Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 263 posts

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#131

Post by tanderson92 »

sadfjhsdf66 wrote: post #76
pm90 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, people swear by them as though they have the same validity as physics. I never really understood that mentality.

Because the monopolies have exerted pressure on public education, including universities, to churn out advocates for the corporations bottom line. With no basis in reality, we've brainwashed people to believe the bottom lines of the elite are to be protected. That's the outcome sought of our educational system. It fascinates me how, on the one hand, we complain about how lazy people are. How much inducement the prole…

> Because the monopolies have exerted pressure on public education, including universities, to churn out advocates for the corporations bottom line.

Not only that, we fail to realize the continuing incentives for them to act in that way, even when acting as "researchers". Here is a highly relevant Propublica investigative piece on academic economists as consultants: https://www.propublica.org/article/these-professors-make-mor...

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#132

Post by danbruc »

pm90 wrote: post #118
sadfjhsdf66 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the monopolies have exerted pressure on public education, including universities, to churn out advocates for the corporations bottom line. With no basis in reality, we've brainwashed people to believe the bottom lines of the elite are to be protected. That's the outcome sought of our educational system. It fascinates me how, on the one hand, we complain about how lazy people are. How much inducement the prole…

This is unfortunately too close to the truth. One thing I would like to add though is that despite the fruits of labor accruing disproportionately to the elite, the system has managed to lift up everyone else as well, right? So the system does work, and I wonder what would happen if it was changed to be more egalitarian....

One thing I would like to add though is that despite the fruits of labor accruing disproportionately to the elite, the system has managed to lift up everyone else as well, right? So the system does work [...]

That really depends on the definition of »works«. If one is satisfied with the people doing the heavy lifting being a bit better off while a few overseeing everything are extremely better off, yes, then it works.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#134

Post by [deleted] »

zackmorris wrote: post #39

I think the great problem of our time is that the challenges get easier to solve every day but we mostly spend our time making rent. And not the kind of rent mentioned in the article - just plain old fashioned too-much-month-not-enough-money kind of rent. When we’re desperate, we grovel and do whatever work we need to to survive. This is akin to how researchers spend inordinate amounts of time applying for grants rat…

[deleted]

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#135

Post by vkou »

kevmo wrote: post #60

Many of our regulatory bodies have been utterly captured by biggest companies that they are supposed to regulate, and they are tamping down innovation (which creates jobs), increasing prices, and decreasing quality. Both the Democrats and Republicans have been engaging too heavily in crony capitalism for decades, and this is the result. How it works: Regulations that are supposed to protect the public end up being a…

> and they are tamping down innovation (which creates jobs)

If you're going to go from the jobs angle - let me pose a question:

Today - in 2017 - not 100 years ago, not 40 years ago, but today - now.

Does unregulated innovation create more, better jobs then it destroys?

Do you draw a distinction between regulatory 'innovation' (Miscategorizing employees, breaking laws to increase your margins, skirting training or safety requirements, introducing conflicts of interest), and actual innovation (We can make more, or better stuff)?

Do you think they are equally valuable?

What is the ratio in market cap between these two kinds of innovations?

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#136

Post by marcosdumay »

dudul wrote: post #51

Not native english speaker here. My comment is probably of very limited value, but mostly for my personal improvement :). When I read "the wrong kind of entrepreneurs flourish in America" it surprises me to not see: "the wrong kind of entrepreneurs flourishes in America". I understand that "kind" should be the subject of the sentence, not the entrepreneurs. I have seen this construct several times (e.g. "this type of…

Out of curiosity, are you native to an western language? I think this kind of inversion is common on Latin languages too.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#137

Post by tryitnow »

Shivetya wrote: post #126
zackmorris wrote: post #39

I think the great problem of our time is that the challenges get easier to solve every day but we mostly spend our time making rent. And not the kind of rent mentioned in the article - just plain old fashioned too-much-month-not-enough-money kind of rent. When we’re desperate, we grovel and do whatever work we need to to survive. This is akin to how researchers spend inordinate amounts of time applying for grants rat…

taxes in the US are far more progressive than they used to be. there are however many new avenues to follow to increase wealth. those below a certain income level are more likely to get eaten up by embedded taxes, regulatory fees and government service fees. then throw in we are bombarded every day continuously to buy this,buy that, go here, do that. We get told every day of wonderful stuff available for pennies or d…

Really? Could you be more specific on how regulatory fees and government service fees are a bigger problem than massive, gaping wealth inequality and the power differentials that go along with it?

And what's the solution? Deregulation? Wouldn't that just make consumers even more vulnerable to the predations of the powerful? In fact, it seems that powerful interests generally lobby for more regulation, not less, so I'm not really sure what your point is here.

And your statement about "too much government" is vague and abstract. How exactly is "too much government" contributing to wealth and power inequality. Historically, it has been government intervention that has acted as a counterweight to concentrated power.

In fact, people who have been complaining about too much government became influential in public policy about the EXACT time a lot of these trends in wealth inequality started (the late 1970s).

Sorry to be so critical, but I think a major contributor to our problems is people who make blanket statements about that are vague and imprecise and do not articulate any real policy goals.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#138

Post by cestith »

BFatts wrote: post #108
projectramo wrote: post #18

There is a theory that all above market profits are generated by government granted monopolies. So, for instance, software is protected by patents, oil and gas is protected by mineral rights, drugs are protected by patent law, entertainment is protected by IP rights, and so on. In so far as there is competition, it often arises when the rent-seeking motivates people to disrupt the government protection by making it u…

Software isn't protected by patents - it's just IP laws as well. You can't patent software in general. Maybe the look and feel of your product, but not the functionality.

In the US methods of doing things can be patented. That includes software. Look up MP3, LZW compression, or perhaps IBM's 2100 algorithm patents over the fifteen years from 2001 to 2016.

It's being narrowed, but it still exists. Until rather recently many courts would recognize "do well understood process X, but on a computer" as patentable.

http://blogs.gartner.com/doug-laney/patents-for-algorithms-h...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8310084

http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/what-cant-be-p...

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#139

Post by cestith »

bogomipz wrote: post #12

From the article: >"Because it’s just a transfer from one person to another, rent doesn’t necessarily make an economy less efficient -- it’s just often unfair. " I would argue that "rent" does make the market more inefficient. The more rent these companies can extract from consumers the larger their lobbying budget and the more campaign donations they can make at all level of government. Political lobbying is the big…

It's not just that. The more rent a party obtains, the less fluid that market is. There's an opportunity cost for everything. If I pay 10% more for your product because you're a monopoly, I could have spent that 10% on other goods and services.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#140

Post by narrator »

zackmorris wrote: post #39

I think the great problem of our time is that the challenges get easier to solve every day but we mostly spend our time making rent. And not the kind of rent mentioned in the article - just plain old fashioned too-much-month-not-enough-money kind of rent. When we’re desperate, we grovel and do whatever work we need to to survive. This is akin to how researchers spend inordinate amounts of time applying for grants rat…

A lot of that tax money goes to pay interest payments on government bonds which are owned by the rent collector class. The more money the government borrows to pay for health care and such, the more money the rent collectors make. They've effectively hijacked the progressive impulse to create a way for their vast wealth to earn interest. The regular bond markets would never be able to soak up such enormous amounts of money and pay risk-free interest on it.

China creates their own debt free money as needed. The U.S government must borrow it. You ever notice how economic pundits have been predicting an economic crash in China for the last 30 years that never seems to come? It's because the government just endlessly bails out the economy in a debt-free way that never sticks the taxpayers with the bill.

Post reply on HN