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Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

spiegel.de

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Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#171

Post by innguest »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #141
Erwin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the wikipedia 2013 stats, WMT has 2.2 million employees and and Walmart family owns "over 50%" of Walmart (let's assume 50%). 2014 net was 16 billion but 6 billion was paid in dividends to shareholders. Assuming a 2000 hour work-year, if ALL of the non-dividend was spent on wage increases, that's a $2.27 extra per hour all 2.2 million employees could get. Well, boards often approve costly "incentive plan…

It would also mean that all of the employees have a lot more money to spend, a part of which they'd spend at Walmart. Wasn't it Ford who back in the early 1900 gave his employees a lot higher wages than other companies so they could spend more and thus raise his own profits?

No, Ford raised wages to curb employee turnover.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#172

Post by Shivetya »

Animats wrote: post #17

This is an important article, but I doubt there will be a useful discussion of it here. The developed world has incredible productive capacity. With 1% of the workforce in agriculture and 8% in manufacturing, the US produces as much stuff as China. There are no significant shortages of any manufactured good anywhere in the developed world. Quality is pretty good across the board, too. This is unique in history. That'…

Sorry, but the financial system exists at the behest of the political class. The political class is the one percent who runs it all. They may talk that we have a capitalist society but with the heavy amount of regulation that exists that is pretty much a stretch. You have a one percent group (politicians and their appointees) who determine who succeeds and who goes to jail. You thwart them and its pretty damn sure within a few short years what you do is illegal or your paying off through someone's campaign.

Shovel ready jobs, the ACA, none of this was done to benefit the everyday worker, their employment or fulfillment were not part of the equation.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#173

Post by olalonde »

psychometry wrote: post #33
mattmcknight wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an important article, it is a rant against people with "tacky mansions", a turn of phrase that is more indicative of the author's point of view than the other conventional points about not understanding creative destruction. I think it is this overly nationalist view of economics that needs to die, not "capitalism". There is not less productive work to go around, it's just not being done in the US. We are…

A third of the population in the richest nation on earth lives in poverty. According to you, that's not a problem because even poorer people in Bangladesh are slightly less poor than they would be if American companies had never employed them. What kind of callous person could look around at all the suffering and think this system's working great? Or do you not look around at all, holed up in a tacky mansion of your…

Here's a pretty convincing TED talk which makes the point that global poverty has indeed significantly gone down in recent history, especially among developing countries: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

It was posted here about 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373041

I don't think we should look at poverty as a solved problem, but I think it would be overly cynical to not acknowledge how much the "system" has done for the poor.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#174

Post by narrowrail »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #163
rayiner wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we care about people in India or China? We're entitled to shape our society the way we want, and to address the local ills we see fit to address. Our predecessors worked very hard so that we would be richer than India and China and have the luxury of figuring out how to better the lives of urban "poor" who have cable TV.

The premise underlying my post is the belief that all humans have equal moral value. I gather you don't hold this view and therefore will disagree. However, if you favor some sort of protectionism, I'm curious why you think I should care about poor Americans. Supposing I were to give up humanism and revert to tribalism, as you seem to have done, why would I allow poor Americans into my tribe? Why not simply define my…

As everyday Americans, we simply do not have the power to directly influence other countries. The world does not operate as a border-less, humanistic, and unified entity. It is not a matter of protectionism and/or tribalism, but practicality. I don't believe it is very easy to influence politics outside of my state, let alone the country. IMO, comparing the plights of people across these 'imaginary borders' is of little help in this context.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#175

Post by lispm »

jvm wrote: post #101
jacquesm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The economic situation in Europe is truly awful, in contrast to the US and Japan where growth has been respectable. That depends very much on where you're looking. Spain or Germany are worlds apart in this respect.

They certainly are. But even Germany has had mediocre performance compared to the rest of the rich world.

