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It’s Time to Build

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Re: It’s Time to Build

#381

Post by darkerside »

tlb wrote: post #144
oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

Getting an answer from a court (is X legal?) takes a long time: at least a few years and several hundred thousand dollars. Far too long to wait before building a business around X. Asking people to build the business first and then find out if it's legal isn't how a society of laws is supposed to work. Fast courts would be a huge benefit to society.

Problem is, the faster courts are, the more likely people are to actually wait for them, which ends up a net slowdown. Really the only path to success is, take a risk to try to beat the competition and hope the courts side with you in the end. And if you're successful, they probably will.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#382

Post by pmarca »

solidasparagus wrote: post #203

Well Marc, one problem is the world of VC-driven innovation. Building truly revolutionary work takes time and commitment, while the VC ecosystem and entrepreneurial culture actively works against this. - Telling founders to be underpaid and commit their entire finances to the success of their startups forces startups to spend more time finding product-market fit than building what the world needs long-term. - Hiring…

Fortunately, VCs have no regulatory protection whatsoever. Build a better way to finance innovation!

Re: It’s Time to Build

#383

Post by tathougies »

pmarca wrote: post #371
trimbo wrote: post #42

> Why shouldn’t regulators and taxpayers demand that Harvard build? Wait, wut? Last I checked, Harvard is a private institution. Besides, Harvard produces its graduates because they can be picky on who they can admit. Why would we assume that Harvard can scale to provide a "Harvard education" to someone who didn't qualify to make it in today?

Harvard is subsidized by the federal government and the American taxpayer several ways. It benefits from federal student loan programs. It receives federal research grants. It is allowed to be a tax-exempt institution. And it is allowed to own a tax-exempt endowment. Normal private institutions in America have none of those.

> Normal private institutions in America have none of those.

This is not true. Any non-profit classified corporation would be tax-exempt. This is not particularly difficult to set up. All you need to do is file with the IRS and not have shareholders.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#384

Post by tathougies »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #63

> The problem is desire. We need to want these things. The problem is inertia. I agreed with most of the essay until I got to this point, at which point I rolled my eyes and briefly skimmed the rest. It's akin to people who say that the reason there are so many overweight people is that they lack willpower and motivation. Look at pictures from middle-America in the late 1940s - virtually everyone is thin, whereas tod…

> Did we all just magically lose willpower over the last 70 years?

Um no. The people in the 40s didn't have the choice to eat as much as we do today calorie wise. That is really all there is to eat. Food today is cheaper than ever. While that means fewer people go hungry, it means more people overeat. It has nothing to do with city design because cities that existed in the 40s largely in the same form still have greater rates of obesity.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#385

Post by jennyyang »

Vomzor wrote: post #350
djcapelis wrote: post #238

> But the harsh reality is that it all failed — no Western country, or state, or city was prepared This is silly. There are clear differences in response. Here’s just one example: 21 Jan - The city department of public health activates its operations center to prepare for a potential outbreak. 28 Jan - The city activates its emergency operations center. 25 Feb - The city formally declares a state of emergency to prep…

The first official case was in March. The actual first case was at the beginning of January. The shelter in place order means the city failed to anticipate and acted when it was too late. Like the rest of the Western world.

No. San Francisco was the first to act, and put pressure on the rest of the Bay Area to follow, and subsequently California. If SF didn't act first, who knows how long it would have taken for other politicians to have the "courage" to put in such draconian, but effective, measures. As far as I'm concerned, London Breed saved tens of thousands of lives in the Bay Area alone, and I hate her politics.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#386

Post by lookdangerous »

fcarraldo wrote: post #332
darawk wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Markets build in response to incentives. Most American production choices are determined by markets, including the choices of investors allocating capital. This leaves out the most important problem though: regulatory capture and bureaucratic gridlock. Markets would love to build more housing. But they're prevented from doing so by the regulatory state. Markets would love to build nuclear power plants, but they're…

> Markets would love to build more housing. But they're prevented from doing so by the regulatory state. I'm not certain this is a problem outside of the Bay area.

My understanding is the cost of construction has risen dramatically in recent decades, in proportion to an explosion of construction regulation.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#387

Post by tathougies »

kitotik wrote: post #198

Somewhat related, but The New Deal basically invested 40% of the GDP into ‘building’ and paying Americans to do it. The US in 2020 just invested roughly 10% of the GDP to prop up some corporations, and more or less called it a day.

The New Deal did not end the Great Depression though. World War II did.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#388

Post by tekdude »

Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues, but who will actually do the political work to fight against it? Someone spent money to capture the regulations in the first place, through lobbying and campaign donations. Who will spend the money to lobby and donate for the cause of undoing that?

The "builders"? No, their focus and limited capital is spent on whatever it is they are working on.

The most logical choice would be the investor class who supports such work. After all, these regulations create legal risk (from lawsuits/fines/regulators) for the ventures they fund. It also makes employees more expensive (through higher housing/education/medical costs), thus requiring more investment just to get a venture going. Yet, why is there no real, funded, concerted effort against regulatory capture? Just essays and talk?

I suspect two potential reasons:

(1) Opening regulations would help all current and future ventures, not just an investor's own portfolio, so no single investor has an incentive to do it by them self.

(2) Such investors are typically wealthy, and spending money to tear down regulatory capture that other wealthy people already paid for would be... uncomfortable. Such spending could be seen as indirectly attacking friends, relatives, college classmates, etc... No one wants to be labeled a class traitor.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#389

Post by tathougies »

My take... we need to greatly increase access to capital by dropping the accredited investor requirements. It is ridiculous that people in less economically advantaged areas are forced to grovel to those deemed rich for capital rather than ask their neighbors and friends for investments. Instead of allowing these people to make investments, the government throws them a bone by allowing them to 'crowdfund', which is another name for making an investment without being entitled to any of the return (dividends and shares). Instead, we incentivize capital sharing only for the rich and are surprised when the rich get richer.

This is the greatest form of regulatory capture in existence today because it cuts across all industries and fields. It is a regulatory capture of the free market itself by the rich.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#390

Post by nerfhammer »

csallen wrote: post #357
CyanLite4 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress has a 20% approval rating, polled weekly for over the past decade. Yet we vote every two years for the same folks who give us the same results. The problem isn’t them. It’s us.

I was going to say the same. Lawmakers are elected officials. They're incentivized to do what gets them votes. And voters are concerned with the complexity of laws. Perhaps what we need is better education to create more informed voters. But if lawmakers are in charge of that, too, I'm not super hopeful.

voters say they want that, but do they ever monitor the complexity of any particular bill and vote differently next time strictly because of it?
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