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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

#401

Post by gwd »

bequanna wrote: post #285
gwd wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Generational wealth” is generally a myth. The second and third generations burn through any inheritance and sprint back to middle class rather quickly. Ref? That was definitely not my impression from listening to "Capital in the 21st Century".

Piketty is not my favorite. I consider him a pure academic who tends to cherry pick data. In reality, wealth tends to cluster around people who are good stewards of it. They allocate capital efficiently and we are all better off. The government is NOT a good steward of wealth. They allocate inefficiently (because no accountability) so we should minimize what we give them. Here is a quick and dirty reference discussin…

> Here is a quick and dirty reference discussing how lazy kids of rich people blow it:

The only evidence presented is assertions by companies selling wealth management services:

> "The “third generation curse” indicates that 90% of wealthy families are likely to lose their [money](404 ERROR) by the third generation, according to AMG National."

The only link to further evidence results in a 404; and the only advice is, "Train your kids not to be stupid", and "Use one of these wealth management services".

I think I'd actually seen that exact article before I listened to Piketty's book; but Pikkety actually provides evidence across many different countries, sometimes going back to the 1700s. Absent other evidence (which again you simply assert without giving a reference to), I'd trust an academic more than a company who has a vested interest in drumming up business by scaring people.

ETA: Even supposing we take the article at face value (which I definitely have doubts about), it makes two claims:

1. Of "wealthy" families, 90% will lose it within 3 generations

2. This can be prevented if children are taught money management skills growing up

Even supposing those are true it doesn't support the statement that "generational wealth is generally a myth".

Why? Because % families != % wealth. It's perfectly possible that 10% of wealthy families who consistently teach good money management to their children control 90% of the wealth.

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

#402

Post by losthalo »

johnwatson11218 wrote: post #172
losthalo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thou…

Do you think AI is going to solve the problems of proprietary data formats and retraining entire workforces to whole new workflows?

AI isn't, so far as I can tell, a universal Easy Button®.

Open Source didn't scratch the surface of those problems, but AI will solve them somehow?

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

#403

Post by sodality2 »

1oooqooq wrote: post #372
sodality2 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

it's actually saying the opposite. it's claims is that everything really is better, but the "vibe" is to complain. it's a counter to the "silent majority" suffering in red states. it's a inane political spin that did not take on.

I just don’t even know where you’re getting this from. I have to wonder if you’ve read the original article. If that’s what you got from the wikipedia page, it’s wrong - I have Scanlon’s book in my hand and here’s a quote straight from the vibecession chapter

> “Of course, as I have talked about throughout the book, there are many real problems with the economy. We have a structural affordability crisis. A housing crisis. A healthcare crisis. A childcare crisis. The list is endless and nothing can hide anymore. The things to be anxious about are numerous. The geopolitical warfare. The walls of any sense of economic safety caving in. The endless political theatrics.”

And here’s a quote from the source document that coined the term vibecession, from her Substack:

> Markets are a profit-maximizing system. That is the point of All of This - the reason that people feel bad, the reason that the vibes are off, part of the reason that people get fired, companies go under, that McKinsey incentivized the opioid crisis - they knew it would kill people, but it would make money. Money is not a moral compass.

How is this claiming that everything’s actually okay and that it’s just that we’re sad about stuff? If the claim was “the vibe is to complain” why did she give at least ten real problems that influence consumer sentiment there.

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

#404

Post by eszed »

estebank wrote: post #235
izacus wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Changing the underlying reality without improving the perception leads to a political disconnect. Improving the perception without improving the underlying reality just makes people happier, but not better off. You have to do both if your objective is to improve people's lifes.

I agree. So, which one do you prioritize? Currently, it seems to me as if people's (mis)perceptions are leading them to vote against policies that will make them better off, so we need to correct perceptions first.

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

#405

Post by amai »

tldr; „Where did these economic termites come from? We decided four and a half decades ago that monopolies were good. After 1998, the Antitrust Division stopped bringing monopolization cases, and in 2005, the Supreme Court unanimously endorsed monopolization as foundational to the health of American economy. After twenty years of not bringing cases, business executives realized the best way to run a business was to create a tollbooth in some mostly unnoticed part of society. So now, each supply chain is made up of a bunch of different bottlenecks, too small to notice.“

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

#406

Post by johnwatson11218 »

losthalo wrote: post #402
johnwatson11218 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thou…

Do you think AI is going to solve the problems of proprietary data formats and retraining entire workforces to whole new workflows? AI isn't, so far as I can tell, a universal Easy Button®. Open Source didn't scratch the surface of those problems, but AI will solve them somehow?

I think that if you have the skills to manage a software project of any complexity then you, alone can create what teams are doing today. I think AI can characterize proprietary data formats and assist by writing parsers, providing helpful error messages, and pointing out inconsistencies and gaps in the specification. AI can eliminate the need for so much workforce. Rather than training existing workers, it can become the existing workers. ChatGPT is already more competent than 1/2 of the workers at my last job. Case in point - two teams were independently assigned a particular upgrade task. Since the project managers used different terms they didn't realize they were doing double work. Large language models could already disambiguate that kind of thing way back then, it is only getting better.

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

#407

Post by amai »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #168

That's what Warren Buffett calls "moat". These are the companies one should invest in.

Investing in monopolies was always profitable. It just destroys the market. There should be a law that disallows investments into monopolies. But such a law doesn’t exit. Everyone just cares about her/his own profits. In the end most of society is suffering from high prices and stagnation and a few are making huge profits. Everyone hopes to belong to the few ones. This unlimited greed will destroy our society.

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

#408

Post by hef19898 »

chomskyole wrote: post #390
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…

Profits across many companies in construction have significantly increased post covid. Not only for construction companies, but also various supplier (e.g. building technology, construction products).

At best, that would be some sort cartel, multiple really. Which is quite different from a monopoly, which again is something from dominant market power...

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

#409

Post by llm_trw »

mr_toad wrote: post #391
llm_trw wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 we…

> The only crime stat you can trust is murder and that's because bodies can't be hidden (easily). Seems to be a significant decline since the 90’s, followed by an increase since 2016, and a Covid dip followed by a resumption of the increase. It’s still a lot lower than it was in the 90’s.

Medical technology has also improved dramatically since the 90s.

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

#410

Post by sanderjd »

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…

I think the article is just "here are a few things I'm aware of that are more expensive than I think they should be". There isn't any analysis of the industries they are in or the dynamics that enable them to maintain those price points.

The Verisign case is the strongest one, but even granting that, those price increases over the years look very aligned with the aggregate rate of inflation to me. (I do personally think that things like Verisign would be good candidates for public administration, but there are potential drawbacks to that as well.)

One issue is that there are people who do these kinds of deep analyses of industries and how various players in them can maintain particular price points and margins, but none of those people are fundamentally skeptical of the whole system, they are mostly Wall Street analysts or adjacent kinds of people, who don't question capitalism for a moment (it is their "water"). So on the one side we have skeptics mostly without deep expertise and on the other side we have deep expertise mostly without skepticism. It's not surprising that we don't get a huge amount of well-researched criticism of the system.

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