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Burrito Now, Pay Later

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Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#341

Post by blagie »

platevoltage wrote: post #173
monero-xmr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so so happy we live in a democracy. Because if your ilk managed to take power, it would only have been possible through violent authoritarian revolution

Just think. If the capitalist soul sucking robber barons weren't hoarding every morsel of wealth they possibly could, policies like this wouldn't cross anyone's mind in the first place.

A major goal of policy is to set incentives to which people optimize.

The "capitalist soul sucking robber barons" are doing exactly what the incentives we set up push for. If they didn't, boards of directors / shareholders would vote them out. And if those didn't, competing businesses would crush them. No one has any real choice; it's the free hand of the market.

There are nice books about this (Dictator's Handbook comes to mind).

Many would prefer to be less exploitative personally, but need legal frameworks to be able to do so. And indeed, in history, you often saw the "capitalist soul sucking robber barons" see the harms they were causing and push for that regulation. Most people would prefer to provide safe food, safe medicine, etc. than sell poison and snakeoil. But you can't really resist market forces.

So you need to work to set up socially-constructive market forces.

And it's all better than serfdom and 1500-era systems regardless.

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#342

Post by blagie »

hgomersall wrote: post #205
platevoltage wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just think. If the capitalist soul sucking robber barons weren't hoarding every morsel of wealth they possibly could, policies like this wouldn't cross anyone's mind in the first place.

Part of the trick is to foist on us the economic priests that tell us of the fire and brimstone that will fall on us if governments ever use their currency issuing power for social improvements.

I'm not so sure. I can describe some of the paradoxes in our social systems in-depth, but it's often the poorest people saying we can't afford social improvements.

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#343

Post by cryptonector »

blagie wrote: post #340
cryptonector wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. has done something like this, which in the 80s was called "the projects".

It's a little bit different. "The projects" were only available to the very poor, and often by lottery. They often turned into a ghetto. I'd like a baseline option open to everyone. If you just finished Stanford, and want to bootstrap a startup, teach kids, or do a non-profit, you should be able to move into a "project" too while getting things off the ground. If you're a student and want to save a bit of money, you…

> But the critical thing is at that point, for-profit housing has competition.

So that's your premise, that private housing has no competition. But clearly it does: itself. It's not one monolythic actor but many. Your premise is simply wrong, but let's say you could be right: can you back that up with data or the like?

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#344

Post by blagie »

cryptonector wrote: post #343
blagie wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little bit different. "The projects" were only available to the very poor, and often by lottery. They often turned into a ghetto. I'd like a baseline option open to everyone. If you just finished Stanford, and want to bootstrap a startup, teach kids, or do a non-profit, you should be able to move into a "project" too while getting things off the ground. If you're a student and want to save a bit of money, you…

> But the critical thing is at that point, for-profit housing has competition. So that's your premise, that private housing has no competition. But clearly it does: itself. It's not one monolythic actor but many. Your premise is simply wrong, but let's say you could be right: can you back that up with data or the like?

You misunderstand both my premise and basic economics.

I would recommend reading the original Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, which forms the basis of modern capitalism.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300

It's clear, analytical, and mostly correct.

Chapter XI, The Rent of Land, is pretty quaint at this point, but gives a compelling counterpoint to your argument. It begins:

"Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself, without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more."

The basic analysis of the chapter can be translated from 1780-era industries into 2025-era industries, and explains much of how housing markets work.

If you would like contemporary data, I would recommend looking at the impact on the price of housing of European cities which offered nationalized below-market housing.

A central fallacy in most of the libertarian space stems from the difference between industries which are not zero-sum (e.g. manufacturing, software, writing, etc.), and rent-collecting ones (e.g. literal rent, much of finance, mining, etc.). Here, I use "rent" as economics jargon, not common meaning. You can look it up.

Being used to operating in domains like software -- which has literally zero marginal cost -- there is a natural tendency to want to extrapolate the same dynamics to other industries.

However, economics works out differently in industries like that. For the most part, if there is a finite amount of stuff, it makes sense to divide it fairly to avoid dynamics like that. If you're producing stuff, it makes sense to divide it according to how much you contribute.

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#345

Post by cryptonector »

blagie wrote: post #344
cryptonector wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the critical thing is at that point, for-profit housing has competition. So that's your premise, that private housing has no competition. But clearly it does: itself. It's not one monolythic actor but many. Your premise is simply wrong, but let's say you could be right: can you back that up with data or the like?

You misunderstand both my premise and basic economics. I would recommend reading the original Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, which forms the basis of modern capitalism. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300 It's clear, analytical, and mostly correct. Chapter XI, The Rent of Land, is pretty quaint at this point, but gives a compelling counterpoint to your argument. It begins: "Rent, considered as the price paid for…

Your lecture is not even remotely responsive. Please explain how there is no competition in the private market for housing. Because right now someone I care about is moving because their landlord jacked up the rent in the middle of a down market for rents, so they are moving somewhere better and cheaper, and that looks for all the world to me like competition. I know that you mean competition from not-private providers, but that's not explaining why a not-free provider is good. Why not just nationalize all housing?

You argue that housing has a finite supply, but that's true of cars and steel and everything: there is always a finite supply. I couldn't buy more of anything than is currently available no matter how much money I have. You probably mean that housing stock grows too slowly, but even this isn't true. (Where I live rents are falling fast because housing was overbuilt, so it's not even true that excess housing is never built.) Clearly if housing stock were growing at half the rate of the population then we'd have a huge homelessness problem, but we don't.

