4 ms·

As usual, labor saving is only a good idea if the wealth created is distributed throughout society, not redirected to a small group of people.

• parineum 6mo ago
  And it almost always is through cheaper products to the end user.
  • gwerbin 6mo ago
    Citation needed. Sometimes? Sure. Almost always? Questionable assertion.
    • parineum 6mo ago
      Food, clothing, electronics... Over the longer term and adjusted for inflation of course. Any manufactured good that isn't supply constrained really. Either the products have gotten cheaper (food) or the product has become significantly better at a similar price point (cars) and, often times, both (televisions).
      • prerok 6mo ago
        Sorry, what? Food is much more expensive, like 30% here in Europe, much faster growth than inflation. And before you state that food is accounted for in inflation: economists are doing some dirty tricks here by finding subpar replacements. Cars are also much more expensive for the same quality, far surpassing inflation. I will concede TVs and electronic gadgets, though.
        • parineum 6mo ago
          Chart 42[1] [1]https://www.bls.gov/opub/100-years-of-u-s-consumer-spending.pdf https://www.bls.gov/opub/100-years-of-u-s-consumer-spending.... > Cars are also much more expensive for the same quality, far surpassing inflation. Cars are much, much more value then they used to be. The Slate truck is as close to what cars used to be in the seventies. No power steering, no power brakes, no crumple zones, no fuel injection, etc. All those features cost a lot of money yet the amount of money spent on cars really hasn't gone up in accordance. A 1970 Honda Civic cost 2k base. A base model today appears to be around 25k. that's more than inflation but it's also a luxury car, in comparison. The vehicle market is less about low pricing as much as it is feature sets at price points. In other words, the prices stay roughly static but they pack in more features.
  • keybored 6mo ago
    Renters are ecstatic as price of commodities are plummeting as house prices go up and up: “distracting myself has never been this cheap”, Anon. says. People think they can do one-sentence quips to describe how economies work.
    • parineum 6mo ago
      Housing is supply constrained and not tied to labor costs in a significant way. It largely is tied to the price of land in it's location. It's not going to get noticeably cheaper with cheaper labor and materials. Although, I can tell you that the products that one uses in a home have gotten cheaper (fixtures, flooring, etc) with a few exceptions, copper wiring and pipes for instance. Housing doesn't really fit into the conversation at hand about cheaper labor leading to lower prices. Something interesting that touches on both of these topics (housing and product cost) is that, if you look at how much of household income is spent on housing and food combined, they stay fairly constant. As commodity goods get cheaper and cheaper, more money is spent on the inelastic and luxury goods.
      • keybored 6mo ago
        > Housing doesn't really fit into the conversation at hand about cheaper labor leading to lower prices. A conversation that you reframed from wealth distribution to the weirdly much more narrow “cheaper products for end users”. Even though wealth inequality has been studied plenty in itself. I’m not buying the mind-commodity that you’re selling.
        • parineum 6mo ago
          > A conversation that you reframed from wealth distribution to the weirdly much more narrow “cheaper products for end users” A further up comment refers to robots picking strawberries.
      • elictronic 6mo ago
        “housing is not tied to labor costs in a significant way”. ~30% of new construction is labor. ~50% of repair is labor. Have you ever dealt with home repair or building or are you just regurgitating whatever the LLM told you.
  • joquarky 6mo ago
    Prices going down is called deflation.