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American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

economist.com

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Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#181

Post by Dibby053 »

wesselbindt wrote: post #98
aeternum wrote: post #26

I thought the Economist used to have much higher quality articles. Where is the historical analysis? Is it more apocalyptic now than during the cold war when kids hid under their desks? Did America really win the space race because of a presidential speech or was it the apocalyptic threat that if we lose, we will all live under communist rule? Would American manufacturing have ever caught up to Germany if it weren't…

America won the space race? The only milestone where the US got there first was having boots on the moon. Every other milestone (first artificial satellite, first organism in space, first man in space, first woman, first spacewalk, first craft on the moon) was achieved by the soviets first. Taking the one arbitrary milestone where the US did come in first and declare it the finish line feels weird as heck.

Well, because obviously the finish line of the space race was the Moon.

Had the Soviets declared the line on the "first woman in space", now we probably would use Soviet GPS, we would use Soviet maps of planet surfaces, we would have Soviet Mars rovers, Soviet Voyager... You get the idea.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#182

Post by srean »

WalterBright wrote: post #170
srean wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that's the theory. It used to be mostly true in the past, but given current valuations it does not look true at all. My worry is that we are not creating enough new wealth but just distributing it lopsidedly.

> just distributing it lopsidedly Wealth is not being distributed. A laborer gets paid for the value he creates. There's no "distribution" going on (except by the government).

> laborer gets paid for the value he creates

Not true at all. Most labourers have nowhere close the pricing power necessary for this to be true. Information is obfuscated (legally of course) on purpose.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#183

Post by 305superuser »

j16sdiz wrote: post #63
maxdo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just named symptoms not cause. 1. People vote for old idiots . 2. Local politics is all about milking any potential work with permits. Sky rocket housing due to that . 3. American lost engineering culture everywhere except software . Now software is dead as industry we used to know

> People vote for old idiots . i think this is also a syndrome not a cause

Agree, coming from a 3rd country to US what I have personally perceived a lot is the generational loop at the later stage..."Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times." — G. Michael Hopf

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#184

Post by crossbody »

srean wrote: post #179
crossbody wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we? Do we even know the counterfactual? Perhaps Norway would have been 2x richer (incl. their poorest people) if they implemented ultra aggressive libertarian policies. The best we can do is learn from natural expriments like Finland and Estonia being about as rich before ww2, then by 90s the gap got massive since one was forced adopt more redistributive policies. Same with North / South Korea. Here we have at le…

Counterfactuals no, but one can make good-faith scientific attempts. We don't because we are locked by ideologies.

Exactly, and thankfully those have been made based on natural experiments like the ones I shared. And the consensus among serious modern economists (not those making money on selling popular books) is that redistribution negatively affects economic growth with all else being equal

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#185

Post by wvenable »

WalterBright wrote: post #164
wvenable wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of us. Fees, commercial and residential rents, products that cost the same but are smaller. None of this generating new wealth.

Don't buy something you think is not worth the money.

Let me more specific. I am talking about wealth that is generated by capturing value from existing assets, transactions, and people rather than by producing new goods, services, or productivity gains.

Examples are rent-seeking (making money through ownership, monopoly power, licensing, etc), financial extraction (financial manipulation, speculation, debt, and asset appreciation), housing and land appreciation, middlemen and platform fees, and corporate consolidation.

This is contrast to building factories, software, infrastructure, or goods and services that didn't previously exist. What you might define as "creating".

I don't know how you cannot buy something. You have to have a home, food, transportation, and even entertainment. The extraction economy has come to all of these things. Maybe fewer and fewer things are "worth the money" and that is a bad thing, don't you agree? I feel like you're not approaching this conversation in good faith.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#186

Post by esseph »

iancmceachern wrote: post #152
hparadiz wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea that's why the only three orbital grade reusable boosters are American. Lmao.

But our bridges and infrastructure are crumbling

Those are issues of priority and revenue generation, not capability.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#188

Post by WalterBright »

srean wrote: post #149
crossbody wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your worry based on vibes? Because statistics clearly show median real wealth growing rapidly: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

That's money and not wealth and its a flow not stock and denominated in something that can depreciate, has it even been priced correctly ? I grant you that it is very hard to measure ownership of (wealth generating) assets, hidden behind legal obfuscations. Lorenz curve [0], GEI [1], Gini index of owned wealth generating assets would be the right thing to measure to see how understand one's share of the pie. But an e…

> share of the pie

Using words like that imprisons one into a certain perspective. Wealth creation is not "getting a share of the pie". Wealth is not an apple pie you slice up for your guests.

If Picketty uses words like pie, share, transfer, concentration, etc., then his book is about as valueless as Das Kapital.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#189

Post by srean »

crossbody wrote: post #171
srean wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's money and not wealth and its a flow not stock and denominated in something that can depreciate, has it even been priced correctly ? I grant you that it is very hard to measure ownership of (wealth generating) assets, hidden behind legal obfuscations. Lorenz curve [0], GEI [1], Gini index of owned wealth generating assets would be the right thing to measure to see how understand one's share of the pie. But an e…

My bad, wrong chart (it's in real terms though) Here is net wealth increasing for all, let's celebrate: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1962-_Net_personal_w... My point is that the pie is growing and all are benefitting. Yes, rich may be getting more but not at the expense of poorer people as their wealth is increasing too. It's rather unfortunate but it seems that the pies grows fastest (and poor benefit fro…

> My point is that the pie is growing and all are benefitting.

This is the main point of contention though.

Earlier generation middle class seems to have been larger and more financially secure. That would be our parent's generation. Of course not all of our parents would qualify.

Re: American capitalism has taken an apocalyptic turn

#190

Post by wesselbindt »

Dibby053 wrote: post #181
wesselbindt wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America won the space race? The only milestone where the US got there first was having boots on the moon. Every other milestone (first artificial satellite, first organism in space, first man in space, first woman, first spacewalk, first craft on the moon) was achieved by the soviets first. Taking the one arbitrary milestone where the US did come in first and declare it the finish line feels weird as heck.

Well, because obviously the finish line of the space race was the Moon. Had the Soviets declared the line on the "first woman in space", now we probably would use Soviet GPS, we would use Soviet maps of planet surfaces, we would have Soviet Mars rovers, Soviet Voyager... You get the idea.

> Well, because obviously the finish line of the space race was the Moon.

So, this choice is not super obvious to me. If it was called the moon race or whatever, I'd get it. But in this case it just feels like making up rules after the fact to make sure you "win".

EDIT: I just realized you might be saying this sarcastically. I'm really bad at picking up on that sort of stuff, and apologize if that's the case.

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