8 ms·

That's kind of a silly example, your congressman could write a bill allocating 53% of cars to the two seater lobby and 47% to the four seat lobby.

WalterBright 1y ago
And what if 62% wanted two seaters? Back in the 70s, the Department of Energy was tasked with allocating gas to the gas stations. A gas station had to apply for an allocation, and the DoE doled out the gas. The DoE doled out gas based on the previous year's usage patterns. Sounds smart, right? What happened is that gas consumption varies year to year due to a number of factors, like weather patterns, population changes, etc. The result was massive misallocation by the DoE - Californian had shortages of gas, Florida had gluts. That sort of situation has never happened before. All that nonsense disappeared literally overnight when Reagan repealed all gas price and allocation controls with his very first Executive Order. I remember than wonderful day very well - at last I could drive right up to the pump and get gas, rather than wait in line. The gas lines never returned. What you're suggesting is called "central economic planning". It is constantly tried again and again, and it never ever works. (The failures of it are always classified as "unintended side effects", though they are entirely predictable.)
- ta1243 1y ago
  > I remember than wonderful day very well - at last I could drive right up to the pump and get gas, rather than wait in line. The gas lines never returned. Not in the UK, due to a fragile supply chain. https://news.sky.com/story/supply-crisis-catastrophic-panic-buying-of-fuel-going-to-get-worse-says-industry-expert-12417689 https://news.sky.com/story/supply-crisis-catastrophic-panic-... We saw it when the Evergiven closed the Suez. We see it whenever irational consumer behaviour caused unpredicable behaviour. The Randian world you are so enamoured with is one of fragility, because buffers and margins reduces profit. Or are those "unintended side effects"?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- whatshisface 1y ago
  Doesn't every nationwide firm engage in central economic planning?
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    Yup. But they have competitors!
    - whatshisface 1y ago
      It sounds like the issue is competitors or the absence thereof more so than central allocation based on market forecasts being possible or impossible.
      - WalterBright 1y ago
        > It sounds like the issue is competitors You nailed it.
  - dh2022 1y ago
    Yes and no. A large national firm like Starbucks has a national annual plan. However, this national plan is made up of a lot of little regional plans which are then combined together. This national plan is then executed. Execution relative to plan is assessed every quarter; and every quarter the plans (both national and regional) are adjusted. This assessment and these adjustments are done at both national level and also at regional level.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Were the Soviet Union plans not also made of the plans of individual regions? (did you ever wonder what the Soviet Union was a Union of?)
- brooke2k 1y ago
  I feel this is a slightly disingenuous argument - mismanagement and poor planning can happen in both the public and private sectors. The US healthcare system is just one fantastic example of the private sector absolutely failing to deliver even a bare minimum standard of service. Gas lines are one thing - waiting fifteen hours in the emergency room to be seen, only to be charged thousands of dollars for some tylenol and a pat on the head is another.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    > mismanagement and poor planning can happen in both the public and private sectors Absolutely correct. But public regulation is quite resistant to course correction. Private companies have to face competitors and adapt or fail. > The US healthcare system is just one fantastic example of the private sector absolutely failing to deliver even a bare minimum standard of service The US healthcare system is massively regulated and interfered with by the law and things like people are forced to buy Obamacare and forced to contribute to Medicare and Medicare massively distorts market forces. Healthcare in the US was affordable before the government got involved.
