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> spend their savings on things that are useful (instead of stuffing it in their mattress) People are literally spending all their money on food and rent, not

> spend their savings on things that are useful (instead of stuffing it in their mattress) People are literally spending all their money on food and rent, not stuffing it in their mattress. The only ones doing that are the ones on top, hoarding wealth and exploiting their underlings. > ability to make products people want Wealthy investors have decided this isn't important, all that's important is cutting costs so they can hoard more wealth, which usually means exporting production out of the country so they can exploit laborers in other countries where they don't have protection through the law. This is why we currently don't have enough masks and rely on foreign countries to produce them for us. The "world economy" only seems to measure things that make rich people richer, and how effective these things are at doing so.

aey 7y ago
They are not actually hoarding “wealth”. No one is sitting on a pile of apartments, or ventilators, or college spots, or food distribution capacity. There is fixed amount of that stuff out there right now. If it was possible to produce apartments for you for half the price, or deliver food, or an fda approved ventilator, and still have a profit investors would be jumping over themselves to do so. Businesses are hoarding cash because they predict a drop in revenue and want to save as much as they can so they can continue operations and realign for the new economy.
- emilecantin 7y ago
  > No one is sitting on a pile of apartments, or ventilators, or college spots, or food distribution capacity. The large number of empty apartments being rented 3-4 nights a month on AirBnb in most large cities seems to indicate otherwise. The CPAP machine "jailbreak" posted here yesterday seems to indicate otherwise. The large quantity of food going to the trash every day seems to indicate otherwise. I agree that there is a "fixed" amount of stuff out there, but it's far from allocated efficiently. I think it's time we recognized that.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    How is a CPAP machine hack an indication that there are excess ventilators? I don’t think you thought that through. > but it's far from allocated efficiently. I think it's time we recognized that. Who hasn’t recognized there can be inefficiency in the current system? The argument is that a central planning committee is going to do much worse.
    - viklove 7y ago
      Didn't take long for the communism strawman to come out. You're the only one suggesting that as an alternative though.
    - emilecantin 7y ago
      The gist of the article was that a CPAP machine was basically a ventilator with some features disabled in software. Given that there are many of these around, with a 3G internet connection and OTA updates, and that the manufacturer could easily turn a CPAP machine into a ventilator by "flicking a switch", yeah, I consider that an indication that they're "sitting on it". They'd rather sell you a new machine at over-inflated prices than enable existing machines to be repurposed.
  - jmchuster 7y ago
    > The large quantity of food going to the trash every day seems to indicate otherwise. These are all kind of bad examples, but I'll go with this one. Food takes time to grow or produce, so you have to accurately predict months out how much food you can sell. So, who is to blame for imperfect predictions of future demand? We could donate all this food instead of just binning it, so then who's to blame for not building the mass infrastructure required to coordinate such distribution, and then running it all for free? And then if such an individual did do this, why didn't they spend their considerable resources instead on a project that could have benefited humanity way more?
    - fzeroracer 7y ago
      I mean, you realize this is a catch-22 argument right? We don't want the government doing anything in our lives, so we don't expect any sort of mass infrastructure to be built to support for food distribution. We expect the wealthy and corporations to be philanthropists. But being a philanthropist costs money. So instead we have a bunch of farms and food producers instead tossing out food because it's cheaper to throw it away than it is to donate it. So how can you claim it's a bad example when people would rather throw food away for profit?
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  > No one is sitting on a pile of apartments They most certainly are. Vast amounts of private real estate in the most prime locations are sitting empty. See the Royal Family's property in Mayfair London for example.
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  It's actually quite profitable to hoard apartments [1] and ventilators [2]. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/upshot/when-the-empty-apartment-next-door-is-owned-by-an-oligarch.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/upshot/when-the-empty-apa... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-v...
- onion2k 7y ago
  They are not actually hoarding “wealth”. No one is sitting on a pile of apartments... They literally are actually. Buying expensive houses and leaving them empty is an incredibly common way of hoarding wealth. https://londonist.com/london/housing/how-many-vacant-empty-homes-london https://londonist.com/london/housing/how-many-vacant-empty-h...
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > No one is sitting on a pile of apartments, or ventilators, or college spots, or food distribution capacity. There is fixed amount of that stuff out there right now. Well actually, at least two of your examples are clearly wrong. In NYC, one of the most competitive housing markets in the world, one in four luxury apartments is vacant[1] while the homeless freeze to death outside each winter. Any shortage of food is hard to argue when we're turning corn into fuel instead of food[2]. The only reason people aren't sitting on piles of ventilators yet is that the high demand is new enough that a way of making money by letting people die of suffocation hasn't yet emerged. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/realestate/new-development-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/realestate/new-developmen... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2016/04/25/why-are-we-growing-corn-to-fuel-our-cars-three-reasons-why-ethanol-is-a-bad-idea/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2016/04/25/why-a...
kortilla 7y ago
Shutting down to save money isn’t hoarding wealth, it’s trying to save a business FFS. Paying employees for 4 weeks of doing nothing and bankrupting the business over it is much worse in the long term.
- pasquinelli 7y ago
  I think you're crossing separate points. Ordinary people are doing worse than a 3 percent drop, so this "world economy" is about something very different from how ordinary people are doing, and this is a problem. Getting laid off isn't wealth hoarding, but does that mean there isn't wealth hoarding?

