5 ms·

When the shortage is the strategy

60 points by speckx 2mo ago

lowbloodsugar 2mo ago
The US is cooked. China is the new economic and industrial super power. The US "free market" is actively blocking all the future tech that the US can't compete with, first cars, latest is robotic parts. The rich are just soaking the rest of us for everything they can get before they GTFO.
- SirFatty 2mo ago
  [flagged]
- johnsmith1840 2mo ago
  And go where?
  - lowbloodsugar 2mo ago
    Elison has his own island - wont take much to subdue the rest of it. Thiel's setting up in Argentina. A US in revolt is a markedly worse place for them than places already set up for repression.
    - johnsmith1840 2mo ago
      So what if none of that happens? Say 10yrs from now it's basically the same as now, would you change your opinion?
- johnvanommen 2mo ago
  > The US is cooked. China is the new economic and industrial super power. The US economy has outperformed every economy on earth for the last fifteen years. China is at a permanent disadvantage because the United States and Russia are the largest producers of petroleum and natural gas on earth. Anyone who thinks China is going to be passing the US anytime soon is uninformed.
  - owebmaster 2mo ago
    > The US economy has outperformed every economy on earth for the last fifteen years In nominal dollars, not production/output
  - toomuchtodo 2mo ago
    Russia is hanging on by a thread, China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity. The US coasts on dollar and US treasuries demand until it doesn't. The only thing the US builds anymore is grifts. Russia: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/russia-will-sacrifice-its-civilian-economy-on-the-altar-of-the-war-effort/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/russia-will-sacri... https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/20/russia-runs-out-of-petrol-at-seven-in-10-stations-as-fuel-crisis-worsens https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/20/russia-runs-out-of-petro... China: The Next China Shock Is Here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393566 - August 2026 > The biggest economic story in the world right now is China’s growing dominance across advanced manufacturing sector after advanced manufacturing sector — from electric vehicles to batteries to solar panels to software like A.I. and open models, where they’ve become a world leader. What is happening here is very different than what we call the first China Shock, when China became a big exporter of things that were not that important to advanced economies — things that mattered maybe for particular communities, for many jobs, but weren’t the frontier of economic growth. But now it’s different. China is very much at the frontier, and they’re dominating it, and that is going to transform geopolitics. It is going to transform the politics, many say of European countries, where China is pushing them out of manufacturing that has been the absolute cornerstone of their economies. So I think understanding this second shock is about as essential to understanding economics and geopolitics in the coming era as literally anything is. https://www.axios.com/2026/08/21/europe-china-shock-manufacturing https://www.axios.com/2026/08/21/europe-china-shock-manufact... > U.S. tariffs have done little to slow China's export machine. Exports hit a record $3.8 trillion last year and are up 14% through July this year, even as shipments to the U.S. plunged. https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... > In 2024, China produced around 80% of the world’s solar PV modules and battery cells, and 70% of electric vehicles. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49288393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49288393 (citations) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45496507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45496507 (citations) https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-technology-tracker/ https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-tec... (August 2024) > Now covering 64 critical technologies and crucial fields spanning defence, space, energy, the environment, artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, robotics, cyber, computing, advanced materials and key quantum technology areas, the Tech Tracker’s dataset has been expanded and updated from five years of data (previously, 2018–2022) to 21 years of data (2003–2023). > These new results reveal the stunning shift in research leadership over the past two decades towards large economies in the Indo-Pacific, led by China’s exceptional gains. The US led in 60 of 64 technologies in the five years from 2003 to 2007, but in the most recent five years (2019–2023) is leading in seven. China led in just three of 64 technologies in 2003–2007 but is now the lead country in 57 of 64 technologies in 2019–2023, increasing its lead from our rankings last year (2018–2022), where it was leading in 52 technologies. China Hunts for Scientific Talent. The U.S. Is Making It Easier. - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/business/china-scientific-talent-competition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/business/china-scientific... | https://archive.today/vaapU https://archive.today/vaapU - August 17th, 2026 > The US economy has outperformed every economy on earth for the last fifteen years. "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." "How did you go bankrupt?" "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." -- Hemingway https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379851 (citations)
