11 ms·

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and s

Someone I know posted a picture of an empty rolodex today, saying that they'd moved their friends to 'the cloud.' I'm sure you can look at your phone apps and see other things that would've been physical objects ten or twenty years ago. So, that's one way material use has, at least, shifted. There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk. The article's example of lighter buildings is what I view as the same category, something blogger Yves Smith terms 'crapification.' We've now had at least two generations of spreadsheet-wielding MBA's optimizing corporate costs to reduce what is spent on materials and labor. Evidence of their success is showing up across the economy, and politics, and society at large. The other trend is money supply; One of the chief problems leading to the 2008 financial crisis was that much more credit had been extended than could ever be paid back by those to whom it was loaned. The 'solution' was to have central banks 'pay back' the loans that never should've been made. That put a lot of credit in to the economy, which shows up as economic growth. I'd like to see an analysis of 'economic growth' where the contributions of resources and credit are accounted for separately.

anon1m0us 7y ago
The same is true of coffee. A 1 pound coffee can is the same size it always was but now has 10 or 11 ounces of coffee in it.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  This is especially annoying when you realize that ever brand is different. There will be seven different brands of coffee in identically-sized bags, yet one may have 5.7oz of coffee and another will be 12.8oz.
  - OldSchoolJohnny 7y ago
    Is it possible they are trying to sell for the same price but with wildly varying costs of each varietal of coffee? I.E. they want to sell a bag for 15 bucks across the board but some beans cost them far more than others to source?
    - munk-a 7y ago
      It still seems purely disingenuous to package them deceptively to appear to be the same quantity.
      - zamadatix 7y ago
        Up to some value of volumeDelta * productCount it actually makes sense to use the same container due to sourcing/manufacturing cost from the variance so I wouldn't say purely disingenuous, there is real reasoning behind some of it... it's just marketing gets in the way of when you should actually add that second container size i.e. it's costing you more to always use the bigger container but the marketing department says the increase in sales due to confusion outweighs it.
        anon1m0us 7y ago
        So then why not just keep putting the same amount of coffee in the can? It's on us though. They're lying to us to get our money, our labor, our consent. We let them. Why?
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Because it pays, and for some reason not many people have the guts to say marketing is rotten to the core, and advertising is cancer on the society. Maybe because the market encourages it structurally. Lying costs little and yields good profits, so acting immorally gives competitive advantage.
        zamadatix 7y ago
        Because demand curves don't work like that unless you have a highly inelastic good. With normal goods keeping quantity constant as price changes puts you on a suboptimal point on the demand curve. Coffee's price certainly hasn't been inelastic and changing can size at every spike would have netted you decent production cost increases instead of savings: http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1368022029715/coffee-vs-inflation/Coffee_Inflation_Adjusted_Historical_Chart_April_2013.png http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1368022029715/coffee-vs... The varying of quantities in the same sized container is not the problem and is certainly not illogical. The problem is when we allow marketing departments to lie/cheat/fool the product onto a different portion of the demand curve instead of letting the $/amount naturally flow back when price decreases or when it makes sense to switch to cheaper containers.
- r00fus 7y ago
  This is why I prefer buying bulk when I can (with reusable containers/bags [1]). Bulk Coffee + airtight/cool storage hasn't resulted in bad coffee for me. Why put up with deceptive packaging? [1] Yes I know that most of that product came arrived in even more packaging, but doing what I can for now.
  - anon1m0us 7y ago
