Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#241

Post by p1necone » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:01 AM UTC

h0l0cube wrote: post #189

4773ueudjj wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't actually compare it with eugenics though, they compared the nature of the discourse around eugenics to discourse around minimum wage with the penultimate point of explaining a mix of why/how they distrust economists, specifically economists, to handle discussions about ethics. They weren't making a direct comparison between the topics themselves and yet most of the replies are reacting as if they had, ill…

> these sorts of talks with laymen are bad ideas Condescension by experts is one means by which bad ideas can promulgate, and lead to bad policy. Everyone you speak with is a potential voter, and at the end of the day, badly or uninformed voters are bad for democratic outcomes. To go back to your original criticism, asking for background information is a lazy dismissal wasn't a fair assessment. Is wasn't a dismissal…

This tiresome blatant gish galloping conservative bullshit has been getting more and more common on hacker news lately. I wonder if it's because we're getting close to a US election. I find it deeply concerning because hacker news is generally a bastion of intellectually honest discussion (at least relative to the rest of the internet).

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#242

Post by roenxi » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:04 AM UTC

altacc wrote: post #238

roenxi wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This assumes that people actually behave rationally. There isn't an alternative. If you assume people behave irrationally you may as well send the army in straight away. People are often stupid but rarely irrational given what they can understand. There is pretty solid evidence that people with money are the ones who spend it rationally. And besides a private buyer's opinion of what is rational is just as valid as…

There is an alternative to assumming people behave rationally, which is to model behaviors based on large scale evidence, not clean ideals. This is pretty much why Sociology and Anthropology exist and are fairly complicated subjects. Economic modelling often fails because they assume a small number of rational and logic rules. But people are highly variable and rational for one person is irrational for another, depen…

> ... poor people are often spending money rationally ...

I claimed that most people spent their money rationally. You're not countering me with that point, we're agreeing. If wealthy people make a habit of spending irrationally they go broke.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#243

Post by agent008t » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:06 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #218

roenxi wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mr. Mouse has a good take on this but there is a second perspective that is worth considering: If we set up a dog-eat-dog world where only money matters, why would a billionaire hoard unneeded masks? They know that they can just buy what they need when the need it. The only people with incentive to hoard are poor and vulnerable people because they know they won't be able to afford masks when they run out. Entrepreneu…

This assumes that people actually behave rationally. Do we have actual numbers on rich people buying TP during the present crisis? If most people including the rich are going to hoard anyway a rising price just transfers more money to sellers when many need it most. Worse it incentivizes people to buy for resale if the price is trending upward. TP selling for 200% that is headed to 400% shortly is a smarter buy than…

Buying for resale by definition means that more TP is available for purchase.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#244

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:16 AM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #128

logicchains wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it's the language: it would support "accepted by a majority of economists", but I don't think 57% support counts as "pretty widely accepted as a good idea by... most economists".

Which is why I said "most?". I knew I wasn't sure so I communicated that. Sorry if it wasn't obvious enough.

[deleted]

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#245

Post by me_me_me » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:17 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #242

altacc wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an alternative to assumming people behave rationally, which is to model behaviors based on large scale evidence, not clean ideals. This is pretty much why Sociology and Anthropology exist and are fairly complicated subjects. Economic modelling often fails because they assume a small number of rational and logic rules. But people are highly variable and rational for one person is irrational for another, depen…

> ... poor people are often spending money rationally ... I claimed that most people spent their money rationally. You're not countering me with that point, we're agreeing. If wealthy people make a habit of spending irrationally they go broke.

The whole point of marketing, which often account for over 50% of products' budget, is direct appeal to emotional/irrational aspect of human nature.

Average person doesnt buy iphone because they need a new phone, or coke to quench their thirst.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#246

Post by p1necone » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #128

logicchains wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it's the language: it would support "accepted by a majority of economists", but I don't think 57% support counts as "pretty widely accepted as a good idea by... most economists".

Which is why I said "most?". I knew I wasn't sure so I communicated that. Sorry if it wasn't obvious enough.

Also all of these sources people are citing are from shadowy "conservative think tanks", got anything with a little less blatantly obvious bias?

epionline.org is especially laughably biased and cherry picked.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#247

Post by numbsafari » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:20 AM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #71

quotemstr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. Are you against the idea of prices and money generally? If yes, that's been tried. Doesn't work. If no, why are you carving out a special case in your general acceptance of the price mechanism for this particular family of goods? Why is it okay to charge for food?

The opinion that charging people out the nose for basic necessities is a bad way to allocate resources isn't the same as being "opposed to money"

100% Correct.

Money is still really important, but it’s dishonest and counterfactual to argue that mere access to liquidity can determine the clearing price for a market.

We know it doesn’t. That’s why we have the Fed.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#248

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

neilwilson wrote: post #153

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the biggest flaw in your argument. If toilet paper was $20/roll, that wouldn't deter someone who has none in the slightest bit. They'd buy one roll and pay $20 in a second. But that guy who was trying to buy a thousand? He's thinking twice.

"But that guy who was trying to buy a thousand? He's thinking twice." Why wouldn't he just borrow the money to pay for it, hoard the supply and then flip it back onto the market when the price hits $40? You're assuming a finite amount of money, but the monetary system is necessarily elastic. Then the hoard, because it has gone up in value, becomes collateral for more loans. Whereas rationing necessarily solves the di…

Because at some point, TP will go back to $0.50/roll essentially permanently.

You can’t be sure that you’re buying on a sustained upswing in prices.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#249

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:30 AM UTC

agent008t wrote: post #243

michaelmrose wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that people actually behave rationally. Do we have actual numbers on rich people buying TP during the present crisis? If most people including the rich are going to hoard anyway a rising price just transfers more money to sellers when many need it most. Worse it incentivizes people to buy for resale if the price is trending upward. TP selling for 200% that is headed to 400% shortly is a smarter buy than…

Buying for resale by definition means that more TP is available for purchase.

Buying for resale doesn't magically create TP. The amount of TP available to consumers is the same, the amount of money made by TP producers is the same. But consumers have to spend more money, because there's a parasitic layer of resellers introducing friction into the system.

Re: Economists who defend disaster profiteers are wrong

#250

Post by Leherenn » Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 10:31 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #187

neilwilson wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But that guy who was trying to buy a thousand? He's thinking twice." Why wouldn't he just borrow the money to pay for it, hoard the supply and then flip it back onto the market when the price hits $40? You're assuming a finite amount of money, but the monetary system is necessarily elastic. Then the hoard, because it has gone up in value, becomes collateral for more loans. Whereas rationing necessarily solves the di…

Because they are running an enormous risk of a 50 crates of toilet paper being driven up in a hastily hired farm truck direct from a commercial factory at $19 a roll. Then they lose money per roll and that has a crippling effect on their finances because debt magnifies gains and losses. We know that the amount of toilet paper being produced matches how much is being consumed because it did pre-crisis and consumption/…

I think the issue here is that we are talking about toilet paper, which is not really vital. In this case, having people priced out for say 2 weeks before prices come down again is not the end of the world.

If we were talking about something really vital like food, those same 2 weeks become unacceptable.

It's a good thing that it did not happen at the same scale for food (supply is more elastic? demand is less elastic?) and that we can debate about an annoyance, not people starving.