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Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

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Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#311

Post by WalterBright »

mullingitover wrote: post #308
WalterBright wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also quit before you start and fail 100% of the time.

It's not failing if you didn't waste time and you still have 100% of your capital in the bank. I'm also not saying nobody should take risks, or that you can't create your own luck, just pointing out that there's an element of chance in every success.

A common thread I've noticed in people who say it's all luck is they never recognize when they are being lucky, and good fortune passes them by, unnoticed. Successful people feel lucky because they notice good luck and take advantage.

For example - odds are very good you're healthy. That's lucky! You live in the US - a lucky place to start a business! The internet makes it easy - lucky! You have an education - more great luck! If not, there's a free youtube video on just about anything you need to learn - what great luck!

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#312

Post by viklove »

WalterBright wrote: post #288
pslw71 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the proceeds still go to the landowner. The times that high rise buildings had cheap rents are long gone. So what is the point? Get out of your bubble and see how poor people are. Typical Caltech brat.

> And the proceeds still go to the landowner. You can buy property and multiply its value by 10 by putting a 10 story building on it, and even sell floors on it. It happens all the time. It is simply not a fixed supply. > Typical Caltech brat LOL. My opinions on markets were quite atypical for Caltech students in the 1970s. They're likely even less typical today. Setting aside opinions, I've been in business and asso…

> You can buy property

Most people can't afford to buy property. That's sort of the crux of this discussion. Half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and about the same amount have less than $10k in the bank.

> I've been in business and associated with business entrepreneurs ever since Caltech. Consistently, those with positive outlooks and willingness to take action have done very well.

Yes, people who have money can easily acquire more money. Most people don't start out with money though, so it's rather selfish to judge the world solely from this perspective.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#313

Post by WalterBright »

viklove wrote: post #312
WalterBright wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the proceeds still go to the landowner. You can buy property and multiply its value by 10 by putting a 10 story building on it, and even sell floors on it. It happens all the time. It is simply not a fixed supply. > Typical Caltech brat LOL. My opinions on markets were quite atypical for Caltech students in the 1970s. They're likely even less typical today. Setting aside opinions, I've been in business and asso…

> You can buy property Most people can't afford to buy property. That's sort of the crux of this discussion. Half of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and about the same amount have less than $10k in the bank. > I've been in business and associated with business entrepreneurs ever since Caltech. Consistently, those with positive outlooks and willingness to take action have done very well. Yes, people who have money…

> That's sort of the crux of this discussion.

This discussion is about property being zero-sum. It isn't zero sum.

> Most people don't start out with money though

There are endless businesses one can start with no money.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#314

Post by partiallypro »

monocasa wrote: post #247
partiallypro wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In the past ~50 years in the US, labor has been on the back foot, and productivity gains have gone almost exclusively to the wealthy, rather than the working class. " How so? The poorest working people in the US today are much much much better off than they were 50 years ago. It's not even close. A lot of people have recency bias, technology gains etc have given much more freedom to individuals, made work easier and…

What stats are you looking at? Real wages have been stagnant for the vast majority of workers in the US. And the "pulled people out of poverty" thing is such a BS stat. Converting subsistence farmers into sweat shop workers so that they they have $1.50/day instead of $0/day isn't a real metric of pulling people out of poverty. It's more a metric of how tied into the global system they are.

$1.50/day has much more purchasing power in poorer countries. Any time someone makes such a statement, I can immediately tell they are ignorant on basic economics. The US also used to have low wages for entry level workers, as did every (no developed) country. That's how progress is made. You can't expect a poor farmer with minimal skills to start making $25 an hour. And what stats am I looking at? What stats are YOU looking at? Even if you believe the notion that real wages are flat (not true,) living standards have still risen drastically thanks to technology. Do you think technology gains just come out of thin air? No, they are driven by competition and the need to profit.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#315

Post by robomartin »

speedgoose wrote: post #239
robomartin wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

East and West Germany. If that doesn't expose the horror that socialism can bring to a population I don't know how else to explain it. If one were to make a list of all of the advances in humanity across a range of fields of study, one would be very hard pressed to match the accomplishments of capitalism-rooted systems with what came out of the entire human history of socialist-based systems. One list is a thousand k…

You didn't listen well in the history class, am I wrong ?

