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I think erosion is a good word for this. How do we deal with erosion in other situations? Another thought I had just now is that historically prices were stat

I think erosion is a good word for this. How do we deal with erosion in other situations? Another thought I had just now is that historically prices were static until an event happened to cause in increase, now prices are becoming dynamic and monotonically increasing unless an event happens. Edit: The price collusion is greed/growing pains for prices being dynamic by default. This is another social norm that is being discarded by modern society. You don’t go to a store two days in a row and see different prices without a good reason.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
RobotToaster 4y ago
>How do we deal with erosion in other situations? We drop rocks on it?
- tracker1 4y ago
  I would not advocate for such a thing... but I'm honestly surprised that there haven't been attempts on the lives of executives/management/boards of companies like in TFA... I mean the whole "one bad day" is all it takes. People/society seems to be far more resilient than people give credit for... of course, this is countered by the massive homeless population. Maybe we're just far more docile. It's hard to imagine this being tolerated a century or more ago.
  - solarmist 4y ago
    They live behind a bland cover, so their names aren't known. Also, they don't seem evil enough. They mostly seem like middle management types. In other words, they blend in too well. > Maybe we're just far more docile. I think it's far more sinister than that. People and companies have learned how far they can push things without invoking outrage and how to release tensions by pretending to have a change of heart. So now they're constantly toeing the line and while each push is small, they are almost constant. Resulting in far greater violations in total.
  - snerbles 4y ago
    We have our Big Macs and Netflix. For now. Of course, that relies on the bread of the bread and circuses staying cheap enough to keep the plebians pacified. If not...a recent example would be the Arab Spring.
- brundolf 4y ago
  Plant grass [roots]
  - macintux 4y ago
    Or, sadly, plant invasive species that then destroy local ecosystems.
    - mrexroad 4y ago
      Like tik-tok? Half kidding, half not.
tomrod 4y ago
> I think erosion is a good word for this. The term has a rich history under the phrase: "consumer surplus."
- solarmist 4y ago
  Or “poor(er) people having some money.”
mrexroad 4y ago
> This is another social norm that is being discarded by modern society. You don’t go to a store two days in a row and see different prices without a good reason. … Unless that “store” is Amazon, but maybe that’s in support of your point as it’s “modern” relative to legacy retail. However, in this case it’s maybe more that pricing reflects fundamental shifts in the marketing/retail/fulfillment backend over the past decade-plus than a “social norm” being discarded. No profit seeking business would leave money on the table willingly —- greed has always been the default, new tools will always come along to enable it as old tools become less effective. Prices should roughly double every two decades with “normal” inflation. However over past decade or two we haven’t quite had “normal inflation” and we’ve also had somewhat weirdly static prices for some consumer goods (thanks easy capital + efficiencies from MBAs/offshoring/etc?) and yet unhinged price increases in other areas (college ed, medical care). The overall system has some rebounding/balancing to go (both at micro and macro level) before pricing changes have a clearer relationship to the fed rate. There’s an entire generation of people only knowing zero-percent-interest and sub-two-percent inflation rates as the norm and some thinks those days will return once [whatever now is] passes.
- solarmist 4y ago
  Sure, you’re explaining the mechanism of what I’m talking about. And yet this generation of low interest rates has gotten progressively and significantly poorer than previous generations. There’s lots of pieces of this at work.
loldk 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

RobotToaster 4y ago

>How do we deal with erosion in other situations? We drop rocks on it?

tracker1 4y ago
I would not advocate for such a thing... but I'm honestly surprised that there haven't been attempts on the lives of executives/management/boards of companies like in TFA... I mean the whole "one bad day" is all it takes. People/society seems to be far more resilient than people give credit for... of course, this is countered by the massive homeless population. Maybe we're just far more docile. It's hard to imagine this being tolerated a century or more ago.
- solarmist 4y ago
  They live behind a bland cover, so their names aren't known. Also, they don't seem evil enough. They mostly seem like middle management types. In other words, they blend in too well. > Maybe we're just far more docile. I think it's far more sinister than that. People and companies have learned how far they can push things without invoking outrage and how to release tensions by pretending to have a change of heart. So now they're constantly toeing the line and while each push is small, they are almost constant. Resulting in far greater violations in total.
- snerbles 4y ago
  We have our Big Macs and Netflix. For now. Of course, that relies on the bread of the bread and circuses staying cheap enough to keep the plebians pacified. If not...a recent example would be the Arab Spring.
brundolf 4y ago
Plant grass [roots]
- macintux 4y ago
  Or, sadly, plant invasive species that then destroy local ecosystems.
  - mrexroad 4y ago
    Like tik-tok? Half kidding, half not.

tomrod 4y ago

> I think erosion is a good word for this. The term has a rich history under the phrase: "consumer surplus."

solarmist 4y ago
Or “poor(er) people having some money.”

mrexroad 4y ago

> This is another social norm that is being discarded by modern society. You don’t go to a store two days in a row and see different prices without a good reason. … Unless that “store” is Amazon, but maybe that’s in support of your point as it’s “modern” relative to legacy retail. However, in this case it’s maybe more that pricing reflects fundamental shifts in the marketing/retail/fulfillment backend over the past decade-plus than a “social norm” being discarded. No profit seeking business would leave money on the table willingly —- greed has always been the default, new tools will always come along to enable it as old tools become less effective. Prices should roughly double every two decades with “normal” inflation. However over past decade or two we haven’t quite had “normal inflation” and we’ve also had somewhat weirdly static prices for some consumer goods (thanks easy capital + efficiencies from MBAs/offshoring/etc?) and yet unhinged price increases in other areas (college ed, medical care). The overall system has some rebounding/balancing to go (both at micro and macro level) before pricing changes have a clearer relationship to the fed rate. There’s an entire generation of people only knowing zero-percent-interest and sub-two-percent inflation rates as the norm and some thinks those days will return once [whatever now is] passes.

solarmist 4y ago
Sure, you’re explaining the mechanism of what I’m talking about. And yet this generation of low interest rates has gotten progressively and significantly poorer than previous generations. There’s lots of pieces of this at work.

loldk 4y ago

[dead]