4 ms·

if you are poor, it makes no difference how much you want it if you are fundamentally unable to afford it.

by throwaway2048 5y ago

gruez 5y ago
You're right. That is a flaw with the free market. A rich person mildly wanting something will outweigh a poor person desperately wanting something. That said, the alternatives aren't much better. A wait list doesn't have any concept of neediness. self-reporting is unreliable (everyone will just say they really want it). A neediness assessment (ie. auditing each applicant's neediness) could theoretically work, but requires time/resources, and still has biases (eg. people with "visible" problems probably will look more needy than someone with hidden ones). Moreover, none of other distribution methods incentivize further supply. A sibling comment covers this: >What makes dollars unique is that if you inject more dollars into the free market for a good, then ceteris paribus, you will cause more of that good to be produced. Whereas if you injected more bureaucratic know-how into the Canadian patient population, you'd merely cause more intense competition for the same fixed number of physician-hours. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367611
- bigbob2 5y ago
  >What makes dollars unique is that if you inject more dollars into the free market for a good, then ceteris paribus, you will cause more of that good to be produced. If the video card shortage has taught us anything, it's that this is not always true.
  - gruez 5y ago
    I think you need to factor in timeframes here. The demand shock for silicon started less than 2 years ago. The time it takes to bring a fab online is much longer than that. More of the goods will be produced eventually, but the market can't materialize it out of thin air.
    - bigbob2 5y ago
      I certainly hope that is the case, but I remember the Nvidia CEO (it has been a while so things may be different now) saying they would not increase production because they were worried the demand surge was temporary. So long as crypto is profitable I don't see where any amount of production increase is going to stabilize the price. Maybe Ethereum PoS will fix this? Or will another PoW cryptocurrency just take its place?

if you are poor, it makes no difference how much you want it if you are fundamentally unable to afford it.

You're right. That is a flaw with the free market. A rich person mildly wanting something will outweigh a poor person desperately wanting something. That said, the alternatives aren't much better. A wait list doesn't have any concept of neediness. self-reporting is unreliable (everyone will just say they really want it). A neediness assessment (ie. auditing each applicant's neediness) could theoretically work, but requires time/resources, and still has biases (eg. people with "visible" problems probably will look more needy than someone with hidden ones). Moreover, none of other distribution methods incentivize further supply. A sibling comment covers this: >What makes dollars unique is that if you inject more dollars into the free market for a good, then ceteris paribus, you will cause more of that good to be produced. Whereas if you injected more bureaucratic know-how into the Canadian patient population, you'd merely cause more intense competition for the same fixed number of physician-hours. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367611

bigbob2 5y ago
>What makes dollars unique is that if you inject more dollars into the free market for a good, then ceteris paribus, you will cause more of that good to be produced. If the video card shortage has taught us anything, it's that this is not always true.
- gruez 5y ago
  I think you need to factor in timeframes here. The demand shock for silicon started less than 2 years ago. The time it takes to bring a fab online is much longer than that. More of the goods will be produced eventually, but the market can't materialize it out of thin air.
  - bigbob2 5y ago
    I certainly hope that is the case, but I remember the Nvidia CEO (it has been a while so things may be different now) saying they would not increase production because they were worried the demand surge was temporary. So long as crypto is profitable I don't see where any amount of production increase is going to stabilize the price. Maybe Ethereum PoS will fix this? Or will another PoW cryptocurrency just take its place?