4 ms·

IMHO there's another structural issue: Expansion of the "landed gentry" class. That is, people who own a property can live their whole life of it without singl

by mrtksn 3y ago

IMHO there's another structural issue: Expansion of the "landed gentry" class. That is, people who own a property can live their whole life of it without single contribution to the society. They might own the property due to a sizeable contribution they made early on but lately a lot of people simply got lucky to be at the right place at the right time due to policies that favoured them or events that happen outside of their control or simply inherited the property. Those people are taking large portion of the output of the productive people and because of the regulations and market dynamics their wealth doesn't come down but even keeps climbing. Normally this would be reserved for the elites and can be tolerable and maybe even desirable but when you have that elite class large as today, the resources they take out of productive people gets very significant. For example, if someone who happened to own a shitty house in an area where a lot of people suddenly start come to work, they can extract much of the productive output of the companies and people there simply because its not feasible to build new housing due to regulations. When a company happens to solve the navigation needs of the world from SV, they happen to pay very significant chuck of their money to landlords in SV. The people who solved the worlds navigation needs might appear to be compensated handsomely actually don't keep the money for long, they transfer significant amount of it to landlords. Then you end up with something like 2 people who solved the navigation, 5 people who produced and serviced the consumption needs but 10 people compete for the output of these 5 people since 3 people did nothing but just got richer by keeping owning a property. Actually, these 3 people don't have to be property owners only, it can be anything that brings enough income for life without any further input to the society. Ideally, this wouldn't cause a problem because ideally they should have been living the good life for some huge contribution they made early on but due unfair market situation they ended up like lottery winners.

Geisterde 3y ago
I disagree with a few things youre saying, though I think your heart is in the right place, allow me a moment. People who own property pay property taxes, the truth is that almost no one owns property in america, even the rich, we only lease it from the government. Further, a rich persons contribution to society is that cellphones are cheap and powerful, that you can have anything from a couch to a christmas dinner delivered to your door, that any of us have free time enough to talk on the internet rather than sustenance farming. There is a big trick, they are robbing you, but knowing how is half the battle. As you say regulations push out competition, that is one factor; along with government spending which will always flow to connected interests; lastly a monetary system where the money can only exist when its loaned into existence by a private corporation, the Fed. Each of these have their respective mythos of justification, and an underlying purpose. Regulation is to protect the public despite the fact that the regulations only come after working conditions have already improved, and are passed after the well connected corporate interests have gained some advantage that would be difficult for smaller businesses to replicate. Government spending is sold as defending citizens from ner-do-wells foreign and domestic, or more modernly for providing for the downtrodden, whereas the vast majority of money flows into the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, the banks and other well connected interests. The existence of a private organization responsible for the creation of our money is sold as a way to keep prices stable, when the reality is it gives them dominion over the wealth of the population, by manipulating interest rates and banking regulations they can chronically steal the wealth out of the paper you work for.
- mplanchard 3y ago
  I agree with some of what you’re saying, but “regulation is to protect the public despite the fact that the regulations only come after working conditions have already improved” seems to be pretty patently false, historically, for workplace, health, and environmental regulations.
  - Geisterde 3y ago
    Well, I wont pretend to have sources in hand, but as I understand it things like child labor were already gone by the time it was regulated away, or like having breaks was found to improve worker efficiency before they were required by law. You can see this from a couple years ago when jeff bezos using a sockpuppet account to lambast bernie sanders attacks on amazon, he said amazon had a higher starting wage than bernies own states minimum wage and called on him to do better; yes, absolutely true but also a pristine reason not to raise the minimum wage, it wouldn't even affect amazon, americas largest private sector workforce. As to environmental regulations, those carbon tetraflourides (i think that was it) were removed before regulations. The emissions of modern vehicles being relatively low is as much a product of manufacturers marketing better gas mileage, low NVH (noise, vibration, hashness), and improved performance, as it has been about environmental regulation. Energy is a ladder, where every step represents higher capital investment and lower long run costs, it also generally represents lower emissions, from burning literal shit>wood>coal>oil>natural gas>nuclear; it shouldn't surpise anyone that the government didnt need to regulate away burning shit for energy.
tim333 3y ago
I think the >people who own a property can live their whole life of it without single contribution is a big part of why economic growth is slow in the UK these days whereas in the 1800s it was the workshop of the world. The economy shifted from making stuff to getting a levy on asset prices, either housing or financial transactions.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  The developed world turned into rent-seekers, which worked fine up until the the developing world developed enough not to need every service the rent-seekers provided by renting out their assets to service providers. Suddenly, the service providers no longer have the fat margins but the rent-seekers still want the same rent increasing at the same pace when all need to consume the stuff produced by the people who were left out of this system. IMHO the developed world will have to go through restructuring and bring back "makings stuff" home. The inflation is supposed to help with this, when enough architects are willing to pay high enough for cheese maybe some of the architects will get into making cheese. Overall, I think the adjustment will be good for everybody. Although specialisation in a global trade can be beneficial, it can't be expected that the people of one country will work in sweatshops forever and others will have the good life simply because of their location. Eventually, things should stabilize in a more meritocratic world. A person baking bread in the Philipines shouldn't be having drastically shittier life quality than a person person baking bread in London and people baking bread in general should't have much shittier lives than people who inherited a house or works in finance. Of course, the value of contribution can be different and its all determined on the free market but it shouldn't be priced based on structural issues.
originalvichy 3y ago
You have hit the nail on the head, and many countries have an invisible tax on services due to company owners selling to private equity companies / large majority shareholders that extract profits to other countries. American (and other) multinationals make owners wealthy and as a quick turnaround start extracting profits outside the nation.