    I guess what I am learning about myself lately is that I have the power to lie to people and convince them to do things they don't want to do or don't know better. People know this about me. They know it almost instantly. I sense it in them. I sense the same about other people. They have that power over me. However, I make an effort not to. Or, when I do, I work especially hard to steer them in the direction of their goals or somewhere that will benefit them. Even if it's at my own expense sometimes and that can be sad or disappointing. And so, through that, I have come to resent people who don't think that way. Who think, "People won't look at the number of ounces in the can, they'll just see it's the same size and think they're getting the same amount." It's a lie. Deception. It's wrong. But yet, we allow it in society. It's destroying us. It's all around us. Fake news. The US President. Marketing. Stack Overflow. So, why put up with it? It's not that you even know you're putting up with it. Some of us do. Most don't. Scammers proliferate. It's more like, How do we protect the innocent people? Why as a species, do we allow some of us to prey on others? It doesn't seem good to me.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      I stand with you here. I recognized something like this myself - I phrase it as "I want to live in a world of cooperation, of win-win deals", but there are still people who prefer to exploit others, play "win-lose" games. That's why I despise the advertising industry so much. They're all playing win-lose games with society, and the collateral damage slowly eats at the base of what keeps our societies together.
      - anon1m0us 7y ago
        Yes! I remember someone asked me one time, "What do you want?" I said, "I want to create synergistic relationships with other people." I despise advertising too, but I realized I have to advertise so people know about my products. There are people who want them. Advertising helps them find my products that solve their problems. And then I realized the advertising platforms like adwords and such were also deceptive. So I stopped advertising. It doesn't help me though or the people who I could help if they knew.
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
In the EU, shops are required to display the price per <appropiate round value>, i. e. all coffees have a (usually smaller, but readable) Euro/500g price. There used to be an even more drastic law proscribing certain sizes and disallowing all others. Flour would only be available in 500g and 1kg bags, for example. They got rid of it, possibly because they got sick of people making fun of EU regulations (that's what happened with the famous banana ratings)
- breakbread 7y ago
  >In the EU, shops are required to display the price per <appropiate round value>, i. e. all coffees have a (usually smaller, but readable) Euro/500g price. Grocery stores in the US do this, but it's not something you necessarily see in food service shops.
  - r00fus 7y ago
    It's not consistent. Sometimes they $/lb sometimes they price $/item - for the same class of item. It's as often design to mislead and prevent comparison as it is to inform you that "store brand is definitely cheaper than name brand". Since none of it is mandated, they do only what benefits their bottom line or they are publicly pressured to.
    - benibela 7y ago
      They do that in the EU/Germany, too €/item, €/100g, €/1kg are all common
      - panpanna 7y ago
        In 99% this is _not_ a EU thing. Maybe some German law?? Or just common practice in Germany? Edit: I think I confused your response with parent. I understand price/kg is a thing although I didn't knew it was mandated by law. What I don't understand is being forced to use some odd unit like price per 500g.
analogwzrd 7y ago
This little video of a an 80's desk versus a contemporary one has been bouncing around Twitter today...it's a really great visual showing how apps have slowly been replacing everything that used to clutter a desk. https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1181708302943539200?s=20 https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1181708302943539200?...
- megaremote 7y ago
  I love the idea of someone having to use a globe in their job.
impatientduck 7y ago
Exactly. And we have that magnesium and other macro-nutrients are declining in fruits and vegetables (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/). Unregulated capitalism will grow "food" in the form of apple shaped buckets of water and sell as many as they can as the soil is exhausted. We're doomed.
xyzzyz 7y ago
