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America has a monopoly problem

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Re: America has a monopoly problem

#161

Post by nikolay »

astrodust wrote: post #157
nikolay wrote: post #142

Monopolies are a natural phenomenon in capitalism. I'm not sure why people glorify capitalism as much, given the fact that competition is impossibly hard in many areas, and that to reduce costs, and remove competitive pressure, companies tends to consolidate, i.e. reduce competition. Neither socialism nor capitalism makes sense today. We need a totally new system, but it's really hard to make a dent into the status q…

"Socialism" and "capitalism" are not switches you turn either on or off, they're a set of policies and practices you can apply to varying degrees and extremes. The military is quite socialist as when you enlist you're given food, housing, equipment, medical care, and other things to perform your job, but it's also part of a large capitalist system where equipment and supplies are provisioned from a (theoretically) co…

I disagree that the solution is a balanced one somewhere between the only two puristic and unrealistic options as in both money is key, and I disagree that it should be the centerpiece of our society as it's already proven to be a weak motivator and leads to very negative consequences.

There are good things in both orders, we need to learn from them, but something in the middle we already have in EU, and it's not working so well.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#162

Post by state_less »

oconnore wrote: post #134
alasdair_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Iron Law of Oligarchy page: "no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy" I'm not sure this is proven yet. Certainly in the past, I'd have agreed, but with communication via the Internet making realtime decision-making between all members of a democracy possible, I think direct democracy is theoretically possible at least. If not absolutely direct, then at least h…

> in the past, I'd have agreed, but with communication via the Internet making realtime decision-making between all members of a democracy possible, I think direct democracy is theoretically possible at least. Our current issues have nothing to do with latency, they have to do with manipulation and propaganda. The internet has so far made that worse , not better. If every single Facebook trend, or 30 second clip from…

I don't think people have come to grips with the nature of manipulation. We talk about letting everyone vote in realtime, but that doesn't solve the problem, because it's not looking holistically enough.

For example, Suppose on average 1% signup for the military in high school. Next suppose we add an intervention, we add a sign in the lunchroom for military recruiting (touching on all the right emotions). The average in these schools goes up to 3%! We say, these additional recruits CHOSE to join, but we know they wouldn't have had we not added the sign.

It's in this way that I say that realtime voting doesn't solve the problem, because it doesn't look holistically enough, namely at influence. It's not just at the ballot box, but in your daily life. The question then becomes, who can influence and how much?

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#163

Post by emodendroket »

jasode wrote: post #120
emodendroket wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that's basically what Uber is trying to do.

Fyi... Peter Thiel thinks Uber is overvalued. He didn't like the way they compete. Uber should be a case study that burning up billions in investor money (billions wasted on trying to underprice Didi in China) was a colossal mistake. How much of that bad strategy is blamed on Travis's vs investors is something we won't know until a tell-all book comes out.

I think they're likely overvalued too, but it seems to be an obvious counterexample of the claims about investor behavior regardless.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#164

Post by nikolay »

astrodust wrote: post #157
nikolay wrote: post #142

Monopolies are a natural phenomenon in capitalism. I'm not sure why people glorify capitalism as much, given the fact that competition is impossibly hard in many areas, and that to reduce costs, and remove competitive pressure, companies tends to consolidate, i.e. reduce competition. Neither socialism nor capitalism makes sense today. We need a totally new system, but it's really hard to make a dent into the status q…

"Socialism" and "capitalism" are not switches you turn either on or off, they're a set of policies and practices you can apply to varying degrees and extremes. The military is quite socialist as when you enlist you're given food, housing, equipment, medical care, and other things to perform your job, but it's also part of a large capitalist system where equipment and supplies are provisioned from a (theoretically) co…

What do you think about The Venus Project [0] and Jaque Fresco's resource-based economy [1]?

Edit: I'm saddened to find out that Jacque has recently passed away. I was planning to meet him in person as he was at an honorable age.

[0]: https://www.thevenusproject.com/

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacque_Fresco

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#165

Post by grzm »

state_less wrote: post #162
oconnore wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the past, I'd have agreed, but with communication via the Internet making realtime decision-making between all members of a democracy possible, I think direct democracy is theoretically possible at least. Our current issues have nothing to do with latency, they have to do with manipulation and propaganda. The internet has so far made that worse , not better. If every single Facebook trend, or 30 second clip from…

I don't think people have come to grips with the nature of manipulation. We talk about letting everyone vote in realtime, but that doesn't solve the problem, because it's not looking holistically enough. For example, Suppose on average 1% signup for the military in high school. Next suppose we add an intervention, we add a sign in the lunchroom for military recruiting (touching on all the right emotions). The average…

> "I don't think people have come to grips with the nature of manipulation."

