8 ms·

Debt to income ratios, capitalization of companies, worker productivity, oil prices, savings rates, more healthy housing prices (in most areas), foreclosure rat

Debt to income ratios, capitalization of companies, worker productivity, oil prices, savings rates, more healthy housing prices (in most areas), foreclosure rates, industrial orders, housing starts, .... This isn't 2007-08.

cryoshon 11y ago
Wages are shit for workers and thus consumption/demand are weak... this undermines the Chinese economy, which in turn undermines the US economy. Labor force participation is also garbage. Savings rates are a bit moot when tons of people are living paycheck to paycheck, also. It's not 2007-2008, but it's not quite 1998 either.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually force someones (possibly everyones) hand. The mechanism that will drive change (either violent/non-violent) is just a matter of who blinks first.
  - maratd 11y ago
    > Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Capitalism isn't new. It's been around for a while.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      I'm amazed anyone can try to defend a system that has manic-depressive episodes built in as a feature.
      - merpnderp 11y ago
        Because it's the system that's pulled several billion people out of abject poverty in the last 30 years? I believe the system that was tried before that was called socialism, and didn't work as well as capitalism.
        TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        In Europe socialism created limited working hours, affordable health care, free public education all the way to university level - and beyond - and was also responsible for massive investment in infrastructure and R&D. Modern social democratic states wouldn't exist without it. You might want to understand what the word means before running down a political system you seem to know nothing about. As for abject poverty - there's more of that around than ever. Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's not there. And after this week, there's more on the way, too.
        merpnderp 11y ago
        I'd hardly call Europe socialist. Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. A welfare state is a state with large programs to ensure the welfare of the people, which better describes much of Europe. As for extreme poverty, China has seen a 90% reduction in extreme poverty since 1981, and India has seen a 60% reduction since 1981, and Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a 12%. The Indian and Chinese reductions coincided with a relaxation on state owned industry and introduction of free market economic policies. Hate the corruption, hate the corporatism, but according to the world bank (and nearly every other NGO), capitalism has reduced human misery on this planet like no other force.
        vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. Social ownership != state ownership. That's only one manifestation of it. Socialism has historically been about common ownership, which implies decentralized, democratically structured worker cooperatives. One existing example today is Mondragon.
    - rorykoehler 11y ago
      Produced goods are always getting cheaper. All trends point towards moving towards a zero marginal cost society. Economic pressures and the need to compete are forever pushing prices down. We are also getting more efficient at producing goods in parallel to this trend (another side effect of capitalism). The only way this will stop is through organized price fixing cartels.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Only for a long time it had internal pressure (workers demands) and external pressure (the Cold war etc). Else we'd be still with child labor, 14 hours work day and such...
    - icebraining 11y ago
      Workers and their demands are part of capitalism, as one of the sides of the labor market.
      - cma 11y ago
        Things like Taft-Hartley outlaw secondary strikes.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        Not if capitalists can prevent it, crush it, disallow it, etc -- along with their friends in the goverment, with "right to work" laws, etc. It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. I mean when they say that in "true capitalism" the government would not interfere and the market would adjust itself etc, where in real life (and in all know historical cases), the government is in the pockets of powerful moguls and big business lobbys).
        wutbrodo 11y ago