A lot of it is due to sticky prices. Customers don't like seeing the number on the label go up, so the companies do what they can to keep the product quality the same at the same price point, which results in reduced quantity. The alternative is to reduce quality, which usually results in a death spiral.
- megaremote 7y ago
  Also, a great way to trick people into buying less. > The alternative is to reduce quality, which usually results in a death spiral. Or increase cost.
- pjmorris 7y ago
  I think consumers would be more willing to see the number on the label go up if they saw the number on their paychecks go up. Wages in the US peaked about 1968, a number of forces have been working to reengineer that deal ever since. Similar to your point, executives don't like seeing the number on their costs go up. Isn't it possible that quality could take a hit in how the executive chooses to reduce costs?
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    Nominal wages in the US have most certainly gone up since 1968 a great deal, this much is really obvious. You might be talking about real wages, but those are irrelevant when we talk about sticky prices, because people don't accurately understand the changes in their real wages over time (and those have also gone up, though not as much as some people would expect). Similar to your point, executives don't like seeing the number on their costs go up. Yes, but they do go up, so they try to exploit quirk of human psychology to reduce the impact of rising costs on consumers. Isn't it possible that quality could take a hit in how the executive chooses to reduce costs? It sure is possible, and no doubt happens with lots of products across the board. Usually, it is wrong move, and the company eventually succumbs to competitors.
    - lumost 7y ago
      real wages have gone up on average, but median wages have gone down. If you're in the business of selling household staples the median income of your customers matters more to you.
chrisseaton 7y ago
> There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk. A half-gallon seems like an absolutely obscene volume of ice-cream. That's over two litres! Why would anyone possibly need ice-cream measured by the gallon? Isn't it good that sizes are reducing from that much?
- CapitalistCartr 7y ago
  A half-gallon is slightly less than two liters, and is not intended to be one serving. Its a bulk purchase to serve a family, usually multiple times. (Although I have eaten one in one go when I was a young man.)
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    But why are people buying a rare treat like ice cream as a bulk item to eat repeatedly? Seems like something we want to discourage?
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Because a) when you split it over four people it's only ~two evenings worth of desert. b) don't tell me what to do with my body.
- toast0 7y ago
  You don't eat all the ice cream in one sitting. If this random ice cream[1] is an indication, serving size is half a cup, so a half gallon should provide 16 servings. If you like the flavor, why not buy 16 servings at a time; if you live in a household with four people, that's 4 sittings of ice cream. [1] https://www.target.com/p/breyers-original-ice-cream-natural-vanilla-48oz/-/A-13352694 https://www.target.com/p/breyers-original-ice-cream-natural-...
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
pm90 7y ago
I'm only slightly surprised that a comment full of anecdote without a shred of actual scientific evidence is the top comment in this story. MBA's have optimized everything... which is great! We don't need to spend incredible amounts on labor. We don't need to buy incredibly large homes. Make work more efficient... its the only way to compete with low cost emerging economic markets. Specialization and efficiencies are the only way to remain competitive. From my perspective, the only real structural damage has been done by the success of concentrated moneyed interests in regulatory capture. We need to tax these efficient corporations and individuals fairly, and use those tax dollars to invest in universal healthcare, environmental protection and education.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mobilefriendly 7y ago
  They've optimized for the wrong things-- short-term profit while making the products crappy. For example almost all of the household appliances I've purchased in the past 7 years have failed because of poor design and inferior plastic parts. My expensive oven doesn't have enough insulation around the electronic control and its failed from heat, etc etc.
  - pm90 7y ago
