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Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

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Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#91

Post by dmm »

kube-system wrote: post #78
dmm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has to first be a practical use-case that justifies it. The use case is additional revenue streams for appliance makers from selling surveillance derived data. Every smart tv is a revenue stream for the manufacturer. That's why you can't buy dumb tvs anymore. Soon your coffee maker, your toothbrush, your car, your refrigerator, and everything else that plugs in or has a battery will be "smart" in the same way…

That works works out for TVs because of a few specific things: 1. The consumer wants to hook their TV up to the internet to get content 2. TVs ads have a well established market of buyers who will pay for that data 3. TVs are expensive and consumers often buy primarily on price By comparison, there is no market for the data from my coffee pot, and little to no incentive for a consumer to choose a model that collects…

> 1. The consumer wants to hook their TV up to the internet to get content

As the cost of 5G iot chips fall it won't matter what the consumer wants.

> 2. TVs ads have a well established market of buyers who will pay for that data

The data collected from Smart TVs is much more than ads. They track and report everything you watch, including dvds and blurays, with media fingerprinting techniques.

> By comparison, there is no market for the data from my coffee pot

Oh but there will be. Soon some data scientist at your health insurer will notice that people who drink more than 3.5 cups of Folgers a day are 5% more likely to suffer heatstroke or whatever. Then they can adjust premiums and deny claims more effectively. Not allowed to use this information due to regulations? Apply parallel construction and use it to focus limited investigation resources.

I really hope you're right and this doesn't happen.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#92

Post by sp332 »

true_religion wrote: post #63
sp332 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of a government that has rational people in charge. We have an extended family running one branch and a party holding on to power by its fingernails in the Senate. Look at the latest developments in the Inspector General purge. Trump is firing his 5th (6th? I lost count) IG, and illegally installing the replacement before the last one has been officially processed out. The new one is still an employee…

Right but will the States actually let this happen? If there are food riots, it’s the locals who suffer. Will Florida really wait for the federal government when Jacksonville is full of rioters, or will they setup food banks far in advance of that situation? I predict the later. Especially since States can do debt financing for their operations.

Maybe. But states can also call out the National Guard. Florida's police departments have been heavily militarized, even more so since the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016. And that means that people will expect to be met with real force, so they will wait until they're in some serious deprivation before large riots even start.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#93

Post by gregkerzhner »

karatestomp wrote: post #42
gregkerzhner wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing devil's advocate, but I can see how people would appreciate a network connected coffee maker. My wife likes to stay in bed and scroll through her newsfeeds in the morning. If she could start the coffee maker from her phone, it would probably get her out of bed a lot faster.

You can get a pretty dumb coffee maker that has a delayed brew setting. You'd have to put the grounds and water in anyway, so the extra effort is pressing a couple buttons on the machine right after you do that, rather than a couple buttons on your phone in the morning.

Having it made at a specific time is a totally different dynamic than having it made on demand with a press of a button. We don't use alarm clocks, so our wakeup times are different every day.

But regardless, if the coffee made itself at 8am sharp, I would feel pressure to get out of bed immediately, ruining the chillness of the morning. I want to be able to lounge around, scroll the feeds, and then tap the button to make the coffee when Im feeling somewhat ready to make the step out of bed, but need a bit of extra motivation.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#94

Post by lonelappde »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #21
djsumdog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most high income nations have been overproduce food via subsidies for decades. For most countries, food security is part of national security. The obesity crisis is a side effect of that: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon... I think there's enough slack in the system we won't see food shortage. The lines at food banks are a different problem entirely. That's because people don't have jobs,…

There doesn't have to be a shortage for people to be hungry - just a breakdown in distribution, and we are already seeing that. And....no, people aren't lining up at food banks because they are "afraid to spend what they have". They mostly don't have anything to spend. Free food means they can afford the electricity bill, not that they can leave savings untouched.

Electricity is payment deferred during the pandemic.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#95

Post by saltcured »

phkahler wrote: post #47
sp332 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing with wifi is that you increasingly need a password to join. If a device comes with its own 4G/5G internet connection, it doesn't need your permission to phone home anymore.

Carriers still need to let a device on their network to get paid.