- actionfromafar 2mo ago
  China is also cooked.
  - lowbloodsugar 2mo ago
    Everywhere is cooked, but some places are less cooked than others. See how China reacted to the oil shortage: they just cut their oil imports and carried on. Arguably, China prevented a total meltdown in oil-dependent countries (USA).
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
    - MarkusQ 2mo ago
      The USA is a net exporter of oil.
no_multitudes 2mo ago
This is an interesting example of a pangram false negative. It's very obvious from the jump that substantial AI assistance was used, but feeding some samples in I got a 100% human rating. I wonder if it's a case of adversarial prompting?
- ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
  “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?”
smallmancontrov 2mo ago
> constrain supply, raise prices far beyond what the constraint justifies, and then refuse to lower them In a healthy competitive market, this doesn't work. In a Ronald Reagan / Robert Bork / Consumer Welfare Standard market, where the idea that antitrust policy should promote competition is scoffed at and all M&A is allowed so long as a business can scribble with crayons on butcher paper a tall tale about how their merger will totally reduce prices (pinky promise!), an unhealthy low-competition market is the intentional and inevitable result.
- michaelmrose 2mo ago
  [dead]
- DoctorOetker 2mo ago
  The most bothering aspect is that governments always hide behind a curtain of plausible deniability: "well you can't accuse us of not possessing a crystal ball to predict the future", except governments don't need crystal balls depicting the future. Image companies A & B wish to merge for example, and claim lowered future consumer prices as a result of the merger. A government can shape this as a bet: proportional to your excess-price-over-prediction is positive, a government can institute a misprediction tax proportional to such excess. This places the prediction effort correctly with the companies instead of the government (if you believe governments were intrinsically better at predicting than companies, you'd be a communist).
  - smallmancontrov 2mo ago
    Yes! Absolutely! If merging business were confident in their price reduction tall tales they would be willing to bet on them. Unfortunately, both the corporations who abuse the policy and the politicians who put it in place understand perfectly well what they are doing. Structuring the deal in a manner that would avoid corruption would defeat the purpose of doing corruption. Re: crystal ball, a biography of Louis Brandeis would suffice. It turns out we had this exact same problem with the Robber Barons. The arguments were the same, the talking points were the same (they didn't even update the story about Standard Oil lol), time is a flat circle when it comes to American antitrust. In any case, the Robber Barons were defeated in the early 20th century and Reagan was just bringing back the policy that served them well using the excuses that served them well. He was not inventing something brave and new that might reasonably have been expected to behave differently. Reagan and Bork knew exactly what they were doing.
johnvanommen 2mo ago
TLDR: the article describes stagflation in a novel way. Yes, it’s happening, just as it did in the seventies. Invest appropriately.
- warkdarrior 2mo ago
  We do not have high unemployment (yet?). And the economy is growing, just slowly.
  - hnav 2mo ago
    Isn't that due to gig work (effectively -EV for a huge chunk of people) and other math shenanigans?
deathanatos 2mo ago
This isn't going to get solved at the consumer level. Yes, one perhaps can & should attempt to vote w/ one's wallet, but the real fix is anti-trust law enforcement. TFA knows this, > Every pattern above can be explained without conspiracy. (… and in a section titled "Ongoing collusion", too!) but conspiracy also explains some of it: the egg price increases were industry collusion[1]; Americans lost something like $3B to $6B in egg prices due to it. The DOJ permitted them to settle for what effectively amounts to "don't do that again". Did I try avoiding eggs while they were $6/dz? Absolutely, but meanwhile Tyson ate one of our local meat suppliers, and those prices immediately went up 50%. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_Clearinghouse#Price_fixing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_Clearinghouse#Price_fixing
Hasz 2mo ago
I feel like I am living in a different universe to the author. My beef still costs around $5/lb, my milk is still roughly $3/gal, similar on a lot of staples I buy regularly. My shirts cost about $5 for a t-shirt, and my jeans cost $20 or so. I spend 80% at Costco and 20% at King Soopers (Kroger). Ancedota I know, but the author is writing like Big Business has 100% coverage of the whole market.
- cnity 2mo ago
  The article contains 31 references. Of course, no report on the _general_ market trends are going to cover every anecdote in the US. It could be that the staples you mentioned aren't affected to the same degree. How about your non-staples? How about cars? Houses? Vacation expenses? In fact, your comment could be read as the exception that proves the rule: you haven't been affected by rising costs because you stick to staples and avoid "frivolous" purchases (that is, you live frugally, as suggested by the article).