    More anecdotes. While you complain about your Owen, the efficient supply chains built across nations has enabled keeping costs low enough for Americans with stagnating wages to afford a reasonable standard of living.
    - PenguinCoder 7y ago
      Then maybe we should focus on fixing the wage stagnation problem, and not kicking the can.
      - pm90 7y ago
        I mean, YES, of course we should. That’s what I’m arguing for. Tax wealth better, use the generated revenue to improve people’s lives in scientifically proven ways (Ie provide healthcare, poverty assistance, more funding for education). Let’s accept that our world has changed, but let’s use the benefits of that efficiency by building a more equitable and just society. But we won’t. Most societies that become too successful suffer a similar fate. They become too polarized, and destroy the very foundations of what them great. I do hope the US is different. Most of humanity has lived under authoritarian rule. For a brief period of time it seemed like a democracy could be the most powerful country in the world. But that’s fast unraveling...
KorematsuFred 7y ago
> We've now had at least two generations of spreadsheet-wielding MBA's optimizing corporate costs to reduce what is spent on materials and labor. Evidence of their success is showing up across the economy, and politics, and society at large. Or on other hand we are enjoying more from life with less resources. Not only it helps more companies to be more profitable thus keeping more people employed, it also does a great service to the planet and the future as we continue to reduce our footprint. I agree with your point about the loan paybacks which of course is off topic.
safgasCVS 7y ago
'That put a lot of credit in to the economy, which shows up as economic growth.' - Unfortunately its not quite true! Fractional reserve banking (FRB) as is taught in most econ textbooks and courses is a myth. There's a very nice paper by the bank of england debunking this (Money creation in the modern economy). The idea behind QE and bailing out the banks was to create lending and liquidity in the market largely via the FRB mechanism however that failed to materialise for reasons the bank of england paper goes into but basically banks don’t lend out their reserves as the theory expects but it’s the process of lending that creates deposits not the other way around. The money given to banks didn't result in increased lending but instead went into financial markets buying up assets. There was some wealth effect going on so people with some assets got richer and then spent more but overall it was a really trickled down effect.
- pjmorris 7y ago
  > The money given to banks didn't result in increased lending but instead went into financial markets buying up assets. This statement is precisely what I meant by 'put a lot of credit in to the economy, which shows up as economic growth.' The trick is that QE took the bad mortgage loans (which are created as you say, loan first, not deposit first) off of the banks hands, and put real Fed-created money in the place of the loans (around 1.5-2T of QE went to mortgage-backed-securities.) That converted the bad loans into good credit, then used in the way you describe.
Reason077 7y ago
> ”a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk.” This is a common phenomenon in the UK, and there’s a name for it: Shrinkflation. It’s a way to raise prices by stealth by not actually changing the price, but by shrinking the product instead.
- nfellaby 7y ago
  #Toblerone-gate [0] [0] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37904703 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37904703
ozim 7y ago
It is not "crapification", my take on is "replaceability". People hail washing machines from communism era as really good, working for 30 years (they don't take into account survivorship bias but that is another point). Earlier you could afford only one pair of shoes for your entire life. Lots of physical things could be inherited because they were valuable and they were really expensive. You would not let your kids inherit your shoes now. The same with buildings. Kids will probably want to have their "own dream house" not stick with their parents dreams. Those kids probably will also have to move to other state or other city because jobs their parents did will no longer be there, and they will have to find their own place to get a job. Son of a carpenter is not going to be a carpenter. You want buildings easily replaceable. Buildings should last not more than 100 years and be easy to recycle. That said, all stuff that would be replaceable, should also be easy to repair