    - brooke2k 1y ago
      Public regulation also course-corrects, it just does so through democracy rather than competition. I would argue that democracy is a superior method in most instances, because its motives are driven by the motives of the population as a whole, whereas capitalist competition is ultimately driven by exactly one thing: profit for the capital owners. Where we agree I think is in the assertion that United States government tends to run things very poorly. In my opinion, however, this is not because central planning is inherently bad, but because our democracy is very weak, and we allow politicians to be controlled by corporate interests rather than the interests of the people that they represent. EDIT: Oh, and for the record I disagree with the take that the US healthcare system is bad because it has too much regulation - but that's an entirely separate discussion that I don't think is worth going into.
      - WalterBright 1y ago
- AnIrishDuck 1y ago
  There were ... many other factors involved in the gas shortages of the 70s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis I don't think the history here is as neat as you have laid out. To be clear: this is not a defense of central planning.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    I lived through the gas shortages. I remember the day the gas lines ended. They never returned in the 45 years since, despite all sorts of wars and global crises and exploding oil refineries and Hooties shooting at tankers. All gone literally overnight with the stroke of Reagan's pen. The gas shortages never existed before Nixon imposed price and allocation controls on gas, either. (Except during WW2, where gas shortages were caused by gas rationing.)
    - AnIrishDuck 1y ago
      Well first, we have this: > The Jimmy Carter administration began a phased deregulation of oil prices on April 5, 1979, when the average price of crude oil was US$15.85 per barrel ($100/m3). So, the process wasn't really an instant wave of a wand, or stroke of a pen. We also have this: > Starting with the Iranian revolution, the price of crude oil rose to $39.50 per barrel ($248/m3) over the next 12 months (its all-time highest real price until March 3, 2008).[11] Deregulating domestic oil price controls allowed U.S. oil output to rise sharply from the large Prudhoe Bay fields, while oil imports fell sharply. We also have silliness like this: > Due to memories of the oil shortage in 1973, motorists soon began panic buying, and long lines appeared at gas stations, as they had six years earlier.[13] The average vehicle of the time consumed between two and three liters (about 0.5–0.8 gallons) of gasoline an hour while idling, and it was estimated that Americans wasted up to 150,000 barrels (24,000 m3) of oil per day idling their engines in the lines at gas stations. So we have counterfactuals: if there was no Iranian revolution, would the effects of Carter's gradual deregulation have been felt sooner? If there was no 1973 oil shortage, would the reduction in waste have made a difference? What effect did people simply believing that the crisis was over have? I don't propose answers to these questions; they are, in my opinion, unknowable. I suggest that economic narratives such as the one you propose do not capture the entire picture. You had downward pressure on prices due to deregulation and expanding supply, and upwards pressure due to geopolitics and waste. These processes do not resolve instantly, they take time to play out. I suggest caution when attempting to derive cause and effect from single events in complex systems.

