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Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

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Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#81

Post by AnthonyMouse »

herczegzsolt wrote: post #78
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same apartments are getting 10 year tax abatements, because they are "good for business" aka trickle-down. This promotes new construction. Not as well as zoning reform, but it does. Which lowers the rent (or at least makes it go up less fast). > And landlords are usually smaller, but again, they're another reason why housing is stupid priced: it's common to see a rental of a home priced at mortgage+30% . Well o…

Mortgage is not a cost accounting wise. Interest is a cost, but capital repayment is already "profit" which the landlord will keep at the end of the loan. Let's say rent is mortgage + 30%. If we assume all the risks and costs (maintenance, insurance, etc) are eating up all of that 30%, they still make a whopping 200%+ profit in the long run. In a fair business relation with 20-30% profit, the landlord would actually…

> Mortgage is not a cost accounting wise. Interest is a cost, but capital repayment is already "profit" which the landlord will keep at the end of the loan.

Only a small sliver of the first mortgage payment is principal. Most of it is interest and the escrow for the property tax and insurance. By the last mortgage payment most of the interest has been replaced with principal, because by then the landlord is the one who owns the property instead of the bank, so now they get what used to be the interest. The property tax and insurance payments never go away, they just stop going through the bank.

The question you have to ask if you think they're overcharging is, why don't more people do it? If it got higher returns than other investments, why wouldn't people sell their stocks and buy real estate? The answer is that they do, until it doesn't anymore. And then it doesn't anymore, because the price of real estate goes up until investing in real estate no longer has above-market risk-adjusted returns.

We have pretty good numbers on this: Here's a common real estate ETF, it's basically "be a landlord, but as a stock", 10-year average return 5.49%:

https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...

S&P 500 ETF, 10-year average return 11.86%:

https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...

If the landlords are making so much money, how come they're not making so much money?

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#82

Post by AnthonyMouse »

lmm wrote: post #80
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they're making skilled capital-allocation decisions that most people couldn't, that's work. If they're being charitable in the allocation of their ill-gotten gains, that doesn't make them any less ill-gotten. Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work. And could invest it in something charitably while still making money, e.g. you have the option to…

> Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work. Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work? > Suppose you have some money and you put it in some investment fund and then live off the earnings while having no real involvement with how the fund is managed. Meanwhile the businesses you invested in are off doing pro…

> Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work?

That's anybody who has enough money that they don't have to work. It doesn't tell you anything about where they got it.

> You're begging the question - why was it your money in the first place?

What if you found it in the street? Would that affect whether or not the business you invest it in produces a net positive as a result?

> But if it's just privilege that you had, then you don't get any credit for allowing it to be used productively.

That doesn't seem right. You could have spent it on drugs and sex. Your choices matter.

> If you do something that produces real value in the world then that's positive sum - if you turn some planks and nails into a table, that table is more valuable than the stuff that went into it, the world is better off.

Suppose the planks are the status quo. You're getting paid $10/hour to make tables. Now you get a raise and get paid $12/hour to make tables, but you still only make exactly the same number of exactly the same tables as you did for $10/hour. The extra $2/hour is zero sum, isn't it? Why should you get it instead of the boss or the customer?

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#83

Post by AnthonyMouse »

robertlagrant wrote: post #72
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically it's more often governments that interfere with this. Go to the library and read some books and you can learn how to be a plumber or an electrician, buy a toolbox and you're on your way. Presumably there is some kind of licensing exam? No, first you've got to find an existing tradesperson and apprentice under them, even if you could already pass the exam on your own. For a few weeks is it? Years, typically…

It's not ironic - governments are the main source of power behind protectionism in all its forms. More regulations are good for incumbents.

More regulations as determined with a tape measure across the law library, sure. Each rule is another cost of entering the market.

The hard part is how to take a scalpel to them. Okay, 95% of them are inefficient, granted. Which 95%? You don't want the government to ban tall buildings or adversarial interoperability or to subsidize corn syrup or prohibit farmers from selling their crops or the Jones Act or rent control or de facto caps on the supply of doctors or certificate of need laws or taxi medallions. But you probably want the government to ban leaded gasoline.

So how do you get them to do the few narrow things they need to do but not all the rest of it?

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#84

Post by toast0 »

rsynnott wrote: post #63
fullspectrumdev wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What struck me as interesting is that one could do FX easily in a pub out in Blarney near the castle, while there’s not a single FX place in Cork City itself. Same thing in Galway - can’t find a FX place anywhere in the city, but if you head out to one of the tourist destinations you can do so at the pub. You can’t do foreign exchange at a bank or credit union anymore without an account.

Most post offices will do it, I think. I bought dollar notes in one a while back without any difficulty. But yeah, it’s not really a business banks would want to be in; if you’re doing it honestly it’s not very profitable, and it can be quite… money-launder-y. Best bet for non-eurozone tourists would be to use a neobank (Revolut etc)/pseudo-bank (Wise etc) that offers fair FX rates, and then use an ATM.

If your home bank isn't too nickle and dimey and is not super tiny, you can probably use ATMs to get cash in foreign countries at decent rates.

You might do better with something FX oriented, but the difference might be small enough to not care.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#85

Post by lmm »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #82
lmm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work. Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work? > Suppose you have some money and you put it in some investment fund and then live off the earnings while having no real involvement with how the fund is managed. Meanwhile the businesses you invested in are off doing pro…

> Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work? That's anybody who has enough money that they don't have to work. It doesn't tell you anything about where they got it. > You're begging the question - why was it your money in the first place? What if you found it in the street? Would that affect whether or not the business you invest it in produces a net positive as a result?…

> What if you found it in the street? Would that affect whether or not the business you invest it in produces a net positive as a result?