Carriers offer bulk-pricing for manufacturers to prepay these SIMs so that they get service without any interaction of the end user. And the prices are so low for these telemetry/low bandwidth plans that it doesn't take too much potential monetization to offset the cost to the manufacturer. A big part of 5G is really enabling these multitudes of low-traffic devices to have low marginal cost on the network.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#96

Post by trekrich »

kube-system wrote: post #4

> Because tomorrow, every piece of consumer electronics, even your lowly coffee machine or microwave or toaster, is going to have a 5G chip. That’s what the internet of things is about. If the Chinese can listen to you through your smartphone, they can listen to you through your toaster. Once we declare that 5G is going to allow China to listen to our communication, we will also have to ban all household electronics…

i want less integration to the internet and online services, not more.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#97

Post by sokoloff »

0x262d wrote: post #74
sokoloff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If China would make themselves less competitive "by enforcing equivalent, high working standards across the world", they have clear disincentives to enforce compliance.

Oh, yes. That's been used to drive down the standard of living in the US (including within it) forever. That's why competition is bad for labor. The only real escape from the market's race to the bottom is a democratically planned economy IMO.

Competition is both good and bad for labor. It’s bad for labor-as-suppliers. It’s good for labor-as-consumers.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#98

Post by sandworm101 »

rgbrenner wrote: post #76
kube-system wrote: post #4

> Because tomorrow, every piece of consumer electronics, even your lowly coffee machine or microwave or toaster, is going to have a 5G chip. That’s what the internet of things is about. If the Chinese can listen to you through your smartphone, they can listen to you through your toaster. Once we declare that 5G is going to allow China to listen to our communication, we will also have to ban all household electronics…

You didnt mention the biggest flaw in the argument: 5g has nothing to do with microphones.. and saying that 5g == microphones kind of says a lot about the writer's understanding of tech. Adding a microphone to a toaster would also be easy to recognize if the device were torn down. Maybe people won't do that to every toaster, but if this were widespread, a few toasters from different brands would eventually be torn do…

Unless all sorts of consumer goods start integrating a generic IOT controller, one with a 5g connection and a sensor package that includes a microphone.

I could see use for this. A microphone is essentially a vibration sensor, a useful generic item in many connected home appliances. For toasters specifically, a microphone listening for a smoke alarm (code in most kitchens) would be very interesting. A toaster could hear when it was burning the toast turn itself off.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#99

Post by stepbeek »

magicsmoke wrote: post #48
stepbeek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In spite of all these, US/North America is where you would rather be than say, Europe, Africa or even Asia. Why?

Lower population density and land that's only been tapped for a few centuries instead of millennia. When the famines and natural disasters start, it's going to hit the old world a lot harder than the new.

I thought the parent to my comment was more an assertion around economic woes, but I'll bite.

I'm interpreting your response as an assertion around the USA doing better in the case of major climate shift. I don't perceive the US to be making significant effort towards more sustainable agriculture (compared to say the Netherlands) or keeping pace in proportion of energy generated from renewables or implementing meaningful social policy to address the disproportionate impact a climate crisis has on the poor.

The US has a lot to recommend it, but I find your argument to be a bit lacking in convincing me it'll have and easier time in the coming decades.

Re: Why our economy may be headed for a decade of depression

#100

Post by pm90 »

lumost wrote: post #25
pm90 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Unemployment payments are the only things that are preventing a full scale depression and hardship for millions. These people have lost their jobs, have no savings or assets, nothing. How are they going to get food? Pay rent? The quick action by Congress in boosting unemployment payments has been the only thing keeping the economy from going belly up. If that stops, we’re in for a lot of hurt.

I do not want to downplay the severity of such an outcome, but it is worth recalling that this type of event ( and worse ) has occurred to multiple developed nations within recent memory. Ultimately the economy will recover and normalize, even if the availability of certain items is limited for a period of time. The fall of the soviet union saw unemployment at 40% and widespread food rationing/limitations. I don't be…

Past recovery is not a guarantee for future. I am very surprised at how much faith people seem to have in the stability of advanced economies. What we face today is not simply an economic recession; it’s a pandemic which is actively preventing people from engaging in the system, and the reality is that we might face more such natural disasters in the future. We have seen civilizations get undone quite dramatically in the past; it’s not guaranteed that it won’t happen again.

In the case of the US: the economy was hollowed out by the 08 recession and Republicans prevented economic stimulus packages that would help in speedy recovery from passing. All the gains of the past 10 years were wiped out in a few months. At some point you have to ask how much pain people are willing to accept before casting aside a system which does not work.

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