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It's not a crime if we do it with an app

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Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#341

Post by greyface- »

lesuorac wrote: post #169
greyface- wrote: post #125

> Inflation is one of the most politically salient factors of this decade > Inflation has lots of causes, it's true. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL Algorithmic price fixing is certainly a not-insignificant part of the issue. But it's strange to see zero acknowledgement of the massive increase in money supply over the same time period. When doing causal analysis, we need to examine both the private sector and…

> But it's strange to see zero acknowledgement of the massive increase in money supply over the same time period. Because when you look at inflation in the period of say ~2000 to ~2025 [1] it's really not very obvious that there's an increase in M2 from '08 onward. Talking about M2 as a source of inflation is like shouting Red at a roulette wheel. Sure, sometimes the ball will land on Red but your shouting is a non-s…

The CPI time series you provided is monthly % change. Here's M2 in those same units: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1DcYJ

They look pretty similar to me. Chaotic in the short term, but averaging positive between 0-1%. In other words, slow but consistent exponential growth. I didn't say anything about a discontinuity in '08, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that.

Edit: here they are both plotted side by side in those units: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1DcZr

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#342

Post by steveBK123 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #339
steveBK123 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar view during the GFC. Clearly crimes were committed, and clearly layers and layers of management were in on the joke, but only the few little fish at the bottom who were dumb enough to ever put things into writing with a paper trail went to jail. A lot of the alleged rogue traders were far less rogue than their employers would like you to believe, similar with the LIBOR fixing scandal, etc. J6 is very…

> The guy at the top never actually says the thing, Georgia literally has a recording of a criminal threatening to retaliate against a public official if they don't rig the election.

To be fair that was the one instance they have him dead to rights, true.

It is a bit unexpected I suppose for a normally friendly party to be recording your phone call. He did work in a less regulated environment than banking so recorded phone call probably caught him by surprise. No one was that dumb at banks (most calls are recorded and there’s often even a beep to remind you the line is recorded).

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#343

Post by datavirtue »

wat10000 wrote: post #132
hermannj314 wrote: post #32

This is the way our world works. If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months. If you illegally fix the price of potatoes and steal billions from the market, you will be allowed to operate for years in the open while a lengthy civil procedure eventually may ask you to give 1 or 2% of what you stole back in fines. Don't blame the potato theives or potat…

A real world example: wage theft in the US is bigger than all other forms of theft combined. How often do you hear about it? We hear endlessly about shoplifting rings and lax enforcement by lefty prosecutors. When was the last time you saw coverage of workers not being paid what they’re owed? When was the last time somebody went to jail for not paying their workers what they’re owed?

You don't talk bad about the advertisers.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#344

Post by philosopher1234 »

gruez wrote: post #234
philosopher1234 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing to look for would be the way that making long firm fraud easy to prosecute would lead to companies being accountable for things they don’t want to be accountable for.

Like what? Moreover, what does this hold for public policy? Should we bring back debtor's prisons? That would be the obvious solution to long firm fraud.

I’m not an expert, but the way you wrote your comment seemed to be discounting this possibility for no discernible reason

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#345

Post by wyager »

gmueckl wrote: post #328
wyager wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government needs to step in actively to keep a free market from collapsing into one of the natural end states. Which is what, exactly? The US is per capita richer than almost all EU countries by a huge margin (with a few small exceptions mostly enabled by regulatory arbitrage targeting US money), so forgive me if I don't take your seething commentary about the US economic apparatus very seriously.

Any free, unregulated market will eliminate competitors until they create an oligopoly or even a single monopoly. It's an immediate consequence of the rules of the market.

Despite constant moaning about the US not engaging in monopoly-busting anymore, that doesn't actually seem to be a problem in practice.

In reality, comparative advantage and specialization dynamics do not uniformly equilibrate on monopoly markets.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#346

Post by maeil »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #247
CogitoCogito wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if our goal were to stop this sort of corporate behavior, we would remove the requirement of a crime being intentional for corporations.

> we would remove the requirement of a crime being intentional for corporations You still have the problem of punishing diffuse guilt. The correct answer is fines. Massive fines, potentially to the point of bankruptcy. We don't like to do that, however, because corporations have many stakeholders who may not deserve punishment, e.g. employees.

No, that's not why "we" don't like to do that, as there's countless way around that problem. They don't like to do that because it hurts the main stakeholders: those holding the reigns, the 0.1%.

There's countless ways around the issue of "average" employees being punished. E.g. hard caps on top employee compensation for X years. Bans on dividends.