WalterBright 1y ago

And what if 62% wanted two seaters? Back in the 70s, the Department of Energy was tasked with allocating gas to the gas stations. A gas station had to apply for an allocation, and the DoE doled out the gas. The DoE doled out gas based on the previous year's usage patterns. Sounds smart, right? What happened is that gas consumption varies year to year due to a number of factors, like weather patterns, population changes, etc. The result was massive misallocation by the DoE - Californian had shortages of gas, Florida had gluts. That sort of situation has never happened before. All that nonsense disappeared literally overnight when Reagan repealed all gas price and allocation controls with his very first Executive Order. I remember than wonderful day very well - at last I could drive right up to the pump and get gas, rather than wait in line. The gas lines never returned. What you're suggesting is called "central economic planning". It is constantly tried again and again, and it never ever works. (The failures of it are always classified as "unintended side effects", though they are entirely predictable.)

ta1243 1y ago
> I remember than wonderful day very well - at last I could drive right up to the pump and get gas, rather than wait in line. The gas lines never returned. Not in the UK, due to a fragile supply chain. https://news.sky.com/story/supply-crisis-catastrophic-panic-buying-of-fuel-going-to-get-worse-says-industry-expert-12417689 https://news.sky.com/story/supply-crisis-catastrophic-panic-... We saw it when the Evergiven closed the Suez. We see it whenever irational consumer behaviour caused unpredicable behaviour. The Randian world you are so enamoured with is one of fragility, because buffers and margins reduces profit. Or are those "unintended side effects"?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
whatshisface 1y ago
Doesn't every nationwide firm engage in central economic planning?
- WalterBright 1y ago
  Yup. But they have competitors!
  - whatshisface 1y ago
    It sounds like the issue is competitors or the absence thereof more so than central allocation based on market forecasts being possible or impossible.
    - WalterBright 1y ago
      > It sounds like the issue is competitors You nailed it.
- dh2022 1y ago
  Yes and no. A large national firm like Starbucks has a national annual plan. However, this national plan is made up of a lot of little regional plans which are then combined together. This national plan is then executed. Execution relative to plan is assessed every quarter; and every quarter the plans (both national and regional) are adjusted. This assessment and these adjustments are done at both national level and also at regional level.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Were the Soviet Union plans not also made of the plans of individual regions? (did you ever wonder what the Soviet Union was a Union of?)
brooke2k 1y ago
I feel this is a slightly disingenuous argument - mismanagement and poor planning can happen in both the public and private sectors. The US healthcare system is just one fantastic example of the private sector absolutely failing to deliver even a bare minimum standard of service. Gas lines are one thing - waiting fifteen hours in the emergency room to be seen, only to be charged thousands of dollars for some tylenol and a pat on the head is another.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  > mismanagement and poor planning can happen in both the public and private sectors Absolutely correct. But public regulation is quite resistant to course correction. Private companies have to face competitors and adapt or fail. > The US healthcare system is just one fantastic example of the private sector absolutely failing to deliver even a bare minimum standard of service The US healthcare system is massively regulated and interfered with by the law and things like people are forced to buy Obamacare and forced to contribute to Medicare and Medicare massively distorts market forces. Healthcare in the US was affordable before the government got involved.
  - brooke2k 1y ago
    Public regulation also course-corrects, it just does so through democracy rather than competition. I would argue that democracy is a superior method in most instances, because its motives are driven by the motives of the population as a whole, whereas capitalist competition is ultimately driven by exactly one thing: profit for the capital owners. Where we agree I think is in the assertion that United States government tends to run things very poorly. In my opinion, however, this is not because central planning is inherently bad, but because our democracy is very weak, and we allow politicians to be controlled by corporate interests rather than the interests of the people that they represent. EDIT: Oh, and for the record I disagree with the take that the US healthcare system is bad because it has too much regulation - but that's an entirely separate discussion that I don't think is worth going into.
    - WalterBright 1y ago
AnIrishDuck 1y ago
There were ... many other factors involved in the gas shortages of the 70s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis I don't think the history here is as neat as you have laid out. To be clear: this is not a defense of central planning.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  I lived through the gas shortages. I remember the day the gas lines ended. They never returned in the 45 years since, despite all sorts of wars and global crises and exploding oil refineries and Hooties shooting at tankers. All gone literally overnight with the stroke of Reagan's pen. The gas shortages never existed before Nixon imposed price and allocation controls on gas, either. (Except during WW2, where gas shortages were caused by gas rationing.)
  - AnIrishDuck 1y ago
    Well first, we have this: > The Jimmy Carter administration began a phased deregulation of oil prices on April 5, 1979, when the average price of crude oil was US$15.85 per barrel ($100/m3). So, the process wasn't really an instant wave of a wand, or stroke of a pen. We also have this: > Starting with the Iranian revolution, the price of crude oil rose to $39.50 per barrel ($248/m3) over the next 12 months (its all-time highest real price until March 3, 2008).[11] Deregulating domestic oil price controls allowed U.S. oil output to rise sharply from the large Prudhoe Bay fields, while oil imports fell sharply. We also have silliness like this: > Due to memories of the oil shortage in 1973, motorists soon began panic buying, and long lines appeared at gas stations, as they had six years earlier.[13] The average vehicle of the time consumed between two and three liters (about 0.5–0.8 gallons) of gasoline an hour while idling, and it was estimated that Americans wasted up to 150,000 barrels (24,000 m3) of oil per day idling their engines in the lines at gas stations. So we have counterfactuals: if there was no Iranian revolution, would the effects of Carter's gradual deregulation have been felt sooner? If there was no 1973 oil shortage, would the reduction in waste have made a difference? What effect did people simply believing that the crisis was over have? I don't propose answers to these questions; they are, in my opinion, unknowable. I suggest that economic narratives such as the one you propose do not capture the entire picture. You had downward pressure on prices due to deregulation and expanding supply, and upwards pressure due to geopolitics and waste. These processes do not resolve instantly, they take time to play out. I suggest caution when attempting to derive cause and effect from single events in complex systems.