        > It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. This is hugely disingenuous. It's about as fair as crying "no true socialism" if someone were to say "moving towards socialism leads to mass famine! Just look at Mao!". I think part of what makes conversations like this so frustrating for everyone involved is that people are using vastly different definitions. Those decrying capitalism are usually defining "socialism" as a mixed-market economy and capitalism as an unfettered "pure" Randian market economy. (In conversations critical of socialism, you usually see the opposite dynamic). The fact of the matter is that mixed-market economies are basically ubiquitous at this point, and for good reason. It's a lot easier to find a common understanding on which to debate when everyone is clear what the actual disagreement is: the market is good at certain things and bad at others, and gov't action is a sensible alternative in the areas it's better at (of which there are quite a few, not least dealing with externalities) or a damaging hindrance in the areas where it's worse than the market mechanism (explicitly setting prices, in most cases). The disagreement is over which things go in which category, which is a far less flame-baity way of thinking of it than "capitalism/socialism is just bad!".
roymurdock 11y ago
Would you mind providing some color around these metrics, or pointing me towards a source that paints the picture in greater detail? I don't mean to be snarky or sarcastic, I'm just generally uninformed and would like to develop a more nuanced opinion.
MCRed 11y ago
Note: I've been slow banned for this comment. Please read it, I'm sure a hell ban is coming next. Apparently having a different opinion politely expressed is not even allowed here anymore. Debt to Income- yes everyone and their dog walker is not out there buying condos hoping to flip them in 3 years, so we are less leveraged than we were. Hard to tell how much of this is because people have more money coming in or are more responsible having just gotten burned 7 years ago. Capitalization of Companies-- well we've had significant monetary inflation, have you accounted for that? Ok, now have you accounted for that using the real money supply? Productiivty- this is the result of technology, should continue to increase. Oil Prices- Oil prices are shockingly low, especially when you account for inflation. This is good as energy drives the economy... but it hasn't been this way long enough to see real economic effects that are lasting, yet. Savings Rates-- well, compared to 2006 when everyone was leveraged to the hilt to buy just one more condo, sure they are better. But are they actually good? Housing Prices-- "healthy" is also what they said in 2006. The monetary inflation that drove the housing bubble in 2000-2008 was only amped up after 2008. The spigot is open even wider now, and while we're clearly not in the mania we were in 2006, it's not obvious that these prices aren't also.... quite artificial. I'd like a stat that was EBIDTA of the S&P 500, inflation adjusted against the real money supply, over the past 30 years. I think that would be a good indicator.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  >having a different opinion politely expressed Do you honestly think you're expressing a different opinion by stating that everything is mostly bad? I'd say you're comfortably in the internet majority. >I'd like a stat that was EBIDTA of the S&P 500, inflation adjusted against the real money supply, over the past 30 years. Okay: http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-earnings/ http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-earnings/
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    That's not quite what MCRed asked for. He/she asked for "inflation adjusted against the real money supply". Elsewhere in the post MCRed also said something about the real money supply. I think the background idea is that "real inflation" = "change in the real money supply". But that's wrong, because the economy changes size, too. That is, if I start a company and make some stuff, the economy is now bigger than it was. If the number of dollars doesn't increase, then the value of each dollar has to increase, so prices go down - deflation. What the Fed is trying to do is keep the value of the dollar (relatively) constant, rather than keep the number of dollars constant. So I think MCRed's request (to the degree that it differed from your answer) is based on a mistaken idea...