anon1m0us 7y ago

The same is true of coffee. A 1 pound coffee can is the same size it always was but now has 10 or 11 ounces of coffee in it.

mywittyname 7y ago
This is especially annoying when you realize that ever brand is different. There will be seven different brands of coffee in identically-sized bags, yet one may have 5.7oz of coffee and another will be 12.8oz.
- OldSchoolJohnny 7y ago
  Is it possible they are trying to sell for the same price but with wildly varying costs of each varietal of coffee? I.E. they want to sell a bag for 15 bucks across the board but some beans cost them far more than others to source?
  - munk-a 7y ago
    It still seems purely disingenuous to package them deceptively to appear to be the same quantity.
    - zamadatix 7y ago
      Up to some value of volumeDelta * productCount it actually makes sense to use the same container due to sourcing/manufacturing cost from the variance so I wouldn't say purely disingenuous, there is real reasoning behind some of it... it's just marketing gets in the way of when you should actually add that second container size i.e. it's costing you more to always use the bigger container but the marketing department says the increase in sales due to confusion outweighs it.
      - anon1m0us 7y ago
        So then why not just keep putting the same amount of coffee in the can? It's on us though. They're lying to us to get our money, our labor, our consent. We let them. Why?
        TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Because it pays, and for some reason not many people have the guts to say marketing is rotten to the core, and advertising is cancer on the society. Maybe because the market encourages it structurally. Lying costs little and yields good profits, so acting immorally gives competitive advantage.
        zamadatix 7y ago
        Because demand curves don't work like that unless you have a highly inelastic good. With normal goods keeping quantity constant as price changes puts you on a suboptimal point on the demand curve. Coffee's price certainly hasn't been inelastic and changing can size at every spike would have netted you decent production cost increases instead of savings: http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1368022029715/coffee-vs-inflation/Coffee_Inflation_Adjusted_Historical_Chart_April_2013.png http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1368022029715/coffee-vs... The varying of quantities in the same sized container is not the problem and is certainly not illogical. The problem is when we allow marketing departments to lie/cheat/fool the product onto a different portion of the demand curve instead of letting the $/amount naturally flow back when price decreases or when it makes sense to switch to cheaper containers.
r00fus 7y ago
This is why I prefer buying bulk when I can (with reusable containers/bags [1]). Bulk Coffee + airtight/cool storage hasn't resulted in bad coffee for me. Why put up with deceptive packaging? [1] Yes I know that most of that product came arrived in even more packaging, but doing what I can for now.
- anon1m0us 7y ago
  I guess what I am learning about myself lately is that I have the power to lie to people and convince them to do things they don't want to do or don't know better. People know this about me. They know it almost instantly. I sense it in them. I sense the same about other people. They have that power over me. However, I make an effort not to. Or, when I do, I work especially hard to steer them in the direction of their goals or somewhere that will benefit them. Even if it's at my own expense sometimes and that can be sad or disappointing. And so, through that, I have come to resent people who don't think that way. Who think, "People won't look at the number of ounces in the can, they'll just see it's the same size and think they're getting the same amount." It's a lie. Deception. It's wrong. But yet, we allow it in society. It's destroying us. It's all around us. Fake news. The US President. Marketing. Stack Overflow. So, why put up with it? It's not that you even know you're putting up with it. Some of us do. Most don't. Scammers proliferate. It's more like, How do we protect the innocent people? Why as a species, do we allow some of us to prey on others? It doesn't seem good to me.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    I stand with you here. I recognized something like this myself - I phrase it as "I want to live in a world of cooperation, of win-win deals", but there are still people who prefer to exploit others, play "win-lose" games. That's why I despise the advertising industry so much. They're all playing win-lose games with society, and the collateral damage slowly eats at the base of what keeps our societies together.
    - anon1m0us 7y ago
      Yes! I remember someone asked me one time, "What do you want?" I said, "I want to create synergistic relationships with other people." I despise advertising too, but I realized I have to advertise so people know about my products. There are people who want them. Advertising helps them find my products that solve their problems. And then I realized the advertising platforms like adwords and such were also deceptive. So I stopped advertising. It doesn't help me though or the people who I could help if they knew.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

In the EU, shops are required to display the price per <appropiate round value>, i. e. all coffees have a (usually smaller, but readable) Euro/500g price. There used to be an even more drastic law proscribing certain sizes and disallowing all others. Flour would only be available in 500g and 1kg bags, for example. They got rid of it, possibly because they got sick of people making fun of EU regulations (that's what happened with the famous banana ratings)

breakbread 7y ago
>In the EU, shops are required to display the price per <appropiate round value>, i. e. all coffees have a (usually smaller, but readable) Euro/500g price. Grocery stores in the US do this, but it's not something you necessarily see in food service shops.
- r00fus 7y ago
  It's not consistent. Sometimes they $/lb sometimes they price $/item - for the same class of item. It's as often design to mislead and prevent comparison as it is to inform you that "store brand is definitely cheaper than name brand". Since none of it is mandated, they do only what benefits their bottom line or they are publicly pressured to.
  - benibela 7y ago
    They do that in the EU/Germany, too €/item, €/100g, €/1kg are all common
    - panpanna 7y ago
      In 99% this is _not_ a EU thing. Maybe some German law?? Or just common practice in Germany? Edit: I think I confused your response with parent. I understand price/kg is a thing although I didn't knew it was mandated by law. What I don't understand is being forced to use some odd unit like price per 500g.

