6 ms·

While snarky in tone, he has a point - The Market doesn't have a spectacular track record of having foresight longer than the next quarterly report.

seizethecheese 10y ago
Yours is an example of an interesting comment. Had he made an actual argument I wouldn't have called it out.
vacri 10y ago
I remember having this argument with an invisible-hand fanatic, who thought that the economics of supply and demand simply solved everything. "So... a neurologist takes 13 years to train from scratch. How does the market manage that?"
- seizethecheese 10y ago
  Well, to be fair the market does manage quite well! Since it's so hard to become a neurologist, there's a shortage unless the pay is so good that people are willing to forgo 13 years of their life to get there.
  - venomsnake 10y ago
    And the bodies of the people that did not get their treatment (or got the wrong one, because their neurologist was overworked, tired of burning the midnight oil) pile up. Free market is good only when you have both elastic supply and demand.
  - vacri 10y ago
    13 years is a very slow lag time. For comparison, the general public has only been aware of the internet for about 20 years.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    If you ignore the massive subsidization by the federal government, then the market manages just dandy. Taxpayers spend north of $15B on graduate medical education annually.
    - refurb 10y ago
      Were there no neurosurgeons before those gov't subsidies were in place?
      - chongli 10y ago
        Government subsidy of the arts and sciences is a practice that dates back to the ancient world in the form of patronage [1]. If you wanted to be ridiculously pedantic, as some people on the internet are known to be, you could argue that the neurosurgical procedure known as trepanation [2] dates back to at least 7000 years ago. However, the modern science of neurosurgery is far more recent so I do not think it is at all unfair to claim that gov't subsidy predates neurosurgery by a wide margin. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning
        refurb 10y ago
        Neurosurgery (as we know it today) first came about in the early 1900's.[1] CMS, the gov't institution that funds residencies, was created in the 1930's (well, it predecessor was). And if we look outside of neurosurgery to general medical practice, we'll find that it was humming along quite nicely without any gov't support. [1]http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/about_us_history.html http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/about_us_history.html
        chongli 10y ago
        You just provided a link to UCSF, a government-funded public university [1], to prove your point that the government didn't fund the development of neurosurgery? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California#Histo...
  - chongli 10y ago
    Sure, if your definition of market includes government-funded universities. Of course, such a definition has a tendency to swallow everything in the world like some kind of intellectual black hole. This is why the idea of the invisible hand is commonly derided as a religion.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  Trivially. For starters, student loans, wherein lenders profit from interest on the loan.
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  Better example is how does the free market build the Sydney Opera House? Or a decent healthcare system?
  - taneq 10y ago
    Dunno about the Opera House but the free market built Disneyland.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      Disney receives some of the biggest tax breaks of any company on earth. They pay no tax at Disneyland Anaheim and get massive subsides for movies (Pirates of Caribbean and Starwars being recent examples). They get tax breaks internationally and are rivals to oil and arms in scale. Free market does not apply.
      - dalke 10y ago
        Disney also has special flight restrictions, which Congress, not the FAA, mandated. Nominally described as an anti-terrorist measure, I agree with the many who say it was to prevent aerial advertising and sightseeing helicopters. In Florida they have their own special tax district, the Reedy Creek Improvement District. It is "exempt from all county and most state regulations, such as development-impact fees or costly and time-consuming regional-impact studies. The district is regulated by building codes drafted with the developer`s help. Waterways, utilities and sewer systems are built to suit the developer`s needs. The district is governed by a ruling body that is handpicked by the developer." http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1987-02-23/business/8701120154_1_reedy-creek-disney-property-disney-spokesman http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1987-02-23/business/8701120...
      - sbmassey 10y ago
        Low or no taxes would seem to be an important part of the definition of free market
        bbcbasic 10y ago
- lostlogin 10y ago
  You're forgetting the 12+ years of schooling.
Gibbon1 10y ago
He is absolutely right, scientific glass blowing does take about 10 years to be exceptional. And then the work is painstaking (low output) and the pay isn't that good. You can earn more money making bongs. A lot of old neon tube benders are ex-lab glass blowers, but that field is dying off too.
- eonw 10y ago
  yup, last neon plant within 3 hours of me recently closed. they will be outsourcing it all to a vendor in seattle, with an additional wait time of at least two weeks per project.

