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What is energy, actually? (2011)

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Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#91

Post by ptah »

coconutrandom wrote: post #32
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…

#4 is super important once you notice that "investors" includes pension plans.

yes, that is a systemic weakness

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#92

Post by nickik »

There is so much wrong with this.

> from 1880 to 1975, when energy per capita is strongly growing, the world undergoes just one major economic crisis, in 1929.

> since 1975, after the rate of growth dramatically decreased, there has been a crisis every 5 to 10 years: 1975, 1980, 1991, 2000, 2008, 2012, and it would be no surprise to have a new one in the coming years.

These statements are just totally wrong. There were many more economic crisis between 1880 - 1975 and often those were worse then those since 1975.

These statements are just 100% opposite of every history of economics I have ever seen.

It seems he gets the causation totally backwards.

> and recurring recessions will become something normal in our economic system

Recessions are absolutely not linked to energy supply.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#93

Post by ben_w »

coldtea wrote: post #68
pjc50 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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's fine when wealth distribution is "the 0.01% owns 80% of the wealth". Plenty of dollars to go around...

How real is that wealth? Tesla is worth billions, it hasn’t ever had a profitable year.

The more I learn about how money works, the more I think of it as a convenient work of fiction — and worse, one that means fundamentally differently things to normal and super-rich.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#94

Post by seirl »

ckastner wrote: post #70
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.

> 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. But that's the good kind of growth, you see? I'm being sarcastic, of course. The ironic (and to me: annoying) thing about the really vocal moralists is that the concept of self-reflection seems to be entirely foreign to them. The problem is always with other people, and th…

It is the good kind of growth, the dematerialization of the economy is a major factor in the lower energy elasticity in developed countries...

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#95

Post by ekianjo »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
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…

Inflation is not zero. In terms of consumer prices, yes, but inflation goes into the stock exchange and props up values for absolutely no reason. There is no massive increase of productivity across the board so net valuations of companies have no reason to grow that fast as we see now. That is pure inflation propped up by cheap money you can borrow with minimal risk.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#96

Post by syshum »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
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…

No it really is not. CPI-U is manipulated to make it seem like inflation is almost at zero therefore limiting the cost of living increases for SocSec and other government programs.

So instead of having a 2% CPI, we actually have closer to 9%

It also allows companies cover for Wage Compression because many employers base at least part of annual raises on "Cost of living Adjustments" so if the government is saying Inflation was 1.9% well then the cost of living adjustment for my salary may be 2% with another 2% for performance based or 4% total. But if actual cost of living went up by 9-13% which is likely my real buying power for the next year dropped by 5%.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#97

Post by hliyan »

pjc50 wrote: post #65
projektfu wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not zero sum, even during recession, because each year the economy is still adding its GDP even if it is not growing. You don’t have to take someone else’s, but you might all take less than the potential.

> because each year the economy is still adding its GDP even if it is not growing Er .. "economic growth" and "increasing GDP" are usually considered to be synonyms? Do you have alternative definitions?

If your GDP is $100 billion and your growth rate is 0%, you're still adding $100 billion to the economy every year (assuming that not all wealth is not consumed within the same year).

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#98

Post by adventured »

new2628 wrote: post #83
pjc50 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Inflation is already almost zero in much of the West. pet theory: Inflation is way way more than zero almost everywhere (prices of services and rents reflect this), but high inflation is masked by increased supply chain efficiencies, cheapening (in some cases worsening) of products and other factors, which keep prices of physical products relatively stable.

It's asset inflation, which is where most of the Fed's inflation (eg many trillions of dollars of overvaluation into the stock market) via artificially low rates has gone since the Clinton and Bush years when they helped to spark the stock market bubble (#1, #2 and now #3) and then the housing bubble that way. Then they openly admitted to intentionally reinflating the housing market with their various market interventions and low rates.

Whenever economists claim inflation is low, they're almost always exclusively talking about traditional consumer goods (in which case it is low for the most part). They comically go out of their way to ignore the inflation in housing, healthcare, education and various asset classes.

Warren Buffett likes to regularly point out that the Fed's rates act like gravity on stock valuations. The lower the rates, the less gravity. The same is largely true of how housing is affected by the Fed's rates. If you want to absolutely crush housing prices, push Fed rates back up to where mortgage rates are at 15-20% again. What that all really means is, the lower the rates, the more asset valuation inflation occurs. It's just that for amusingly convenient reasons (ie to pretend inflation is lower than it is), most economists like to pretend that asset inflation doesn't count as real inflation in their models.

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#99

Post by pmorici »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
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…

Efficiency gains from technology advances in past 20 years have masked inflation. Look at industries like houses, healthcare, and education which tech hasn’t optimized to the same extent and you see massive inflation

Re: What is energy, actually? (2011)

#100

Post by lm28469 »

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.

> the center of people seeking jobs and companies that are the definition of growth

I discussed in many threads closely or loosely related to this topic and many HNers don't share this idea.

You can be a dev in any kind of company and hold any type of beliefs. Outside of SV and a few other places being a dev isn't that crazy money/career growth wise.

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