aey 7y ago

They are not actually hoarding “wealth”. No one is sitting on a pile of apartments, or ventilators, or college spots, or food distribution capacity. There is fixed amount of that stuff out there right now. If it was possible to produce apartments for you for half the price, or deliver food, or an fda approved ventilator, and still have a profit investors would be jumping over themselves to do so. Businesses are hoarding cash because they predict a drop in revenue and want to save as much as they can so they can continue operations and realign for the new economy.

emilecantin 7y ago
> No one is sitting on a pile of apartments, or ventilators, or college spots, or food distribution capacity. The large number of empty apartments being rented 3-4 nights a month on AirBnb in most large cities seems to indicate otherwise. The CPAP machine "jailbreak" posted here yesterday seems to indicate otherwise. The large quantity of food going to the trash every day seems to indicate otherwise. I agree that there is a "fixed" amount of stuff out there, but it's far from allocated efficiently. I think it's time we recognized that.
- kortilla 7y ago
  How is a CPAP machine hack an indication that there are excess ventilators? I don’t think you thought that through. > but it's far from allocated efficiently. I think it's time we recognized that. Who hasn’t recognized there can be inefficiency in the current system? The argument is that a central planning committee is going to do much worse.
  - viklove 7y ago
    Didn't take long for the communism strawman to come out. You're the only one suggesting that as an alternative though.
  - emilecantin 7y ago
    The gist of the article was that a CPAP machine was basically a ventilator with some features disabled in software. Given that there are many of these around, with a 3G internet connection and OTA updates, and that the manufacturer could easily turn a CPAP machine into a ventilator by "flicking a switch", yeah, I consider that an indication that they're "sitting on it". They'd rather sell you a new machine at over-inflated prices than enable existing machines to be repurposed.
- jmchuster 7y ago
  > The large quantity of food going to the trash every day seems to indicate otherwise. These are all kind of bad examples, but I'll go with this one. Food takes time to grow or produce, so you have to accurately predict months out how much food you can sell. So, who is to blame for imperfect predictions of future demand? We could donate all this food instead of just binning it, so then who's to blame for not building the mass infrastructure required to coordinate such distribution, and then running it all for free? And then if such an individual did do this, why didn't they spend their considerable resources instead on a project that could have benefited humanity way more?
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    I mean, you realize this is a catch-22 argument right? We don't want the government doing anything in our lives, so we don't expect any sort of mass infrastructure to be built to support for food distribution. We expect the wealthy and corporations to be philanthropists. But being a philanthropist costs money. So instead we have a bunch of farms and food producers instead tossing out food because it's cheaper to throw it away than it is to donate it. So how can you claim it's a bad example when people would rather throw food away for profit?
rorykoehler 7y ago
> No one is sitting on a pile of apartments They most certainly are. Vast amounts of private real estate in the most prime locations are sitting empty. See the Royal Family's property in Mayfair London for example.
PascLeRasc 7y ago
It's actually quite profitable to hoard apartments [1] and ventilators [2]. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/upshot/when-the-empty-apartment-next-door-is-owned-by-an-oligarch.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/upshot/when-the-empty-apa... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-v...
onion2k 7y ago
They are not actually hoarding “wealth”. No one is sitting on a pile of apartments... They literally are actually. Buying expensive houses and leaving them empty is an incredibly common way of hoarding wealth. https://londonist.com/london/housing/how-many-vacant-empty-homes-london https://londonist.com/london/housing/how-many-vacant-empty-h...
kerkeslager 7y ago
> No one is sitting on a pile of apartments, or ventilators, or college spots, or food distribution capacity. There is fixed amount of that stuff out there right now. Well actually, at least two of your examples are clearly wrong. In NYC, one of the most competitive housing markets in the world, one in four luxury apartments is vacant[1] while the homeless freeze to death outside each winter. Any shortage of food is hard to argue when we're turning corn into fuel instead of food[2]. The only reason people aren't sitting on piles of ventilators yet is that the high demand is new enough that a way of making money by letting people die of suffocation hasn't yet emerged. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/realestate/new-development-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/realestate/new-developmen... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2016/04/25/why-are-we-growing-corn-to-fuel-our-cars-three-reasons-why-ethanol-is-a-bad-idea/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2016/04/25/why-a...

kortilla 7y ago

Shutting down to save money isn’t hoarding wealth, it’s trying to save a business FFS. Paying employees for 4 weeks of doing nothing and bankrupting the business over it is much worse in the long term.

pasquinelli 7y ago
I think you're crossing separate points. Ordinary people are doing worse than a 3 percent drop, so this "world economy" is about something very different from how ordinary people are doing, and this is a problem. Getting laid off isn't wealth hoarding, but does that mean there isn't wealth hoarding?