analogwzrd 7y ago

This little video of a an 80's desk versus a contemporary one has been bouncing around Twitter today...it's a really great visual showing how apps have slowly been replacing everything that used to clutter a desk. https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1181708302943539200?s=20 https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status/1181708302943539200?...

megaremote 7y ago
I love the idea of someone having to use a globe in their job.

impatientduck 7y ago

Exactly. And we have that magnesium and other macro-nutrients are declining in fruits and vegetables (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163803/). Unregulated capitalism will grow "food" in the form of apple shaped buckets of water and sell as many as they can as the soil is exhausted. We're doomed.

xyzzyz 7y ago

A lot of it is due to sticky prices. Customers don't like seeing the number on the label go up, so the companies do what they can to keep the product quality the same at the same price point, which results in reduced quantity. The alternative is to reduce quality, which usually results in a death spiral.

megaremote 7y ago
Also, a great way to trick people into buying less. > The alternative is to reduce quality, which usually results in a death spiral. Or increase cost.
pjmorris 7y ago
I think consumers would be more willing to see the number on the label go up if they saw the number on their paychecks go up. Wages in the US peaked about 1968, a number of forces have been working to reengineer that deal ever since. Similar to your point, executives don't like seeing the number on their costs go up. Isn't it possible that quality could take a hit in how the executive chooses to reduce costs?
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  Nominal wages in the US have most certainly gone up since 1968 a great deal, this much is really obvious. You might be talking about real wages, but those are irrelevant when we talk about sticky prices, because people don't accurately understand the changes in their real wages over time (and those have also gone up, though not as much as some people would expect). Similar to your point, executives don't like seeing the number on their costs go up. Yes, but they do go up, so they try to exploit quirk of human psychology to reduce the impact of rising costs on consumers. Isn't it possible that quality could take a hit in how the executive chooses to reduce costs? It sure is possible, and no doubt happens with lots of products across the board. Usually, it is wrong move, and the company eventually succumbs to competitors.
  - lumost 7y ago
    real wages have gone up on average, but median wages have gone down. If you're in the business of selling household staples the median income of your customers matters more to you.

chrisseaton 7y ago

> There are two other trends that worry me more. One is visible in the freezer section at the grocery store; a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk. A half-gallon seems like an absolutely obscene volume of ice-cream. That's over two litres! Why would anyone possibly need ice-cream measured by the gallon? Isn't it good that sizes are reducing from that much?

CapitalistCartr 7y ago
A half-gallon is slightly less than two liters, and is not intended to be one serving. Its a bulk purchase to serve a family, usually multiple times. (Although I have eaten one in one go when I was a young man.)
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  But why are people buying a rare treat like ice cream as a bulk item to eat repeatedly? Seems like something we want to discourage?
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Because a) when you split it over four people it's only ~two evenings worth of desert. b) don't tell me what to do with my body.
toast0 7y ago
You don't eat all the ice cream in one sitting. If this random ice cream[1] is an indication, serving size is half a cup, so a half gallon should provide 16 servings. If you like the flavor, why not buy 16 servings at a time; if you live in a household with four people, that's 4 sittings of ice cream. [1] https://www.target.com/p/breyers-original-ice-cream-natural-vanilla-48oz/-/A-13352694 https://www.target.com/p/breyers-original-ice-cream-natural-...
- chrisseaton 7y ago