  - Hasz 2mo ago
    Most of the references are not to actual price data, eg CPI basket of goods, so here is the actual link. https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-price-index-by-category.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-pri... Energy stands out as actually being noteworthy, but is not discussed in the article compared to food, consumer goods. It is pretty inelastic for most people, especially gas/diesel.
- agency 2mo ago
  Sincere question: where are you buying beef for $5/lb? I shop at Costco and ground beef is close to $10/lb
  - mc32 2mo ago
    I think the only beef you can find for $5/lb is the ground beef that comes pre-weighed in sealed tubes -not at the meat counter.
MarkusQ 2mo ago
"NoOneIsHappy.com" appears to be some sort of low-effort demoralization psyop or something. Who'd have guessed with a name like that?
- skybrian 2mo ago
  I assume it’s a reference to “everything is amazing and no one is happy.”
- summermusic 2mo ago
  These blog posts appear to be well-researched and well-cited.
- plandis 2mo ago
  Instead of ad hominem, why not read the article and refute? The sources are included.
skybrian 2mo ago
> Corporate profits drove more than a third of inflation from the start of the pandemic This seems like it’s getting causation backwards. Shortages directly result in corporate profits somewhere, because there are companies that can raise prices. Most recently, in the oil industry, and in memory chips, and so on. Also, housing. If there’s enough competing supply then they can’t raise prices. If there isn’t, they can and usually will. Strategy often means anticipating shortages and having something to sell when they happen, but not overdoing it. It might be temporary but it can take years to resolve. Deciding not to build new factories in anticipation of a memory shortage is a strategy. Often it’s justified by saying the shortage won’t last. The people saying that the AI bubble will collapse are justifying a wait-and-see strategy that makes it worse.
- snapcaster 2mo ago
  > If there’s enough competing supply then they can’t raise prices. If there isn’t, they can and usually will. Right, key word there is "competing". Large firms collude via all sorts of means to avoid competing. Many such cases
cheriot 2mo ago
> credit card debt hit an all-time high last year ($1.28 trillion, Q4 2025) Let me inflation adjust that for you: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpo https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpo. Even better, as a percentage of disposable income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpt https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpt > real hourly wages, only 3% Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpE. Doesn't look so dire to me? Whenever I see someone quoting economic statistics I look them up on FRED and zoom out a little. Usually I close the article at that point. The "Ongoing collusion" table in this article is interesting, though. Capitalism breaks down without competition.
- conception 2mo ago
  https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:1989.3,2026.1;quarter:146;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7,9;units:shares https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr... Also breaks down when few individuals command tremendous power. Tax policy has been //fantastic// for the very wealthy.
- smallmancontrov 2mo ago
  When prices rise and wages don't keep pace, individual solvency forces substitution of inferior goods. CPI's methodology then updates the basket to reflect the forced substitution and pretend it was voluntary. You think you are looking at rising real wages, but due to the basket methodology you are actually looking at the individual solvency constraint in a mirror. The economy could reduce people to eating bug burgers in homeless encampments and that line would still go up through the entire process. Repeat the exercise using a real deflator and the results are different. Ideally, this would mean constructing a basket of things you (or the people in question) want to buy. In practice, nobody has time for that so people just use an asset with a reputation for holding value (gold) or a proxy for their most important aspiration (housing). These both have problems, but the problems are not nearly as bad as the circular logic in the CPI.
  - 2mo ago
Apreche 2mo ago
This is the wrong way to look at it. In a K-shaped economy a business will not succeed by making quality goods at reasonable prices. Who are the customers for that? The middle class no longer exists. Every successful business will do one of two things. Some will make ludicrous luxury goods at preposterous prices for customers that are not price conscious. Others will make mass produced garbage at insanely low margins in vast quantities. The shortage is only the strategy in the sense that a large part of luxury goods is status. If you have a luxury product, you have to make it into a status symbol to get sales. Limited availability increases desirability. If something is too popular, wealthy people don’t want it anymore at any price. The only solution is to end wealth inequality and restore the middle class. Tax the rich.
- MarkusQ 2mo ago
  https://manhattan.institute/article/the-american-middle-class-keeps-getting-richer https://manhattan.institute/article/the-american-middle-clas...

