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What is energy, actually? (2011)

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Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#51

Post by heavenlyblue »

hliyan wrote: post #40
deergomoo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long been of the opinion that the public trading of companies is directly responsible for much of the social injustice we see in the West. As soon as there's a fiduciary duty to maximise ROI, morals go out the window. If you as an officer resist, the collective of shareholders will replace you with someone who will make more money. There's a dissolution of responsibility that comes with the distributed nature of…

I have had the following thought: what if we institute a rule where any shareholder who exercises his right to vote must hold his stock for at least 2 years?

Can you really vote with public amazon shares?

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#52

Post by pjc50 »

hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

Inflation is already almost zero in much of the West. People demand growth because they want to get richer, regardless of the prevailing conditions.

I would also like to point out that if there were to be no growth and no inflation (edit: and a static population level!), then the only way to add a dollar to your pile is to permanently make someone else a dollar poorer. That seems likely to accelerate the lethality of the billionaries vs. hungry poor conflict rather than de-escalate it.

> inflation will erode their savings

> compete harder and harder just to maintain his/her existing standard of living

These are two different things. Savings are a stock, "standard of living" is a flow. The distinction matters here because GDP measures flows; the two are related through the money equation "MV=PQ".

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#53

Post by pjc50 »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #18
hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

Inflation may occur due to uncontrollable factors, like scarcity of resources as they are consumed at a basic rate. Increasing scarcity means everyone must now compete harder to get the same basic rate of consumption from the reduced resource pool size, regardless of whether corporations or investments or governments even existed at all. Another source of inflation is increasing wage & benefit demands, especially fro…

Inflation is a side effect of monetary and fiscal policy; central banks are now quite good at adjusting interest rates to keep inflation in the 0-2% band.

> In direct response to large classes of workers demanding more pay & benefits, companies will raise their prices to pay for those increases, again totally regardless of whether a stock market exists.

How well this works is down to the "tightness" of the labour market. Central bank policy affects this: raise interest rates -> decrease investment -> increase unemployment above the "NAIRU" ("non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment") -> workers are unable to demand pay increases as they may be replaced by eager cheaper workers from the pool of unemployed.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#54

Post by gadders »

supernova87a wrote: post #28

Kind of amusing that this idea is posted here on Hacker News, the center of people seeking jobs and companies that are the definition of growth. If you didn’t have growth, you’d all be waiting for your promotion at the power plant when someone dies and frees up a position for you.

Growth is a synonym for progress.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#55

Post by bg117 »

hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

An alternative would be to forming an co-operative unit that distributes wealth more evenly. More automation only leads to joblessness causing more inequality. Also natural resources are plundered more aggressively by few who become multi-billionaire causing more environmental degradation. Though, greed is necessary for development of society, concentration of wealth to a selected few does not bode well for society. Private profits or shareholder profits are better for society if business model evenly distributes it.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#56

Post by fnord77 »

deergomoo wrote: post #23
hliyan wrote: post #9

Somewhat tangentially related: I wrote this in a private note to a friend last year. I don't believe this 100%, but the idea is worth exploring in my opinion: 1. Corporations desperately pursue continuous growth, even when they're already profitable, and do so at the expense of the environment, employee welfare and sometimes, the rule of law. 2. Corporations pursue growth because investors demand it. 3. Investors dem…

I've long been of the opinion that the public trading of companies is directly responsible for much of the social injustice we see in the West. As soon as there's a fiduciary duty to maximise ROI, morals go out the window. If you as an officer resist, the collective of shareholders will replace you with someone who will make more money. There's a dissolution of responsibility that comes with the distributed nature of…

> If you as an officer resist, the collective of shareholders will replace you with someone who will make more money.

and eventually you're left with sociopaths running the show.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#57

Post by koheripbal »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #51
hliyan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have had the following thought: what if we institute a rule where any shareholder who exercises his right to vote must hold his stock for at least 2 years?

Can you really vote with public amazon shares?

Yes. Shareholder receive voting packets in the mail, or can exercise their votes online at their brokerage website.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#58

Post by cf141q5325 »

gadders wrote: post #54
supernova87a wrote: post #28

Kind of amusing that this idea is posted here on Hacker News, the center of people seeking jobs and companies that are the definition of growth. If you didn’t have growth, you’d all be waiting for your promotion at the power plant when someone dies and frees up a position for you.

Growth is a synonym for progress.

Progress, as in "your cancer progressed to stage 4". Growth can have downsides, be it what is growing or the costs of growth.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#59

Post by pjc50 »

hliyan wrote: post #46
seer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that is all true, at least to me it sounds like the old explanation of why Communism failed - "It was indeed superior, but all the world had to agree so for it to work". Say one country develops this utopia where everyone doesn't have to compete to survive, either companies or individuals. Its neighbour though remains with the old Capitalist model. In a generation or two the struggling capitalist country could…

I'm merely suggesting that we maintain the money supply at a level that does not result in any inflation.

Per other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21664066 ; inflation is already near-zero, and this is controlled through interest rates rather than simple M0.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#60

Post by koheripbal »

hliyan wrote: post #46
seer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that is all true, at least to me it sounds like the old explanation of why Communism failed - "It was indeed superior, but all the world had to agree so for it to work". Say one country develops this utopia where everyone doesn't have to compete to survive, either companies or individuals. Its neighbour though remains with the old Capitalist model. In a generation or two the struggling capitalist country could…

I'm merely suggesting that we maintain the money supply at a level that does not result in any inflation.

The states goal of the Fed is to "maintain the rate as close to zero as possible while keeping it safely positive.".
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