Forced stock dilution, now that's a solid one. Create extra shares equivalent to 20% of market cap, given to the government who sells them on the open market.

I'm sure there's holes in these but plenty of smarter people than me who can easily make them watertight.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#347

Post by gruez »

steveBK123 wrote: post #330
gruez wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To avoid having to pay any difference to make up the hourly wage to drivers, Uber runs an algorithm which kicks drivers out of the app randomly if demand gets too low, without warning or indication of when they can get back in. It can be minutes or hours. So the drivers remain on the road, driving/idling, waiting to get back into the app. The "work" is still getting done, but it doesn't count against Uber. I get leg…

If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers. They could have also kicked people out for full days, rest of shift, or given an indicator of when they may try again. Something that leaves it more clear they are off and don't linger around to try and get back in. Restaurants/retail will reduce staffing due to demand, but they d…

>If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers.

Most of those drivers were presumably enrolled before that legislation was passed/came into force. Blaming uber for having those drivers seems like a stretch.

> They could have also kicked people out for full days, rest of shift, or given an indicator of when they may try again. Something that leaves it more clear they are off and don't linger around to try and get back in.

Is this a real concern? This seems like something that sucks for the first few days and then everyone realizes what's the new normal and adapts accordingly. I don't doubt uber could have done better here, but characterizing poor UI as "circumvent the NYC law to try and ensure Uber drivers get a fair minimum wage" is a stretch. It's also unclear how uber benefits from drivers being frustrated at the UI.

>Restaurants/retail will reduce staffing due to demand, but they don't leave people hanging by an on-call thread the way this automated Uber model did.

Uber driver are not "on call". They can sign off at any time. Sure, they might need the money, but in that respect I don't see how that's any different than 0 hour contracts that some restaurants have.

>Agreed a lot of businesses moved people to 32 hour weeks to avoid ACA, which is a different issue.. how's all the on-demand faux contractor workforces healthcare though?

The point isn't that being an uber driver is a dream job, it's that contrary to your rhetoric of "Imagine a small restaurant doing similar", small restaurants indeed will do something similar, if given the chance.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#348

Post by lesuorac »

pwg wrote: post #207
whatevaa wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most profits are distributed by capital (like share price) increases rather than dividends.

Stock dividends and stock price appreciation are two sides of the same coin. Both are "money returns to investors in the business". All that differs between them is the tax treatment each gets come tax time.

> All that differs between them is the tax treatment each gets come tax time.

And that if you hold a stock for say 10 years and somehow sell during a recession you could make ~0$ on that stock if it only did buybacks. While with a dividend you'd have come out ahead.

Conceptually they have very different incentives as well. With buybacks you want a company to have high volatility as well as to make short term decisions so that you can buy a dip, ask for say lay-offs, and sell as it goes up. With dividends you want the company to make longer term strategic decisions so that their revenue goes up and you get a larger dividend.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#349

Post by dghlsakjg »

arrosenberg wrote: post #314
pwg wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The supplies of these goods have had occasional disruptions but are largely unchanged. Those "disruptions" you refer to create periods of "lack of supply" (i.e., less of the goods). That is what the "disruption" is, a temporary reduction in the "supply" > The demand has not changed in any material way. True, but, during the period of "temporary reduction in the supply" (i.e., the disruption) Econ 101's supply/deman…

Forget about oil for a second. Why is a large box of cereal $8 at the supermarket? It costs pennies to produce, maybe a dollar in landed cost. The small box costs almost the same landed and it's $5, which is also absurd. There is no supply shortage of corn and sugar, and no glut of demand for cereal. I'm not stupid, I understand supply and demand. COVID was 4 years ago. Explain the $8 box of cereal.

What it costs to produce is irrelevant in an equilibrium price for supply and demand. I'm not sure you do understand.

Many people are buying the cereal for $8. Its that simple.

There is enough demand for it at $8 that the company is happy with the market clearing their supply at that price point.

If people were not buying the cereal at that price, they would lower it, or have gone out of business by now.

If someone could produce a substitute for far cheaper, and undercut, they would, and they do, but consumers are partial to name brands.

Cheerios are $5 at Walmart, People are buying them. Those people that think that $5 is too much can and do buy the $2 off-brand alternative.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#350

Post by gruez »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #344
gruez wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what? Moreover, what does this hold for public policy? Should we bring back debtor's prisons? That would be the obvious solution to long firm fraud.

I’m not an expert, but the way you wrote your comment seemed to be discounting this possibility for no discernible reason

Debtor's prisons were widely considered to be cruel, which is why they were abolished basically everywhere in the developed world.
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