60 points by speckx 2mo ago

The US is cooked. China is the new economic and industrial super power. The US "free market" is actively blocking all the future tech that the US can't compete with, first cars, latest is robotic parts. The rich are just soaking the rest of us for everything they can get before they GTFO.

SirFatty 2mo ago
[flagged]
johnsmith1840 2mo ago
And go where?
- lowbloodsugar 2mo ago
  Elison has his own island - wont take much to subdue the rest of it. Thiel's setting up in Argentina. A US in revolt is a markedly worse place for them than places already set up for repression.
  - johnsmith1840 2mo ago
    So what if none of that happens? Say 10yrs from now it's basically the same as now, would you change your opinion?
johnvanommen 2mo ago
> The US is cooked. China is the new economic and industrial super power. The US economy has outperformed every economy on earth for the last fifteen years. China is at a permanent disadvantage because the United States and Russia are the largest producers of petroleum and natural gas on earth. Anyone who thinks China is going to be passing the US anytime soon is uninformed.
- owebmaster 2mo ago
  > The US economy has outperformed every economy on earth for the last fifteen years In nominal dollars, not production/output
- toomuchtodo 2mo ago
  Russia is hanging on by a thread, China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity. The US coasts on dollar and US treasuries demand until it doesn't. The only thing the US builds anymore is grifts. Russia: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/russia-will-sacrifice-its-civilian-economy-on-the-altar-of-the-war-effort/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/russia-will-sacri... https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/20/russia-runs-out-of-petrol-at-seven-in-10-stations-as-fuel-crisis-worsens https://www.euronews.com/2026/08/20/russia-runs-out-of-petro... China: The Next China Shock Is Here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49393566 - August 2026 > The biggest economic story in the world right now is China’s growing dominance across advanced manufacturing sector after advanced manufacturing sector — from electric vehicles to batteries to solar panels to software like A.I. and open models, where they’ve become a world leader. What is happening here is very different than what we call the first China Shock, when China became a big exporter of things that were not that important to advanced economies — things that mattered maybe for particular communities, for many jobs, but weren’t the frontier of economic growth. But now it’s different. China is very much at the frontier, and they’re dominating it, and that is going to transform geopolitics. It is going to transform the politics, many say of European countries, where China is pushing them out of manufacturing that has been the absolute cornerstone of their economies. So I think understanding this second shock is about as essential to understanding economics and geopolitics in the coming era as literally anything is. https://www.axios.com/2026/08/21/europe-china-shock-manufacturing https://www.axios.com/2026/08/21/europe-china-shock-manufact... > U.S. tariffs have done little to slow China's export machine. Exports hit a record $3.8 trillion last year and are up 14% through July this year, even as shipments to the U.S. plunged. https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-explorer/ https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... > In 2024, China produced around 80% of the world’s solar PV modules and battery cells, and 70% of electric vehicles. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49288393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49288393 (citations) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45496507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45496507 (citations) https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-technology-tracker/ https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-tec... (August 2024) > Now covering 64 critical technologies and crucial fields spanning defence, space, energy, the environment, artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, robotics, cyber, computing, advanced materials and key quantum technology areas, the Tech Tracker’s dataset has been expanded and updated from five years of data (previously, 2018–2022) to 21 years of data (2003–2023). > These new results reveal the stunning shift in research leadership over the past two decades towards large economies in the Indo-Pacific, led by China’s exceptional gains. The US led in 60 of 64 technologies in the five years from 2003 to 2007, but in the most recent five years (2019–2023) is leading in seven. China led in just three of 64 technologies in 2003–2007 but is now the lead country in 57 of 64 technologies in 2019–2023, increasing its lead from our rankings last year (2018–2022), where it was leading in 52 technologies. China Hunts for Scientific Talent. The U.S. Is Making It Easier. - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/business/china-scientific-talent-competition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/business/china-scientific... | https://archive.today/vaapU https://archive.today/vaapU - August 17th, 2026 > The US economy has outperformed every economy on earth for the last fifteen years. "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." "How did you go bankrupt?" "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." -- Hemingway https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49379851 (citations)
actionfromafar 2mo ago
China is also cooked.
- lowbloodsugar 2mo ago
  Everywhere is cooked, but some places are less cooked than others. See how China reacted to the oil shortage: they just cut their oil imports and carried on. Arguably, China prevented a total meltdown in oil-dependent countries (USA).
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - MarkusQ 2mo ago
    The USA is a net exporter of oil.

no_multitudes 2mo ago

This is an interesting example of a pangram false negative. It's very obvious from the jump that substantial AI assistance was used, but feeding some samples in I got a 100% human rating. I wonder if it's a case of adversarial prompting?