Yes, you are.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#316

Post by fzeroracer »

WalterBright wrote: post #297
mr_toad wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no possibility of increasing the supply nor making more efficient use of existing supply. Sounds pretty much like the housing market where I live.

Ones where government zoning and regulation prevent any change, sure. But you can't really blame the marketplace for that.

There is no such thing as a free market for housing, because the only thing stopping someone else from squatting in your house and telling you to get bent at any time is the government.

Land is inherently limited, and becomes more limited the higher the population concentration. Eventually this can lead to things like AirBnB and other rent seeking behaviors in the absence of government intervention leading to gentrification.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#317

Post by karamazov2 »

pyrale wrote: post #43
chungy wrote: post #10

Monopoly teaches people a view of economics being a zero-sum game and too many people learn the wrong lessons from it. Real life isn't a zero-sum game.

The monopoly game is not zero-sum. Money increases when you pass start, and cards drawn are on average a source of money. In fact, the money owned by players inflates as the game goes on.

But the transactions between players are zero-sum... An interesting, related point: zero-sum trading games (even ones based on chance [1]) always devolve into pareto/power law distributions when bankruptcy is a possibility. More a matter of natural law than the "evils" of capitalism

[1] trading game simulation: https://youtu.be/CsRLVZTYpGo?t=313

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#318

Post by WalterBright »

fzeroracer wrote: post #316
WalterBright wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ones where government zoning and regulation prevent any change, sure. But you can't really blame the marketplace for that.

There is no such thing as a free market for housing, because the only thing stopping someone else from squatting in your house and telling you to get bent at any time is the government. Land is inherently limited, and becomes more limited the higher the population concentration. Eventually this can lead to things like AirBnB and other rent seeking behaviors in the absence of government intervention leading to gentrif…

> because the only thing stopping someone else from squatting in your house and telling you to get bent at any time is the government.

You're suggesting the government is anti-ethical to the free market. On the contrary, the government is required for a free market. The role of government is protection of property rights and contract enforcement.

> Land is inherently limited

Land use, however, is not limited. For example, building a 10 story building increases the amount of usable "land" by a factor of 10.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#319

Post by duxut_staglatz »

cryptica wrote: post #131

"Georgism" is actually a really great idea but the name is terrible. I remember I tried to discuss it with someone once and they chuckled when I said the word "Georgism". They couldn't actually listen to my argument. I think names are very important. For example, I find it ingenious that the country "French Guyana" has the word "French" in it and that there is another country in South America already called "Guyana";…

It is called Guyane in French. Given that the locals are not English native speakers, I fail to see how the English name influences their national identity.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#320

Post by simion314 »

robomartin wrote: post #219
simion314 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 why not get the top say 10000 smartest people that want to study medicine and offer them free education. If some rich person is not in the top he can pay. Why would you prefer to lose some smart but poor people. I understand that the system is super complex and if you clean it up you would probably don't need to pay more insurance or taxes though I seen there is a lot of FUD that an European like system would cost…

These are fair questions and I don't have real answers, just opinion based on having a good deal of exposure to other cultures and systems. I believe one of the misconceptions in the US is that free university in other countries means anyone gets in. That is simply not the case. A very simple example I have of this is the daughter of one of our close friends who wants to study medicine in Spain. She has been preparin…

I agree that you need to find a way to bring the costs down, I think that a lot of money are wasted, For example in Mathematics or computer science you don't need super expensive equipment, you need good professors that are good at teaching.

Some universities have buildings with cheap bedrooms for students, places with cheap but good cooked food.

What I think it happened in US is the capitalistic thing where you raise the prices until people stop buying so the final price is not the costs + some profit on top but just the maximum money you could force out from your customers , you could say that maybe true free markets can solve this but for medicine you can't have 1000 universities competing because this domain is not like math or computers, you need access to hospitals to train your students.

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