211–220 of 412 posts
I’m always shocked at how many economics experts there are on a tech forum!
This one isn’t surprising at all though. It’s a technical subject with everyday relevance and lots of material to learn about it. Unless you’re implying special credentials should be required to comment.
Whatever the problem is, it's everything but unicorn funding. We can be sure of that on this forum.
When I was about 20 I started listening to Sean Hannity, and while I no longer agree with anything he says, I do appreciate the glimpse I got into his way of thinking. I mention this because... I can't tell you how many times I've heard the idea that success in free market capitalism comes from offering goods and services to customers with the right balance between quality and price, and that good quality and price i…
> But now I see that the true path to success is to first gain favor from those who already have wealth and power, and then use their wealth and power to reduce or eliminate competition.
is attractive to the disaffected (as Nietzsche wrote on). narratives that say the whole thing is rigged are going to be appealing because they offer a non-intrinsic explanation for underperformance.
And this is after they massaged the numbers, to avoid getting fired?
In the end, it won't matter. Only economists, policy makers, investors and people blabbing on the internet do care about stats. Ordinary people just look at price tags; that's all they need.
Without solid numbers I wouldn't be surprised to see a shift to "assuming the worst case" and much more conservative and lower investment.
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Yes, for THAT head of the BLS. It is super clear to the next head of the BLS that they deliver the number the president likes or they will be fired. So, just like in Venezuela, that number will be delivered.
wanna bet? i will take a bet that inflation will not return to normal (ie. sub 2.1) in the next report
That said, I also think there is a good chance of that because we will be in a recession by then from the tariffs.
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I believe less than a quarter of the defense budget is for salaries and compensations.
https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-us-spend-on-d... 22%. But operations also includes civilian salaries and procurement naturally includes the labor required to produce what was procured. I would assume that R&D also includes research grants and salaries.
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I'll hold my breath for the fast food chain that lowers its prices to better compete with the chains that raised theirs. We have plenty of examples, with documentation and receipts, of businesses participating in price fixing, collusion, and other cooperative behaviors that result in higher prices for consumers and reduced competition between businesses. You are naively assuming that all businesses express greed in t…
Fast food chains are giant corporations. Where you would see the difference is in the mom and pop shop, who can now undercut the big chain and probably has better quality food.
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Google Gemini 2.5 Pro just estimated 200 military bases close to China (I used “close” in my prompt, not very precise, so that number is likely including bases in the general area.) Gemini estimated 750 to 800 total military bases.
Why would you think those are good sources for a question like this?
I think there is a lot of bias everywhere, and I thought that this sort of averages some of the noise away.
I think grandparent comments about what constitutes a military base vs. a facility are interesting. I was a defense contractor from 1974 to 1998, and it seemed like all the US bases I visited were very large, but some of the NATO bases I visited were much smaller. Sorry to be anecdotal here, just explaining my own experiences.
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Before someone decides to try and explaining to me that tariffs will bring back work to the US and help our economy, I just need to say that is orthogonal to the point of inflation. It's possible that the tariffs will be a net good. I don't think they will but at least that's something that's on the table, but they will absolutely not lead to lower prices. If it were cheaper to manufacture goods in the US then we'd already be manufacturing goods in the US.
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Certainly. So would materials expenses and theft and insurance and so forth. But the confusion is that somehow, money not spent on “salaries and compensation” doesn’t go to people. All of it goes to people. Defense spending isn’t buying “defense”, it’s buying time and effort for people to focus on and produce defense related things. This is the root of the original post that defense spending is a jobs program.
> All of it goes to people That's just straight up false. It goes to legal entities, some of which are people. Companies aren't people mate, and neither are investment funds. The money might still be managed by people, but that cannot be called salary, even if you're stretching the definition.
Would you agree if I reworded my statement to “ultimately, all money eventually flows to people, whether for their labor or due to their ownership of the entities receiving the money”?