ButlerianJihad 2mo ago
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?”

smallmancontrov 2mo ago

> constrain supply, raise prices far beyond what the constraint justifies, and then refuse to lower them In a healthy competitive market, this doesn't work. In a Ronald Reagan / Robert Bork / Consumer Welfare Standard market, where the idea that antitrust policy should promote competition is scoffed at and all M&A is allowed so long as a business can scribble with crayons on butcher paper a tall tale about how their merger will totally reduce prices (pinky promise!), an unhealthy low-competition market is the intentional and inevitable result.

michaelmrose 2mo ago
[dead]
DoctorOetker 2mo ago
The most bothering aspect is that governments always hide behind a curtain of plausible deniability: "well you can't accuse us of not possessing a crystal ball to predict the future", except governments don't need crystal balls depicting the future. Image companies A & B wish to merge for example, and claim lowered future consumer prices as a result of the merger. A government can shape this as a bet: proportional to your excess-price-over-prediction is positive, a government can institute a misprediction tax proportional to such excess. This places the prediction effort correctly with the companies instead of the government (if you believe governments were intrinsically better at predicting than companies, you'd be a communist).
- smallmancontrov 2mo ago
  Yes! Absolutely! If merging business were confident in their price reduction tall tales they would be willing to bet on them. Unfortunately, both the corporations who abuse the policy and the politicians who put it in place understand perfectly well what they are doing. Structuring the deal in a manner that would avoid corruption would defeat the purpose of doing corruption. Re: crystal ball, a biography of Louis Brandeis would suffice. It turns out we had this exact same problem with the Robber Barons. The arguments were the same, the talking points were the same (they didn't even update the story about Standard Oil lol), time is a flat circle when it comes to American antitrust. In any case, the Robber Barons were defeated in the early 20th century and Reagan was just bringing back the policy that served them well using the excuses that served them well. He was not inventing something brave and new that might reasonably have been expected to behave differently. Reagan and Bork knew exactly what they were doing.

johnvanommen 2mo ago

TLDR: the article describes stagflation in a novel way. Yes, it’s happening, just as it did in the seventies. Invest appropriately.

warkdarrior 2mo ago
We do not have high unemployment (yet?). And the economy is growing, just slowly.
- hnav 2mo ago
  Isn't that due to gig work (effectively -EV for a huge chunk of people) and other math shenanigans?

deathanatos 2mo ago

This isn't going to get solved at the consumer level. Yes, one perhaps can & should attempt to vote w/ one's wallet, but the real fix is anti-trust law enforcement. TFA knows this, > Every pattern above can be explained without conspiracy. (… and in a section titled "Ongoing collusion", too!) but conspiracy also explains some of it: the egg price increases were industry collusion[1]; Americans lost something like $3B to $6B in egg prices due to it. The DOJ permitted them to settle for what effectively amounts to "don't do that again". Did I try avoiding eggs while they were $6/dz? Absolutely, but meanwhile Tyson ate one of our local meat suppliers, and those prices immediately went up 50%. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_Clearinghouse#Price_fixing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_Clearinghouse#Price_fixing

Hasz 2mo ago

I feel like I am living in a different universe to the author. My beef still costs around $5/lb, my milk is still roughly $3/gal, similar on a lot of staples I buy regularly. My shirts cost about $5 for a t-shirt, and my jeans cost $20 or so. I spend 80% at Costco and 20% at King Soopers (Kroger). Ancedota I know, but the author is writing like Big Business has 100% coverage of the whole market.

cnity 2mo ago
The article contains 31 references. Of course, no report on the _general_ market trends are going to cover every anecdote in the US. It could be that the staples you mentioned aren't affected to the same degree. How about your non-staples? How about cars? Houses? Vacation expenses? In fact, your comment could be read as the exception that proves the rule: you haven't been affected by rising costs because you stick to staples and avoid "frivolous" purchases (that is, you live frugally, as suggested by the article).
- Hasz 2mo ago
  Most of the references are not to actual price data, eg CPI basket of goods, so here is the actual link. https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-price-index-by-category.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-pri... Energy stands out as actually being noteworthy, but is not discussed in the article compared to food, consumer goods. It is pretty inelastic for most people, especially gas/diesel.
agency 2mo ago
Sincere question: where are you buying beef for $5/lb? I shop at Costco and ground beef is close to $10/lb
- mc32 2mo ago
  I think the only beef you can find for $5/lb is the ground beef that comes pre-weighed in sealed tubes -not at the meat counter.

