

1oooqooq wrote: post #174
sodality2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

that is not a thing and that page will probably be gone soon. that is at most an attempt to control the narrative, and throw the growing inequality under the rug as some sort of mass hysteria. lame.

It is literally explicitly addressing the situation where these indicators claim everything's okay even though no one feels like it is - the idea that just because economic health metrics are up, doesn't mean anything for the average American.

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

#177

Post by CPLX »

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.

Unless there is market power and exploitation by monopolists.

Which just so happens to be the overarching principal of Matt Stoller's life's work.

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

#178

Post by fallingknife »

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…

This is actually a perfect example of Bezos being right on the money. You are measuring it wrong. The first and last articles focus only on violent crime, which is not what most people who are complaining about crime mean here. 538 is a little better, but their charts only go through 2019 before it became a major issue again. Only Vox seems to get it closer to correct (though still hung up on the violence thing):

> One theory that came up again and again is that city residents and visitors are, to some extent, conflating actual violent crime with broader indications of urban disorder.

If you are a leader like Bezos or a city politician you need to meet your customers / constituents where they are and fix the problems they want fixed whether or not it they are saying precisely what they mean. The anecdotes are right and the statistics are wrong.

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

#180

Post by CPLX »

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…

Disputing with banks isn't particularly reliable. These larger companies have a script now for responding for one, and the other thing that happens is they'll kill your account and permanently ban you.

Neither of those accomplishes the goal of being able to purchase the product or service without being ripped off.

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