pm90 7y ago

I'm only slightly surprised that a comment full of anecdote without a shred of actual scientific evidence is the top comment in this story. MBA's have optimized everything... which is great! We don't need to spend incredible amounts on labor. We don't need to buy incredibly large homes. Make work more efficient... its the only way to compete with low cost emerging economic markets. Specialization and efficiencies are the only way to remain competitive. From my perspective, the only real structural damage has been done by the success of concentrated moneyed interests in regulatory capture. We need to tax these efficient corporations and individuals fairly, and use those tax dollars to invest in universal healthcare, environmental protection and education.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mobilefriendly 7y ago
They've optimized for the wrong things-- short-term profit while making the products crappy. For example almost all of the household appliances I've purchased in the past 7 years have failed because of poor design and inferior plastic parts. My expensive oven doesn't have enough insulation around the electronic control and its failed from heat, etc etc.
- pm90 7y ago
  More anecdotes. While you complain about your Owen, the efficient supply chains built across nations has enabled keeping costs low enough for Americans with stagnating wages to afford a reasonable standard of living.
  - PenguinCoder 7y ago
    Then maybe we should focus on fixing the wage stagnation problem, and not kicking the can.
    - pm90 7y ago
      I mean, YES, of course we should. That’s what I’m arguing for. Tax wealth better, use the generated revenue to improve people’s lives in scientifically proven ways (Ie provide healthcare, poverty assistance, more funding for education). Let’s accept that our world has changed, but let’s use the benefits of that efficiency by building a more equitable and just society. But we won’t. Most societies that become too successful suffer a similar fate. They become too polarized, and destroy the very foundations of what them great. I do hope the US is different. Most of humanity has lived under authoritarian rule. For a brief period of time it seemed like a democracy could be the most powerful country in the world. But that’s fast unraveling...

KorematsuFred 7y ago

> We've now had at least two generations of spreadsheet-wielding MBA's optimizing corporate costs to reduce what is spent on materials and labor. Evidence of their success is showing up across the economy, and politics, and society at large. Or on other hand we are enjoying more from life with less resources. Not only it helps more companies to be more profitable thus keeping more people employed, it also does a great service to the planet and the future as we continue to reduce our footprint. I agree with your point about the loan paybacks which of course is off topic.

safgasCVS 7y ago

'That put a lot of credit in to the economy, which shows up as economic growth.' - Unfortunately its not quite true! Fractional reserve banking (FRB) as is taught in most econ textbooks and courses is a myth. There's a very nice paper by the bank of england debunking this (Money creation in the modern economy). The idea behind QE and bailing out the banks was to create lending and liquidity in the market largely via the FRB mechanism however that failed to materialise for reasons the bank of england paper goes into but basically banks don’t lend out their reserves as the theory expects but it’s the process of lending that creates deposits not the other way around. The money given to banks didn't result in increased lending but instead went into financial markets buying up assets. There was some wealth effect going on so people with some assets got richer and then spent more but overall it was a really trickled down effect.

pjmorris 7y ago
> The money given to banks didn't result in increased lending but instead went into financial markets buying up assets. This statement is precisely what I meant by 'put a lot of credit in to the economy, which shows up as economic growth.' The trick is that QE took the bad mortgage loans (which are created as you say, loan first, not deposit first) off of the banks hands, and put real Fed-created money in the place of the loans (around 1.5-2T of QE went to mortgage-backed-securities.) That converted the bad loans into good credit, then used in the way you describe.

Reason077 7y ago

> ”a "half-gallon" of ice cream is no longer actually a half-gallon. Many other food items have shrunk.” This is a common phenomenon in the UK, and there’s a name for it: Shrinkflation. It’s a way to raise prices by stealth by not actually changing the price, but by shrinking the product instead.

nfellaby 7y ago
#Toblerone-gate [0] [0] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37904703 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37904703

ozim 7y ago

It is not "crapification", my take on is "replaceability". People hail washing machines from communism era as really good, working for 30 years (they don't take into account survivorship bias but that is another point). Earlier you could afford only one pair of shoes for your entire life. Lots of physical things could be inherited because they were valuable and they were really expensive. You would not let your kids inherit your shoes now. The same with buildings. Kids will probably want to have their "own dream house" not stick with their parents dreams. Those kids probably will also have to move to other state or other city because jobs their parents did will no longer be there, and they will have to find their own place to get a job. Son of a carpenter is not going to be a carpenter. You want buildings easily replaceable. Buildings should last not more than 100 years and be easy to recycle. That said, all stuff that would be replaceable, should also be easy to repair