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Yeah, but this fell apart when the FOMC killed price discovery for 15 odd years. 'Profit' is not helpful to society, the goods and services it reflects is. Whe

by boppo1 3y ago

Yeah, but this fell apart when the FOMC killed price discovery for 15 odd years. 'Profit' is not helpful to society, the goods and services it reflects is. When you tilt the pinball table so companies that make nothing and promise the future are valuable (theranos, wework, TSLA for a long time, anything Kathy Wood buys) while under-valuing companies that make and do stuff now, you wind up hollowing out the use of resources on real things people need and spending it on stuff like NFTs. How many billions has google spent on projects that never saw the light of day? How many hospitals and bridge repairs could we have had for that money? Benchmark rate intervention is hailed as saving the economy from crises, but all it did was prop up the paper-value of people's retirement funds while suffocating businesses that actually make and do useful stuff.

LatteLazy 3y ago
I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what you say. I think it just fails to see the wider system. For instance when you said "profit is not helpful to society" you were correct. But profit is the reward people get for doing things useful to society. It's the signal that the things they are doing ARE useful. And profit pays to continue and expand those actions. A more general theme is your distinction between "real" things and the alternative. You're not wrong an NFT is a total waste of time in my opinion. But if people actually want NFTs more than steel, that is ok. Give them NFTs. And many many people DO want those things. (There is something ironic that we have ended up here as the ussr concentrated on metrics like steel production while people grew more and more discontented because they wanted vacuous things like jeans and washing machines, not steel...). That is not the fault of the profit motive or the market or capitalism. That's people wanting the "wrong" things. That won't change under any other system...
- boppo1 3y ago
  >That's people wanting the "wrong" things. That won't change under any other system... Do you know what the FOMC is/does?

by boppo1 3y ago

LatteLazy 3y ago

I don't necessarily disagree with a lot of what you say. I think it just fails to see the wider system. For instance when you said "profit is not helpful to society" you were correct. But profit is the reward people get for doing things useful to society. It's the signal that the things they are doing ARE useful. And profit pays to continue and expand those actions. A more general theme is your distinction between "real" things and the alternative. You're not wrong an NFT is a total waste of time in my opinion. But if people actually want NFTs more than steel, that is ok. Give them NFTs. And many many people DO want those things. (There is something ironic that we have ended up here as the ussr concentrated on metrics like steel production while people grew more and more discontented because they wanted vacuous things like jeans and washing machines, not steel...). That is not the fault of the profit motive or the market or capitalism. That's people wanting the "wrong" things. That won't change under any other system...

boppo1 3y ago
>That's people wanting the "wrong" things. That won't change under any other system... Do you know what the FOMC is/does?