MarkusQ 2mo ago

"NoOneIsHappy.com" appears to be some sort of low-effort demoralization psyop or something. Who'd have guessed with a name like that?

skybrian 2mo ago
I assume it’s a reference to “everything is amazing and no one is happy.”
summermusic 2mo ago
These blog posts appear to be well-researched and well-cited.
plandis 2mo ago
Instead of ad hominem, why not read the article and refute? The sources are included.

skybrian 2mo ago

> Corporate profits drove more than a third of inflation from the start of the pandemic This seems like it’s getting causation backwards. Shortages directly result in corporate profits somewhere, because there are companies that can raise prices. Most recently, in the oil industry, and in memory chips, and so on. Also, housing. If there’s enough competing supply then they can’t raise prices. If there isn’t, they can and usually will. Strategy often means anticipating shortages and having something to sell when they happen, but not overdoing it. It might be temporary but it can take years to resolve. Deciding not to build new factories in anticipation of a memory shortage is a strategy. Often it’s justified by saying the shortage won’t last. The people saying that the AI bubble will collapse are justifying a wait-and-see strategy that makes it worse.

snapcaster 2mo ago
> If there’s enough competing supply then they can’t raise prices. If there isn’t, they can and usually will. Right, key word there is "competing". Large firms collude via all sorts of means to avoid competing. Many such cases

cheriot 2mo ago

> credit card debt hit an all-time high last year ($1.28 trillion, Q4 2025) Let me inflation adjust that for you: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpo https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpo. Even better, as a percentage of disposable income: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpt https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpt > real hourly wages, only 3% Median usual weekly real earnings: Wage and salary workers: 16 years and over: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1XUpE. Doesn't look so dire to me? Whenever I see someone quoting economic statistics I look them up on FRED and zoom out a little. Usually I close the article at that point. The "Ongoing collusion" table in this article is interesting, though. Capitalism breaks down without competition.

conception 2mo ago
https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:1989.3,2026.1;quarter:146;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:1,3,5,7,9;units:shares https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr... Also breaks down when few individuals command tremendous power. Tax policy has been //fantastic// for the very wealthy.
smallmancontrov 2mo ago
When prices rise and wages don't keep pace, individual solvency forces substitution of inferior goods. CPI's methodology then updates the basket to reflect the forced substitution and pretend it was voluntary. You think you are looking at rising real wages, but due to the basket methodology you are actually looking at the individual solvency constraint in a mirror. The economy could reduce people to eating bug burgers in homeless encampments and that line would still go up through the entire process. Repeat the exercise using a real deflator and the results are different. Ideally, this would mean constructing a basket of things you (or the people in question) want to buy. In practice, nobody has time for that so people just use an asset with a reputation for holding value (gold) or a proxy for their most important aspiration (housing). These both have problems, but the problems are not nearly as bad as the circular logic in the CPI.
- 2mo ago

Apreche 2mo ago

This is the wrong way to look at it. In a K-shaped economy a business will not succeed by making quality goods at reasonable prices. Who are the customers for that? The middle class no longer exists. Every successful business will do one of two things. Some will make ludicrous luxury goods at preposterous prices for customers that are not price conscious. Others will make mass produced garbage at insanely low margins in vast quantities. The shortage is only the strategy in the sense that a large part of luxury goods is status. If you have a luxury product, you have to make it into a status symbol to get sales. Limited availability increases desirability. If something is too popular, wealthy people don’t want it anymore at any price. The only solution is to end wealth inequality and restore the middle class. Tax the rich.

MarkusQ 2mo ago
https://manhattan.institute/article/the-american-middle-class-keeps-getting-richer https://manhattan.institute/article/the-american-middle-clas...