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What is energy, actually? (2011)

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Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#221

Post by [deleted] »

shawnz wrote: post #215
formercoder wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do so many plans such as this exist which serve to enrich our government with so much more funding when they are currently incredibly bad at spending what they have? The US spends more per capita on education than many countries who are ahead of us. Construction of public transportation is filled with corruption and inefficiency. So many tasks still require snail mail or physically going and waiting in a line whe…

Why can't we work on both problems at the same time?

[deleted]

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#222

Post by tonyedgecombe »

andy_ppp wrote: post #76

I'm very very unconvinced by this, why can't we have a green jobs revolution and sensible environmental protections and growth! These are not exclusive, just caused by a lack of imagination.

They may well be exclusive:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563467.2019.15...

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#223

Post by PeterisP »

mrpopo wrote: post #118
saint_fiasco wrote: post #106

That's easy to say from the First World, where they already traded our (global) environment for (local) gains. But what are the people in poor countries supposed to do? Just stay poor forever?

The problem of excessive energy consumption isn't caused by the people in poor countries though.

However, poor countries achieving consumption (and energy consumption) levels comparable to developed countries would definitely be excessive energy consumption, simply because there are so much more people in these poor countries.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#224

Post by nickik »

coldtea wrote: post #72
nickik wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. And sometimes its to the benefit of the environment, the employees and its in accordance with the rule of law. > 4. Investors need to invest money in instruments with a certain minimum ROI because if they don't, inflation will erode…

> And sometimes its to the benefit of the environment, the employees and its in accordance with the rule of law. Yes. Sometimes lottery is also the right investment: in the 1/10000000 of cases where you win...

Do yourself a favor and go down the list of every major industrial process and compare its waste stream and environmental impact, its pretty evident that the majority these process are more efficient and less wasteful.

Companies make thins more efficient, and thus they impact the environment less.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#225

Post by corporate_shi11 »

mcny wrote: post #152
adventured wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's asset inflation, which is where most of the Fed's inflation (eg many trillions of dollars of overvaluation into the stock market) via artificially low rates has gone since the Clinton and Bush years when they helped to spark the stock market bubble (#1, #2 and now #3) and then the housing bubble that way. Then they openly admitted to intentionally reinflating the housing market with their various market interven…

> Warren Buffett likes to regularly point out that the Fed's rates act like gravity on stock valuations. The lower the rates, the less gravity. The same is largely true of how housing is affected by the Fed's rates. If you want to absolutely crush housing prices, push Fed rates back up to where mortgage rates are at 15-20% again. What that all really means is, the lower the rates, the more asset valuation inflation o…

What you're describing would completely cripple the economy and raise rents rather than lower them, the opposite of what you hope for.

A severe tax on property would simply force property owners to raise rents. This in turn would price people out of the market. The housing stock would suffer as property owners would have no excess funds to make improvements and repairs to property. Building of new property would slow as the market for property deteriorates.

Beyond that...

VAT has had disastrous effects on European economies (go look at the price of goods in Europe. Significantly higher in real terms than in the US). Part of this lies in the way VAT obscures the tax portion of cost, allowing governments to surreptitiously raise taxes. This has happened in most developed countries where VAT is implemented.

You also mention government doing many wonderful things with its newfound revenue, but the reality is that government spending is usually wasted on bureaucratic bloat and other inefficient allocations.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#226

Post by corporate_shi11 »

deergomoo wrote: post #23
hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

I've long been of the opinion that the public trading of companies is directly responsible for much of the social injustice we see in the West. As soon as there's a fiduciary duty to maximise ROI, morals go out the window. If you as an officer resist, the collective of shareholders will replace you with someone who will make more money. There's a dissolution of responsibility that comes with the distributed nature of…

Regardless of who owns shares in a corporation, there will be a drive to efficiency, reduced cost and profit maximisation.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#227

Post by ezzzzz »

pjc50 wrote: post #66
kome wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you re-discovered or independently discovered the basis marxism, sort of.

I guess you're being downvoted because of the M word, but you have a point; it's very similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...

Can somebody explain the stigma regarding Marx on HN? I mean, I get that this a forum for a VC firm but isn't it also a place for academic discussion? It's pretty hard to discuss things like income disparity, automation, etc without a mention.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#228

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #153
new2628 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inflation is already almost zero in much of the West. pet theory: Inflation is way way more than zero almost everywhere (prices of services and rents reflect this), but high inflation is masked by increased supply chain efficiencies, cheapening (in some cases worsening) of products and other factors, which keep prices of physical products relatively stable.

Inflation is the opposite of cheapening, so I don’t see how that can be. What you may be feeling though, and what isn’t calculated in any numbers, are the increases in volatility, which is itself a cost. The volatility of not living in the few economically burgeoning regions, the volatility of having to keep moving up the ladder or else falling behind, increased years of education and loans for what may or may not be…

[deleted]

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#229

Post by [deleted] »

konschubert wrote: post #111
hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

4. Isn’t true. Even at zero actual growth, you would have nominal growth that matches the inflation rate. Inflation means that the prices of the products that the companies sell increase as well. Inflation doesn’t matter

[deleted]

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#230

Post by konschubert »

gpanders wrote: post #193
konschubert wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Isn’t true. Even at zero actual growth, you would have nominal growth that matches the inflation rate. Inflation means that the prices of the products that the companies sell increase as well. Inflation doesn’t matter

It absolutely does matter, particularly for owners of debt (bonds). Inflation will eviscerate returns on bonds and all other fixed-income investments.

Inflation is already priced into bonds. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s more or less predictable.
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