No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#41

Post by jen20 » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:25 PM UTC

weweersdfsd wrote: post #33

realce wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mortgage is 30 years. Who thinks most people will have well-paying jobs in 20 years? In 10? In 5? What's the current percentage of American workers who can afford a house, a car, and a single child responsibly? What's the average income-to-mortgage ratio in America, is it sustainable? What rationalization are we supposed to have for self-worth when robots and AGI do all of "our" labor? This entire society is meltin…

Yeah, it's more or less same mess in Europe too. Young people are supposed to take 20-30 year mortgages that require a stable career to pay back, while corporations do their best to make everyone unemployed via advances in AI and robotics. Hell, my country also shares more than 1000km of with Russia, and who says we won't have WW3 in 20-30 years? At this point the main economic improvement in my life will probably co…

It is _far worse_ in Europe since mortgages are typically not fixed rate for 30 years - an aberration almost unique to the US.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#42

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:26 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #8

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... so long as the other villagers are fighting amongst themselves, over whether their house should be larger than that of their neighbor. Turns out most of their problems are arguably traceable back to those people with 100+ houses each. Which would be glaringly suspicious to an outside observer. But the vill…

Institutional housing ownership in the US is not a material contributor to housing price inflation [1]. With that said, we are approaching a housing shortage of +4.5M [2] units, and in concert with YieldStar's Backpage revenue maximization engine [3] (which is laundering landlord price fixing), renters are being squeezed (because where are you going to go if you can't afford to buy? you will pay, or you will be homeless, which certain jurisdictions are attempting to or have outlawed).

To solve housing for those who need housing, enact state level YIMBY policies to override local planning (who will always kowtow to local folks who show up to say no, and local folks who say no because it costs them nothing to do so as they already own), provide cheap money to builders [4], and build as fast as you can.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_impact_of_institut...

[2] https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2024-06-18-The-U-S-is-now-short...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[4] https://www.startribune.com/janet-yellen-minneapolis-treasur...

(Edit: I would still support restriction of investment ownership of housing, depending on implementation details; you have to defend the young from the old and Capital, as they are treating the young as cattle to be squeezed for all they've got simply by virtue of their existence timeline [5] [6], and it's causing folks to simply give up)

[5] https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_the_us_is_destr...

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K64GTDwWJo4

(as always, think in systems)

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#43

Post by stonethrowaway » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:26 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

> Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

They don’t care about a functional society or other people. Their kids are off in Bali this week, Nice the next.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#44

Post by goldcd » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:27 PM UTC

asynchronous wrote: post #6

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

Exponential revenue is easy - you just need exponential inflation and it comes for free.

Increased productivity is maybe the goal - but how it's measured is up for discussion. If you do it in dollars, then do you adjust for inflation? If you do, what inflation? (inflation on the price of bread or super-yachts etc).

Or do you do it in value? What can you get for your work? In the 1990s a "machine in your pocket that can play any music ever recorded" would have been near-impossible/priceless. 25 years later it costs maybe a dollar a day and we can all have it. If we can always get the same stuff for an ever-decreasing amount of effort, then that could be seen as exponential growth. You could argue that you could measure growth by technological advancement.

Conversely if your rent is going up 10% a year, then who cares that you're 5% more productive and making 5% more money every year. That doesn't feel like growth.

Unless you're not renting and you're the landlord and then you're experiencing sweet sweet growth.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#45

Post by ramesh31 » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:28 PM UTC

asynchronous wrote: post #6

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

>I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

Because entropy. When a living organism stops its exponential cell division, we call that death. In an economy, when things cease to grow, we call it recession. When that growth is in balance with the decay, we call it a healthy economy. When it outstrips it, we call that inflation, which the monetary system is designed to fight against.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#46

Post by jassyr » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:28 PM UTC

jasperry wrote: post #31

asynchronous wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

Value growth isn't tied to physical resources anymore, it's increasingly ascribed to intangible things, such as intellectual property. I'm not saying that growth is guaranteed to continue, just that economies have already been growing based on more abstract values; it's not all about food and fuel anymore.

Even so, the IP is used to make things which require resources. Disney IP is used to make toys, movies, books, etc, that all require electricity, paper, computers, employees sitting and eating, commuting into the office. Or a vaccine patent will be used to make a vaccine which requires a factory to be built and operated, the product produced, stored, shipped, used, and disposed into a landfill.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#47

Post by energy123 » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:29 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

Gen Z are the richest generation in all of American history on a median per-capita real income basis, compared to older generations when they were the same age. And it's not even close. Millenials are the second richest in American history.

The only problem is housing. Any discussion not focused 100% on housing is not grounded in reality.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#48

Post by cduzz » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:30 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #37

neilv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... so long as the other villagers are fighting amongst themselves, over whether their house should be larger than that of their neighbor. Turns out most of their problems are arguably traceable back to those people with 100+ houses each. Which would be glaringly suspicious to an outside observer. But the vill…

>Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. >But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... How much % of the housing supply is actually taken up by people with 100 houses?

Ever wonder about who can afford to make all-cash, above ask offers on houses?

Or you can rent that house after the PE firm buys it and rents it out...

https://www.propublica.org/article/when-private-equity-becom...

https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#49

Post by voisin » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:30 PM UTC

jasperry wrote: post #31

asynchronous wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

Value growth isn't tied to physical resources anymore, it's increasingly ascribed to intangible things, such as intellectual property. I'm not saying that growth is guaranteed to continue, just that economies have already been growing based on more abstract values; it's not all about food and fuel anymore.

> Value growth isn't tied to physical resources anymore, it's increasingly ascribed to intangible things, such as intellectual property

No this isn’t accurate. No one values IP for its own sake; it is still responsible for generating revenue and being translated into profit. The process by which this happens is still resource extraction (raw materials into chips, energy into processors, etc etc etc).

And you are really only talking about tech. Every other industry has the same demand for infinite growth and can’t hide behind an IP abstraction layer.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#50

Post by floatrock » Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 1:31 PM UTC

jasperry wrote: post #31

asynchronous wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

Value growth isn't tied to physical resources anymore, it's increasingly ascribed to intangible things, such as intellectual property. I'm not saying that growth is guaranteed to continue, just that economies have already been growing based on more abstract values; it's not all about food and fuel anymore.

> it's not all about food and fuel anymore

Is it, though?

The biggest IP bubble now is AI, and the main bottleneck of AI is energy to power those datacenters. Doesn't google use as much energy as a few small countries now?

Biggest pharma IP now is Ozempic, which let's be honest here, is because westerners are addicted to processed corn and fried stuff. And hectares of monoculture corn sprayed with Roundup and sprinkled with just the right amount of laboratory-calibrated satiating salt is far easier to produce than a balanced diet. And what is needed to grow all that corn, soy, and alfafa feed? The tapped-out Colorado or the dwindling Ogallala...

I'm sure there are a couple of pure IP-value plays out there, but look deep enough and most everything is tied back to food, fuel, or the finite ability of the ecosystem to maintain infinitely-exponential growth.