While adding 20+ million people from a collapsed economy and rebuilding much of that.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#176

Post by cousin_it »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #141
Erwin wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the wikipedia 2013 stats, WMT has 2.2 million employees and and Walmart family owns "over 50%" of Walmart (let's assume 50%). 2014 net was 16 billion but 6 billion was paid in dividends to shareholders. Assuming a 2000 hour work-year, if ALL of the non-dividend was spent on wage increases, that's a $2.27 extra per hour all 2.2 million employees could get. Well, boards often approve costly "incentive plan…

It would also mean that all of the employees have a lot more money to spend, a part of which they'd spend at Walmart. Wasn't it Ford who back in the early 1900 gave his employees a lot higher wages than other companies so they could spend more and thus raise his own profits?

That's a nice example! I always thought that it didn't make economic sense to pay people more money just so they could buy stuff from you. But just now I realized that it's actually possible.

Let's say you're selling cars for 100 dollars, and make 10 dollars in profit from each car sold. There's a lot of folks who have only 99 dollars and can't afford a car. If you give such a person one dollar, they will buy your car and you'll be 9 dollars richer.

Now, of course that's just a market segmentation scheme in disguise. If you could identify the folks who have 99 dollars and give them a 1 dollar discount instead, you'd profit even more, because they wouldn't be able to spend it on anything except buying a car from you. That's how companies do it today, they use employee discounts to get all the benefit of raised wages without actually raising wages.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#177

Post by _broody »

ams6110 wrote: post #156
ivanca wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the solution is pretty simple, doesn't it? make it illegal to foreclosure a house for more than 6 months, an "use it or lose it" policy.

Or even simpler, don't bail out businesses that make stupid decisions.

That's actually going to be ridiculously complicated. I doubt we will see such a reversal of the status quo happen in our lifetime.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#178

Post by lispm »

kokey wrote: post #118
mqsiuser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A German here, I probably read Spiegel for >10 years (from ~2000 to beginning of 2014): They are kind of "left" which reflects in their articles "raises a second narrative about inequality". They'd support basic income any time. The Spiegel has turned into yellow press lately, I am surprised to see a (english) article on HN. Thank you HN for unveiling that there are some spots in Europe that are doing fine and that t…

One of the problems with the open borders is that the younger people are moving, leaving countries with an already stagnant economy with an even greater aging population issue.

The same problem exists within Germany.

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#179

Post by psychometry »

olalonde wrote: post #173
psychometry wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A third of the population in the richest nation on earth lives in poverty. According to you, that's not a problem because even poorer people in Bangladesh are slightly less poor than they would be if American companies had never employed them. What kind of callous person could look around at all the suffering and think this system's working great? Or do you not look around at all, holed up in a tacky mansion of your…

Here's a pretty convincing TED talk which makes the point that global poverty has indeed significantly gone down in recent history, especially among developing countries: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... It was posted here about 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=373041 I don't think we should look at poverty as a solved problem, but I think it would be overly cynical to…

American slaves in 1850 were much better off than American slaves in 1650. Should we acknowledge what great things slavery did for black people in the U.S.? Do you see why your argument is worthless?

Re: Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails

#180

Post by _broody »

spindritf wrote: post #121
yummyfajitas wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, just for starters, they're suffering from entirely treatable diseases and injuries... If that were the case, the increasing access to health care should make them healthier. It didn't. http://www.nber.org/oregon/ Do you have evidence for childhood malnutrition? Once you come up with a definition of "rotting, roach-infested", feel free to check what fraction of poor Americans actually fit that definition. See ta…

It is sad that completely factual, sourced and on-topic comments get downvoted on HN just because they go against the political beliefs of downvoters who don't even bother responding.

No, I don't get what yummyfajitas is getting from his own sources. The Oregon experiment article he linked to stated, verbatim, that 25% more people reported themselves healthier thanks to increased health coverage, and 10% better mental health. Yet he is using this link to claim better health insurance does nothing for poor people.

Also, using a pre-2008 crisis census report to argue that everything is fine today is extremely intellectually disingenuous. It's almost like he's openly trolling.

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