> You can look it up.

So can you, but you are the one making exceptional claims. So please post some links. Your superior attitude doesn't help your position. For example:

> If you would like contemporary data, I would recommend looking at the impact on the price of housing of European cities which offered nationalized below-market housing.

Links?? And no, I'm not going to look it up. You look it up.

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#346

Post by blagie »

cryptonector wrote: post #345
blagie wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand both my premise and basic economics. I would recommend reading the original Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, which forms the basis of modern capitalism. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300 It's clear, analytical, and mostly correct. Chapter XI, The Rent of Land, is pretty quaint at this point, but gives a compelling counterpoint to your argument. It begins: "Rent, considered as the price paid for…

Your lecture is not even remotely responsive. Please explain how there is no competition in the private market for housing. Because right now someone I care about is moving because their landlord jacked up the rent in the middle of a down market for rents, so they are moving somewhere better and cheaper, and that looks for all the world to me like competition. I know that you mean competition from not-private provide…

> You argue that housing has a finite supply, but that's true of cars and steel and everything: there is always a finite supply

Land is a finite supply. With zoning (and with exponentially rising costs for skyscrapers over one-story homes), so is housing on land. At least in places where housing is expensive (e.g. major cities like SFO, NYC, Tokyo, Shanghai, etc.), this is a limited, rent-extracting resource.

The Earth's crust is about 5% iron. Cars are limited by our capacity to produce them.

> I know that you mean competition from not-private providers, but that's not explaining why a not-free provider is good.

No, that's not what I mean. I would recommend taking a basic econ course to understand jargon like "free good," "scarce good," and "rent." I won't fix that in a web post.

Khan Academy is not bad for this kind of basic economics.

> So can you, but you are the one making exceptional claims.

Ah yes. The great controversy of Adam Smith and basic economics.

I gave one link, which you clearly didn't bother to even click through.

> Links?? And no, I'm not going to look it up. You look it up.

Fine. Wallow in ignorance. I won't be responding further.

https://xkcd.com/386/

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#347

Post by int_19h »

SR2Z wrote: post #329
lumost wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiously, medieval societies struggled with “usury”. Effectively being a wage earner was a tough game as you might owe rent, have a bad month, or end up overly indebted. Most wage earners eventually became indentured servants or worse. This contrasts with peasants who had permanent land rights and owned everything they produced, and did not have a fixed rent. It’s not just that people don’t understand debt, it’s tha…

Where do you get the idea that peasants owned their land? One of the defining traits of medieval Europe was that peasants were forced into serfdom and were granted the privilege to work the land. More primitive societies banned usury because the concept of interest was seen as unfair. This held them back from investing or speculating on the future and kept them very poor.

Serfdom was not universal in Europe, not even at the time when it peaked.

However, OP didn't talk about owning land but rather about "permanent land rights", which usually means the right to use land. That is, it would still be owned by the feudal, who might be able to sell it to another feudal, but the peasants that lived on it and farmed it were necessarily part of the deal and couldn't be just removed from the land at a whim. That was not an uncommon arrangement even in places that had serfdom.

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#348

Post by int_19h »

gruez wrote: post #260
mattmanser wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also labor and capital costs though, not just raw ingredient costs. It's also a byproduct of minimum wage, the time spent on making the burrito, prepping the kitchen, cleaning up, processing the order, doing the accounts, etc. all adds up meaning a single meal has a minimum cost directly proportional to minimum wage. Though don't get me wrong, minimum wage is an overall good imo. However if we had universal ba…

>However if we had universal basic income instead, and thus could scrap minimum wage, you might see the price of a burrito drop. ...at the expense of massive fiscal spending needed to fund the UBI in the first place.

Start taxing capital gains properly and we'll have plenty to fund that.

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#349

Post by int_19h »

nkrisc wrote: post #313
tirant wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main issue is forcing that protection down the throat of whomever doesn’t want to be protected. Or in other words, believing that the government knows better than you on how you should live your life.

And yet in some cases there are clear societal benefits that outweigh any hindrances on personal freedom, such as seat belts in vehicles. In any society, individuals must make personal sacrifices in order to be part of that society and to receive the benefits of society as a whole. It's not that "the government" knows better than you how you should live your life, but it sets the ground rules that we all must adhere…

The only reason why making seatbelts mandatory makes sense is because a body flying at 50 mph can do a lot of damage.

Re: Burrito Now, Pay Later

#350

Post by int_19h »

bombcar wrote: post #307
harrall wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To support your point, I live in the complete opposite of a food desert but I know a lot of people who don’t know how to cook… like not really. “Cooking” to them going to Trader’s Joes and buying one of those frozen packs. If I gave them a bunch of chicken breasts and broccoli, they would struggle to make it tasty, even if I told them it load it up with fats and sugars. Cooking — as in being able to make any set of c…

This is way more an issue than some realize. A repairman I used to know would always have great deals on amazing kitchen gear. It was always 5-10 years out of date but barely used (Viking oven where the burners had been used a bit, but the oven still had all the plastic bags and manuals in it). Super valuable houses where nobody ever cooked. He said the only thing he’d ever be called to service was the microwave and…

It does sound strange to me. I wouldn't consider myself as someone knowing how to cook, but I mean, there's stuff like eggs, pasta, or sausages that you literally just stick into a pot of water and boil it for N minutes (where N is right there on the packaging even). And you wouldn't do that in a microwave oven.
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