seizethecheese 10y ago

Yours is an example of an interesting comment. Had he made an actual argument I wouldn't have called it out.

vacri 10y ago

I remember having this argument with an invisible-hand fanatic, who thought that the economics of supply and demand simply solved everything. "So... a neurologist takes 13 years to train from scratch. How does the market manage that?"

seizethecheese 10y ago
Well, to be fair the market does manage quite well! Since it's so hard to become a neurologist, there's a shortage unless the pay is so good that people are willing to forgo 13 years of their life to get there.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  And the bodies of the people that did not get their treatment (or got the wrong one, because their neurologist was overworked, tired of burning the midnight oil) pile up. Free market is good only when you have both elastic supply and demand.
- vacri 10y ago
  13 years is a very slow lag time. For comparison, the general public has only been aware of the internet for about 20 years.
- x0x0 10y ago
  If you ignore the massive subsidization by the federal government, then the market manages just dandy. Taxpayers spend north of $15B on graduate medical education annually.
  - refurb 10y ago
    Were there no neurosurgeons before those gov't subsidies were in place?
    - chongli 10y ago
      Government subsidy of the arts and sciences is a practice that dates back to the ancient world in the form of patronage [1]. If you wanted to be ridiculously pedantic, as some people on the internet are known to be, you could argue that the neurosurgical procedure known as trepanation [2] dates back to at least 7000 years ago. However, the modern science of neurosurgery is far more recent so I do not think it is at all unfair to claim that gov't subsidy predates neurosurgery by a wide margin. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trepanning
      - refurb 10y ago
        Neurosurgery (as we know it today) first came about in the early 1900's.[1] CMS, the gov't institution that funds residencies, was created in the 1930's (well, it predecessor was). And if we look outside of neurosurgery to general medical practice, we'll find that it was humming along quite nicely without any gov't support. [1]http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/about_us_history.html http://neurosurgery.ucsf.edu/index.php/about_us_history.html
        chongli 10y ago
        You just provided a link to UCSF, a government-funded public university [1], to prove your point that the government didn't fund the development of neurosurgery? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California#Histo...
- chongli 10y ago
  Sure, if your definition of market includes government-funded universities. Of course, such a definition has a tendency to swallow everything in the world like some kind of intellectual black hole. This is why the idea of the invisible hand is commonly derided as a religion.
duncan_bayne 10y ago
Trivially. For starters, student loans, wherein lenders profit from interest on the loan.
bbcbasic 10y ago
Better example is how does the free market build the Sydney Opera House? Or a decent healthcare system?
- taneq 10y ago
  Dunno about the Opera House but the free market built Disneyland.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Disney receives some of the biggest tax breaks of any company on earth. They pay no tax at Disneyland Anaheim and get massive subsides for movies (Pirates of Caribbean and Starwars being recent examples). They get tax breaks internationally and are rivals to oil and arms in scale. Free market does not apply.
    - dalke 10y ago
      Disney also has special flight restrictions, which Congress, not the FAA, mandated. Nominally described as an anti-terrorist measure, I agree with the many who say it was to prevent aerial advertising and sightseeing helicopters. In Florida they have their own special tax district, the Reedy Creek Improvement District. It is "exempt from all county and most state regulations, such as development-impact fees or costly and time-consuming regional-impact studies. The district is regulated by building codes drafted with the developer`s help. Waterways, utilities and sewer systems are built to suit the developer`s needs. The district is governed by a ruling body that is handpicked by the developer." http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1987-02-23/business/8701120154_1_reedy-creek-disney-property-disney-spokesman http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1987-02-23/business/8701120...
    - sbmassey 10y ago
      Low or no taxes would seem to be an important part of the definition of free market
      - bbcbasic 10y ago
lostlogin 10y ago
You're forgetting the 12+ years of schooling.

Gibbon1 10y ago

He is absolutely right, scientific glass blowing does take about 10 years to be exceptional. And then the work is painstaking (low output) and the pay isn't that good. You can earn more money making bongs. A lot of old neon tube benders are ex-lab glass blowers, but that field is dying off too.

eonw 10y ago
yup, last neon plant within 3 hours of me recently closed. they will be outsourcing it all to a vendor in seattle, with an additional wait time of at least two weeks per project.