cryoshon 11y ago

Wages are shit for workers and thus consumption/demand are weak... this undermines the Chinese economy, which in turn undermines the US economy. Labor force participation is also garbage. Savings rates are a bit moot when tons of people are living paycheck to paycheck, also. It's not 2007-2008, but it's not quite 1998 either.

rorykoehler 11y ago
Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually force someones (possibly everyones) hand. The mechanism that will drive change (either violent/non-violent) is just a matter of who blinks first.
- maratd 11y ago
  > Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Capitalism isn't new. It's been around for a while.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    I'm amazed anyone can try to defend a system that has manic-depressive episodes built in as a feature.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      Because it's the system that's pulled several billion people out of abject poverty in the last 30 years? I believe the system that was tried before that was called socialism, and didn't work as well as capitalism.
      - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        In Europe socialism created limited working hours, affordable health care, free public education all the way to university level - and beyond - and was also responsible for massive investment in infrastructure and R&D. Modern social democratic states wouldn't exist without it. You might want to understand what the word means before running down a political system you seem to know nothing about. As for abject poverty - there's more of that around than ever. Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's not there. And after this week, there's more on the way, too.
        merpnderp 11y ago
        I'd hardly call Europe socialist. Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. A welfare state is a state with large programs to ensure the welfare of the people, which better describes much of Europe. As for extreme poverty, China has seen a 90% reduction in extreme poverty since 1981, and India has seen a 60% reduction since 1981, and Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a 12%. The Indian and Chinese reductions coincided with a relaxation on state owned industry and introduction of free market economic policies. Hate the corruption, hate the corporatism, but according to the world bank (and nearly every other NGO), capitalism has reduced human misery on this planet like no other force.
        vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Socialism is the social ownership (state ownership) of the means of production. Social ownership != state ownership. That's only one manifestation of it. Socialism has historically been about common ownership, which implies decentralized, democratically structured worker cooperatives. One existing example today is Mondragon.
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    Produced goods are always getting cheaper. All trends point towards moving towards a zero marginal cost society. Economic pressures and the need to compete are forever pushing prices down. We are also getting more efficient at producing goods in parallel to this trend (another side effect of capitalism). The only way this will stop is through organized price fixing cartels.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Only for a long time it had internal pressure (workers demands) and external pressure (the Cold war etc). Else we'd be still with child labor, 14 hours work day and such...
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Workers and their demands are part of capitalism, as one of the sides of the labor market.
    - cma 11y ago
      Things like Taft-Hartley outlaw secondary strikes.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Not if capitalists can prevent it, crush it, disallow it, etc -- along with their friends in the goverment, with "right to work" laws, etc. It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. I mean when they say that in "true capitalism" the government would not interfere and the market would adjust itself etc, where in real life (and in all know historical cases), the government is in the pockets of powerful moguls and big business lobbys).
      - wutbrodo 11y ago
        > It's funny that for something supposedly pragmatic and empirical, as capitalism, there are people invoking the "no true capitalism" defense. This is hugely disingenuous. It's about as fair as crying "no true socialism" if someone were to say "moving towards socialism leads to mass famine! Just look at Mao!". I think part of what makes conversations like this so frustrating for everyone involved is that people are using vastly different definitions. Those decrying capitalism are usually defining "socialism" as a mixed-market economy and capitalism as an unfettered "pure" Randian market economy. (In conversations critical of socialism, you usually see the opposite dynamic). The fact of the matter is that mixed-market economies are basically ubiquitous at this point, and for good reason. It's a lot easier to find a common understanding on which to debate when everyone is clear what the actual disagreement is: the market is good at certain things and bad at others, and gov't action is a sensible alternative in the areas it's better at (of which there are quite a few, not least dealing with externalities) or a damaging hindrance in the areas where it's worse than the market mechanism (explicitly setting prices, in most cases). The disagreement is over which things go in which category, which is a far less flame-baity way of thinking of it than "capitalism/socialism is just bad!".

roymurdock 11y ago

Would you mind providing some color around these metrics, or pointing me towards a source that paints the picture in greater detail? I don't mean to be snarky or sarcastic, I'm just generally uninformed and would like to develop a more nuanced opinion.

MCRed 11y ago

Note: I've been slow banned for this comment. Please read it, I'm sure a hell ban is coming next. Apparently having a different opinion politely expressed is not even allowed here anymore. Debt to Income- yes everyone and their dog walker is not out there buying condos hoping to flip them in 3 years, so we are less leveraged than we were. Hard to tell how much of this is because people have more money coming in or are more responsible having just gotten burned 7 years ago. Capitalization of Companies-- well we've had significant monetary inflation, have you accounted for that? Ok, now have you accounted for that using the real money supply? Productiivty- this is the result of technology, should continue to increase. Oil Prices- Oil prices are shockingly low, especially when you account for inflation. This is good as energy drives the economy... but it hasn't been this way long enough to see real economic effects that are lasting, yet. Savings Rates-- well, compared to 2006 when everyone was leveraged to the hilt to buy just one more condo, sure they are better. But are they actually good? Housing Prices-- "healthy" is also what they said in 2006. The monetary inflation that drove the housing bubble in 2000-2008 was only amped up after 2008. The spigot is open even wider now, and while we're clearly not in the mania we were in 2006, it's not obvious that these prices aren't also.... quite artificial. I'd like a stat that was EBIDTA of the S&P 500, inflation adjusted against the real money supply, over the past 30 years. I think that would be a good indicator.

forgetsusername 11y ago
>having a different opinion politely expressed Do you honestly think you're expressing a different opinion by stating that everything is mostly bad? I'd say you're comfortably in the internet majority. >I'd like a stat that was EBIDTA of the S&P 500, inflation adjusted against the real money supply, over the past 30 years. Okay: http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-earnings/ http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-earnings/
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  That's not quite what MCRed asked for. He/she asked for "inflation adjusted against the real money supply". Elsewhere in the post MCRed also said something about the real money supply. I think the background idea is that "real inflation" = "change in the real money supply". But that's wrong, because the economy changes size, too. That is, if I start a company and make some stuff, the economy is now bigger than it was. If the number of dollars doesn't increase, then the value of each dollar has to increase, so prices go down - deflation. What the Fed is trying to do is keep the value of the dollar (relatively) constant, rather than keep the number of dollars constant. So I think MCRed's request (to the degree that it differed from your answer) is based on a mistaken idea...