by mrtksn 3y ago

Geisterde 3y ago

I disagree with a few things youre saying, though I think your heart is in the right place, allow me a moment. People who own property pay property taxes, the truth is that almost no one owns property in america, even the rich, we only lease it from the government. Further, a rich persons contribution to society is that cellphones are cheap and powerful, that you can have anything from a couch to a christmas dinner delivered to your door, that any of us have free time enough to talk on the internet rather than sustenance farming. There is a big trick, they are robbing you, but knowing how is half the battle. As you say regulations push out competition, that is one factor; along with government spending which will always flow to connected interests; lastly a monetary system where the money can only exist when its loaned into existence by a private corporation, the Fed. Each of these have their respective mythos of justification, and an underlying purpose. Regulation is to protect the public despite the fact that the regulations only come after working conditions have already improved, and are passed after the well connected corporate interests have gained some advantage that would be difficult for smaller businesses to replicate. Government spending is sold as defending citizens from ner-do-wells foreign and domestic, or more modernly for providing for the downtrodden, whereas the vast majority of money flows into the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, the banks and other well connected interests. The existence of a private organization responsible for the creation of our money is sold as a way to keep prices stable, when the reality is it gives them dominion over the wealth of the population, by manipulating interest rates and banking regulations they can chronically steal the wealth out of the paper you work for.

mplanchard 3y ago
I agree with some of what you’re saying, but “regulation is to protect the public despite the fact that the regulations only come after working conditions have already improved” seems to be pretty patently false, historically, for workplace, health, and environmental regulations.
- Geisterde 3y ago
  Well, I wont pretend to have sources in hand, but as I understand it things like child labor were already gone by the time it was regulated away, or like having breaks was found to improve worker efficiency before they were required by law. You can see this from a couple years ago when jeff bezos using a sockpuppet account to lambast bernie sanders attacks on amazon, he said amazon had a higher starting wage than bernies own states minimum wage and called on him to do better; yes, absolutely true but also a pristine reason not to raise the minimum wage, it wouldn't even affect amazon, americas largest private sector workforce. As to environmental regulations, those carbon tetraflourides (i think that was it) were removed before regulations. The emissions of modern vehicles being relatively low is as much a product of manufacturers marketing better gas mileage, low NVH (noise, vibration, hashness), and improved performance, as it has been about environmental regulation. Energy is a ladder, where every step represents higher capital investment and lower long run costs, it also generally represents lower emissions, from burning literal shit>wood>coal>oil>natural gas>nuclear; it shouldn't surpise anyone that the government didnt need to regulate away burning shit for energy.

tim333 3y ago

I think the >people who own a property can live their whole life of it without single contribution is a big part of why economic growth is slow in the UK these days whereas in the 1800s it was the workshop of the world. The economy shifted from making stuff to getting a levy on asset prices, either housing or financial transactions.

mrtksn 3y ago
The developed world turned into rent-seekers, which worked fine up until the the developing world developed enough not to need every service the rent-seekers provided by renting out their assets to service providers. Suddenly, the service providers no longer have the fat margins but the rent-seekers still want the same rent increasing at the same pace when all need to consume the stuff produced by the people who were left out of this system. IMHO the developed world will have to go through restructuring and bring back "makings stuff" home. The inflation is supposed to help with this, when enough architects are willing to pay high enough for cheese maybe some of the architects will get into making cheese. Overall, I think the adjustment will be good for everybody. Although specialisation in a global trade can be beneficial, it can't be expected that the people of one country will work in sweatshops forever and others will have the good life simply because of their location. Eventually, things should stabilize in a more meritocratic world. A person baking bread in the Philipines shouldn't be having drastically shittier life quality than a person person baking bread in London and people baking bread in general should't have much shittier lives than people who inherited a house or works in finance. Of course, the value of contribution can be different and its all determined on the free market but it shouldn't be priced based on structural issues.

originalvichy 3y ago

You have hit the nail on the head, and many countries have an invisible tax on services due to company owners selling to private equity companies / large majority shareholders that extract profits to other countries. American (and other) multinationals make owners wealthy and as a quick turnaround start extracting profits outside the nation.