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>which is a great thing for sustainable use of natural resources Also great for keeping sustainable business models from getting out-competed by a bunch of dol

>which is a great thing for sustainable use of natural resources Also great for keeping sustainable business models from getting out-competed by a bunch of dolts with monopoly bucks. > Freedom wise, long term higher rates encourage distributed ownership of capital rather than centralized financialization. For example an escooter is merely several hundred dollars, but under ZIRP it made sense for investors to buy thousands of them to rent out, to try and create some kind of future revenue stream. Our society is much better off if things, especially consumer goods, are under private ownership rather than leased out by centralizing companies. I agree. However, many people see this as a bad thing. To continue with the scooter example, say we discover better scooter batteries but they aren't quite economically viable. With centralized ownership you can just financially penalize companies to make them switch. Even if people have to pay more they're at least not directly targeted which makes the change less politically expensive. With distributed ownership you have to enforce against more people, many of them individuals and possibly take enforcement action against them which is more laborious and expensive and runs much more risk of offending people's sensibilities and other backlash.

mindslight 4y ago
I don't think the scooter battery example is particularly great. It seems like you're saying that perhaps ongoing battery use might be creating some ongoing harm where we would be better off prematurely end-of-lifing the existing ones. But either way the battery needs to be disposed of, and round trip storage efficiency is already high enough to make ongoing inefficency not much of a consideration. I'd also point out that centralization is more likely to make destructive sweeping changes. An individual could keep limping along with their old battery with only 30% capacity, just for short trips and whatnot. Whereas a company would be inclined to scrap old scooters much earlier to keep their fleet uniform and ready for the needs of any user. A better example is the automobile market, where we've already got the distributed-incentives situation. This seems to be getting handled just fine with EV subsidies and "cash for clunkers" (criticism of that program notwithstanding). Perhaps adoption is slower than we want, but there could also be more direct incentives to upgrade if they were needed, or even just higher gas taxes. Operating on the distributed model where individuals are free to judge their own situation seems better than centralizing things so that they can be changed quicker just in case the need arises.

mindslight 4y ago

I don't think the scooter battery example is particularly great. It seems like you're saying that perhaps ongoing battery use might be creating some ongoing harm where we would be better off prematurely end-of-lifing the existing ones. But either way the battery needs to be disposed of, and round trip storage efficiency is already high enough to make ongoing inefficency not much of a consideration. I'd also point out that centralization is more likely to make destructive sweeping changes. An individual could keep limping along with their old battery with only 30% capacity, just for short trips and whatnot. Whereas a company would be inclined to scrap old scooters much earlier to keep their fleet uniform and ready for the needs of any user. A better example is the automobile market, where we've already got the distributed-incentives situation. This seems to be getting handled just fine with EV subsidies and "cash for clunkers" (criticism of that program notwithstanding). Perhaps adoption is slower than we want, but there could also be more direct incentives to upgrade if they were needed, or even just higher gas taxes. Operating on the distributed model where individuals are free to judge their own situation seems better than centralizing things so that they can be changed quicker just in case the need arises.