Does finding a large amount of money in the street make someone more deserving that someone who found a smaller amount of money in the street?

> That doesn't seem right. You could have spent it on drugs and sex. Your choices matter.

So you put part of it back into circulation and kept the rest for yourself. You're still not doing any better than morally neutral.

> Suppose the planks are the status quo. You're getting paid $10/hour to make tables. Now you get a raise and get paid $12/hour to make tables, but you still only make exactly the same number of exactly the same tables as you did for $10/hour. The extra $2/hour is zero sum, isn't it?

Well where did the value that it corresponds to come from? (I assume you're not just talking about inflation, or labour being scarcer or anything like that - but in that case the raise won't have come from nowhere). If you're making better or more tables through your own skill, you've earned it. If the boss has made production work better or got better machines or something, maybe he's earned it. If it was previously just economic rent that the boss was extracting then yes it's zero sum because it was zero sum to start with.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#86

Post by corethree »

pjc50 wrote: post #66
corethree wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were bankers not skinned alive? If someone owes you or I money and then suddenly they go on strike there will be a vicious reckoning.

50 years after the civil war, Ireland would not particularly keen to start up the random violence again. I suspect everyone assumed normality would resume "tomorrow", for a lot of tomorrows. Which is the other reason you can't just start up the lynchings, this isn't America and you'll have to live with these people and their families on a comparatively small island.

50 years is a looong time. I don't think that was it.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#87

Post by robertlagrant »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #83
robertlagrant wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not ironic - governments are the main source of power behind protectionism in all its forms. More regulations are good for incumbents.

More regulations as determined with a tape measure across the law library, sure. Each rule is another cost of entering the market. The hard part is how to take a scalpel to them. Okay, 95% of them are inefficient, granted. Which 95%? You don't want the government to ban tall buildings or adversarial interoperability or to subsidize corn syrup or prohibit farmers from selling their crops or the Jones Act or rent contr…

No idea. I'm just saying it's not ironic.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#88

Post by robertlagrant »

powersnail wrote: post #71
robertlagrant wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tomorrow could start out as a carpenter, buy a hammer and own the means of production. It's not a high bar to clear.

Who's going to hire a carpenter who picked up a hammer yesterday? You can't just hammer away in your yard and expect income. It's not a trivial bar to clear, if you want to own the means of production that happens to be a viable livelihood.

> if you want to own the means of production that happens to be a viable livelihood

If the means of production is now a livelihood, I have to say that this is a great example of how "means of production" is an insufficiently-precise phrase. It means all things to all people.

Marx seeing his mate's factory and thinking "it'd be nice if the workers owned that" and coming up with a generic-sounding equivalent phrase isn't really good enough to define a real concept.

Which is why people who use the phrase "means of production" seem to all mean different things. Owning a hammer is owning the means of production. It's just the means of production isn't enough.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#89

Post by thiagoharry »

robertlagrant wrote: post #88
powersnail wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's going to hire a carpenter who picked up a hammer yesterday? You can't just hammer away in your yard and expect income. It's not a trivial bar to clear, if you want to own the means of production that happens to be a viable livelihood.

> if you want to own the means of production that happens to be a viable livelihood If the means of production is now a livelihood, I have to say that this is a great example of how "means of production" is an insufficiently-precise phrase. It means all things to all people. Marx seeing his mate's factory and thinking "it'd be nice if the workers owned that" and coming up with a generic-sounding equivalent phrase isn…

Means of production, for Marx, means any instrument which builds something other than the user who uses it. If I use a walking stick to walk, it is not means of production because the object is building my ability to move. Neither if I use a house for living. But if the house is mine and I rent it, then it is not building my subsistence, it is building rent.

Even Marx agreed that people have access to some means of production: the carpenter owns the hammer. However, after capitalist development, the major means of productions that produce the majority of wealth (like the industries that produce most GDP for a country) are indeed outside the reach of most people and this creates a division between people who gets money because they labor and people who gets money because they own capital and relevant means of production.

Re: Pubs replaced banks in Ireland for several months in 1970 (2016)

#90

Post by powersnail »

robertlagrant wrote: post #88
powersnail wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's going to hire a carpenter who picked up a hammer yesterday? You can't just hammer away in your yard and expect income. It's not a trivial bar to clear, if you want to own the means of production that happens to be a viable livelihood.

> if you want to own the means of production that happens to be a viable livelihood If the means of production is now a livelihood, I have to say that this is a great example of how "means of production" is an insufficiently-precise phrase. It means all things to all people. Marx seeing his mate's factory and thinking "it'd be nice if the workers owned that" and coming up with a generic-sounding equivalent phrase isn…

I do agree that "means of production" is quite vague and too varied. But still, from a practical perspective, if the phrase is to have any meaning at all, I'd say that it would be enabling some form of "production" to be done by whoever owns that thing.

In a carpenter's hand, a hammer is a mean of production. Whereas owned by someone incapable of producing what can be considered work of carpentry, it wouldn't be.

If the phrase refers to literally a tool which that can be used by some arbitrary somebody --- not necessarily the owner --- to produce something, then we're all in possession of "means of production", by simply having a body with basic I/O, which enables us to be a freelance CEO.

I find that to not be a very practical definition, and probably not the meaning used by whom your first reply was directed to.

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