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Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

bloomberg.com

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Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#61

Post by e12e »

GlennS wrote: post #32
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #2

Just to kick off some discussion. Do you guys think that the shift from on-prem to SaaS is indicative of a move towards rent extraction?

Only when vendor lock-in and inaccessible data silos comes into play. And that's not a problem specific to SAAS.

True, but bandwidth and lack of "raw" access (eg: b/w limited api) might make some types of migrations extra hard with SaaS.

Good luck getting 1-10 Gpbs data transfer from most public SaaS to your own datacenter without having to pay over and above your current fee for Internet access (eg: have a look at what it costs to get just a TB data out of S3 -- on any budget (or prime) dedicated provider, 10-50 TB of data would be included - per month.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#62

Post by RobertoG »

subverter wrote: post #25

"Crony" is so often followed by "capitalism", but it's really just cronyism that's the issue. You can find it in capitalism and you can find it in government. But they go best hand-in-hand. I'd argue that most crony capitalism is made possible only because they can leverage the monopolistic power of their crony allies in government for mutual gain.

I hear frequently the argument that crony capitalism is not really capitalism. And how "real capitalism" would work wonderfully.

That always remember me, how, when you argue with a communist, frequently those examples that you bring to the conversation are never "real communism".

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#63

Post by pascalxus »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #20

The only way this will end is limits on campaign contributions and other kinds of bribery. The returns on lobbying are astronomical compared to the returns on productivity improvements.

>>>The returns on lobbying are astronomical compared to the returns on productivity improvements.

You Hit the nail right on the head. I believe, this is the root of all the problems mentioned in this thread.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#64

Post by Terr_ »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #20

The only way this will end is limits on campaign contributions and other kinds of bribery. The returns on lobbying are astronomical compared to the returns on productivity improvements.

I think the linchpin is actually our voting system. It strongly encourages the existence of only two parties that are always trying to split the difference, and that's the scenario which is very friendly to institutional bribery and regulatory capture.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#65

Post by jondubois »

I think that these issues are getting a lot of attention recently. A lot of people feel that their jobs are not meaningful anymore and that they cannot find any meaningful work that pays well.

Most of the jobs that pay well are zero-sum games. Finance, tech, law. Even medicine and pharmaceuticals are becoming zero-sum games (e.g companies boosting drug prices because it's easier than inventing new ones).

People have become cynical and distrustful towards each other and the system. We have lost touch with our old values.

I'm surprised that society can continue to function under these conditions.

In this zero-sum economy, we are all enemies of each other.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#66

Post by RobertoG »

saas_sam wrote: post #37

It's interesting to me how this article frames crony capitalism as a use or abuse of government by corporations, almost as if the government is a victim. But it's the government that has all of the power in this context. There's something to be said for corporate money influencing elections, but even there it's elected officials who are deciding on policies after getting there, and if they are making decisions based…

I think that the lesson to learn here is: nevertheless the system, government or not, capitalism or not, the powerful always take all they can. It's the duty of the less powerful to fight for more of the pie for the majority.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#67

Post by voice_of_reason »

mowenz wrote: post #48
dv_dt wrote: post #27

Does it seem to anyone else that the finance industry is increasingly distracted from actually matching up capital to fundamentally productive companies, especially new companies? Looking at the stock market, there are few IPOs, and after IPO, being public only provides access to limited access vis issuance of new stock... Some capital flows to VCs, but it seems the more capital flows to large VC funds, the more the…

>Does it seem to anyone else that the finance industry is increasingly distracted from actually matching up capital to fundamentally productive companies, especially new companies? This is somewhat controversial to posit, but I believe the corruption in the financial industry is extraordinarily entrenched because of the Fed. Before you call me a lunatic, smart and good people from Aaron Schwartz to Sanders have said…

"Before you call me a lunatic"

You're very close to being a lunatic and conspiracy theorist, sir.

"This is somewhat controversial to posit, but I believe the corruption in the financial industry is extraordinarily entrenched because of the Fed."

After TARP and bailouts it's not controversial at all.

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#68

Post by [deleted] »

bjl wrote: post #49
bostonscott wrote: post #41

The concept of "crony capitalism" is a misnomer. "Crony" is not a type of capitalism, it's the antithesis of capitalism. It's enabled by giving too much power to government. For example. When insurance companies jack-up rates or impose customer "unfriendly" terms, they are not acting within the "free market." They are exploiting "crony'esque" rules that limit competition by restricting insurance companies from compet…

Crony capitalism is not a misnomer, its the endgame of all capitalists. When people have the resources to buy a regulatory advantage, of course they are going to do so; that's just capitalism at its 'finest'.

[deleted]

Re: Crony capitalism may be cannibalizing productive capitalism in the U.S.

#69

Post by kem »

pm90 wrote: post #52
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #2

Just to kick off some discussion. Do you guys think that the shift from on-prem to SaaS is indicative of a move towards rent extraction?

Hardly. I mean it does look that way at first, but as long as there are good competitors around, the price of SaaS products won't be exorbitant. Besides, technology seems to have a very cyclical progression: we went from time sharing computing on big vendors' computers, to personal computing, and now back to hosting with big vendors, via cloud. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that future progress would once again…

"as long as there are good competitors around"--that's the key, and not something I necessarily trust to be the case. Net neutrality, for example, would be a non-issue if there were good competition, but there's not.
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