I agree that this is a big question. What are the divisions between manipulation, persuasion, coercion, influence, information, and education? Intent? Whether or not we agree with the position? I know that this can come off as flip, but it's not at all meant to.

In the case of the poster, what if there were two posters, an additional one for the local university. Average recruitment goes up 3%, and applications for the local university go up 3%. Does that change our perspective on what happened and the students' choices?

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#166

Post by OtterCoder »

ch4s3 wrote: post #18
OtterCoder wrote: post #13

This is brilliant. I recently wrote in to my senator about net neutrality. His reply was a breathtakingly convoluted justification of not regulating companies like Comcast because antitrust laws would take care of it. I've never felt so insulted.

Which senator was this?

Senator Lee, who happens to be on the Antitrust Subcommittee.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#167

Post by dcre »

chrisseaton wrote: post #79
OtterCoder wrote: post #13

This is brilliant. I recently wrote in to my senator about net neutrality. His reply was a breathtakingly convoluted justification of not regulating companies like Comcast because antitrust laws would take care of it. I've never felt so insulted.

You felt insulted because he has a different opinion to you? Or did he write something insulting in his reply?

It's insulting when people say something you both know is stupid but they act like they're just making a civil good-faith argument. Kind of like what you're doing.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#168

Post by KGIII »

charlesdm wrote: post #75
Clubber wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you were to reduce the US corporate tax rate to 10%, a lot more profit would be booked in the US again. Until other countries lower theirs, then it's just a race to the bottom, no?

It's always a race to the bottom. Smaller countries (e.g. Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus) need a less broader tax base to cover their outgoings and thus will always be able to offer a low tax base. As a (larger) country, you can decide not to participate, but you'd be pricing yourself out of the market. Imo, it's smarter to tax shareholders more, and corporations less. Corporations are generally productive and ha…

Capital gains are taxed at the same level as income tax, except when they are long-term investments, meaning longer than a year. The reason long-term investments are taxed at a lower rate is because you want to incentivize long-term investing as it increases stability.

Take that away and I have no incentive to invest in stability but have every reason to disrupt the market and take advantage of the swings. I'm not sure you want that.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#169

Post by oconnore »

nikolay wrote: post #161
astrodust wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Socialism" and "capitalism" are not switches you turn either on or off, they're a set of policies and practices you can apply to varying degrees and extremes. The military is quite socialist as when you enlist you're given food, housing, equipment, medical care, and other things to perform your job, but it's also part of a large capitalist system where equipment and supplies are provisioned from a (theoretically) co…

I disagree that the solution is a balanced one somewhere between the only two puristic and unrealistic options as in both money is key, and I disagree that it should be the centerpiece of our society as it's already proven to be a weak motivator and leads to very negative consequences. There are good things in both orders, we need to learn from them, but something in the middle we already have in EU, and it's not wor…

You are trying so hard to escape from a fundamental truth that echoes throughout history: government, money, economy, it's all about power. You can't sidestep the issue of power by throwing technology at it: you will just create an unbalanced, poorly thought out power dynamic (that uses technology!). Technology does not mean you get to throw out your history books. On the contrary, it means you probably need them more than ever.

The EU is not perfect, nor is the US, Canada, China, or anywhere else. We need to carefully analyze and experiment, not mash the reset button in the hope we get something better next time.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#170

Post by charlesdm »

KGIII wrote: post #168
charlesdm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always a race to the bottom. Smaller countries (e.g. Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus) need a less broader tax base to cover their outgoings and thus will always be able to offer a low tax base. As a (larger) country, you can decide not to participate, but you'd be pricing yourself out of the market. Imo, it's smarter to tax shareholders more, and corporations less. Corporations are generally productive and ha…

Capital gains are taxed at the same level as income tax, except when they are long-term investments, meaning longer than a year. The reason long-term investments are taxed at a lower rate is because you want to incentivize long-term investing as it increases stability. Take that away and I have no incentive to invest in stability but have every reason to disrupt the market and take advantage of the swings. I'm not su…

As capital holders we will always have an incentive to invest. It's a way to let our money work for us, without having to put in time. Also don't forget companies wouldn't get taxed; the companies you hold would not have to pay corporate tax, so there would be more $$'s available to distribute to shareholders. You wouldn't actually be receiving less money after tax.

> The reason long-term investments are taxed at a lower rate is because you want to incentivize long-term investing as it increases stability.

Since most equities are held by tax exempt entities (whether that is domestic or abroad, e.g. pension funds or hedge funds in a tax haven), this argument doesn't make sense. The stock price of AAPL or YELP is not going to tank because an individual investors sells (barring perhaps the CEO).

The tax rate is lower generally to account for inflation. But not all countries have sliding capital gains tax rates. The UK has a 28% rate, most capital gains are exempt in Belgium and the Netherlands (but the latter has a small wealth tax), France just introduced a 30% rate, etc.

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