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Business news summarized a MarketWatch article thusly: "One reason growth is not faster is because technology is helping customers more than companies." As a technocrat, I thought that was the whole idea.
"Two roads diverged," Robert Frost wrote in what is perhaps the most popular poem of all time, "The Road Not Taken." Frost's opening words keep playing in my head every time an economic indicator is released, a global macro forecast is revised, or financial markets take a tumble. In all cases, the bulls and the bears find enough ammunition to support their diametrically opposed views on the U.S. economy.
Rarely have two roads diverged so dramatically for so long. It took six years for mainstream economists to come around to the notion that no, this is not your grandfather's economy; and no, real economic growth isn't going to accelerate to 3% next year, the perennial forecast. Trend economic growth of 3% or 4% is a thing of the past, constrained as it is right now by anemic productivity and labor-force growth.
Even the 2.1% average growth [in] real gross domestic product since the Great Recession ended in June 2009 is a source of controversy. The economic bulls maintain that the price of information technology is being overstated, which means real GDP and productivity growth are being understated. For this group, the low level of both jobless claims and the unemployment rate is telling the true story of a robust economy that isn't being captured by the statisticians.
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:17AM
I'd say since Keynes at least. I don't really count Marx as an economist now that I'm actually reading him. Asshole reads like he would have fit in at Huffingpaint. Now I realize why every Prog is a troll, they are emulating their Great Founder. But Keynes seems to have been really trying to do economics... poorly.
But not all economists have lied to us, only the ones with the ability to have their ideas widely disseminated in the Prog controlled mass media and listened to in the halls of power. Plenty have warned us and been ignored. Hayek, Mises, Friedman, Sowell, Laffer, etc. all sounded the alarm. Greenspan is the guy I want to have a chat with in Hell, that butthole was once a disciple of Ayn Rand and still helped the Fed ruin the world. He had to know what he was doing was wrong. Why?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:10AM
Marx's problem is he's a natural-born critic. That is to say, while he's worth listening to as to where the problem is, God help you if you turn to him for a solution.
The problem at the bottom of all this is human nature. Capitalism is a classic positive feedback loop; left unchecked, power goes to power, money to money, privilege to privilege, etc., at an ever-accelerating rate. In this, Marx is correct that such a system cannot sustain itself, not least because it completely ignores the fucking laws of thermodynamics with its implicit assumption of infinite growth.
Thing is, though, that's human nature. His Communism is completely unworkable for that exact reason: humans do not work that way, period, end of story. Marx commits the same mistake the laissez-faire types do but in the other direction, and BOTH of them are incredibly naive about how humans work.
So what are we to do? I'd say have a graded system for class of goods and services, wherein the more basic and survival-essential something is the less the forces of the woefully-misnamed "free market" should have a say in it. We should already be in post-scarcity in a big way, and only aren't essentially because a bunch of perverted Calvinists (like you, Morris) would rather choke on Satan's schlong than see someone "get something they don't deserve."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:41AM
Where to start with Marx's errors... such a target rich environment it is amazing so many folks were blind enough to follow him into chaos and fire... murdering a hundred million or so and still counting in his name.
His first mistake is his Labor Theory of Value. Once you translate his Marx speak back to English he is saying that the product of a hundred socially useful hours of general labor in a diamond mine has the exact same exchange value as the same labor mining coal or loading horse crap. Nobody had a problem with that?
His next problem was the one you suffer from, looking at 19th century England and attempting to extrapolate to a universal set of laws without stopping to consider that the conditions at that time had been rapidly changing up to his time and was almost certain to continue changing as the huge shifts from mostly agricultural to the Industrial Age was going on along with a massive population boom made possible by previous increases in food production. Capitalism as such was still new, Capital is short supply while Labor was bountiful and thus almost powerless to make demands for higher wages, working conditions, etc. Conditions sure to change, and they did. The organized labor movement, governments , socialism all claim credit for what the invisible hand would have cured if left to itself.
The expansion of Capital obviously can't be infinite. Eventually we will produce enough that there isn't sufficient demand for more to make additional production profitable. But we ain't hit that limit and the smart money is on it not happening in the next hundred or so years.
wherein the more basic and survival-essential something is the less the forces of the woefully-misnamed "free market" should have a say in it
You admit Socialism doesn't produce. So you propose putting the important things under a system where shortages are a certainty and allowing the plentiful supply of unimportant luxury goods. Wow. So you would make it illegal to grow and sell food outside the government store? Try to think these ideas through a bit before suggesting them and sounding like a Prog politician making stupid promises that don't pass the smell test.
We should already be in post-scarcity in a big way
We are. If you only want to eat and have a roof over your head, in the 1st world that is a solved problem. Anybody willing to do much of anything need never go hungry. But of course nobody wants that, they see the other stuff and they want that too. They want an Xbox, iPhone, HDTV, cable and all the rest like modern medicine. Those things require massive capital infrastructure.
You want out of Capitalism? Pick yer ass up and go join the Amish. Nobody goes hungry there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:40AM
> If you only want to eat and have a roof over your head, in the 1st world that is a solved problem. Anybody willing to do much of anything need never go hungry.
No, it's not a solved problem. You forget human nature, and no, I don't mean sloth. I'm talking about greed. Some people will take from others no matter what harm that causes the victims and society. There are many, many ways to scam and cheat others, tilt the playing field through bribery and corruption, and use propaganda to make it all seem fair. We are bombarded with all kinds of expectations that are expensive and not really necessary. For example, there's an entire industry built around lawn care. The homeowner who doesn't want to mow the grass will encounter enormous pressure to do so, starting with neighbors who think concern for their property values give them a right to force others to conform, and enshrined in city ordinances that pejoratively describe tall grass as a "nuisance", a fire hazard, a refuge for "vermin", a reduction of driver visibility, etc., and therefore subject to stiff penalties. We waste a great deal of time, resources, and energy mowing grass. The lawn care industry is laughing all the way to the bank.
The conservatives are so worried about moral hazard and laziness among the unwashed masses, about blue collar malfeasance, that they overlook white collar malfeasance. They are too ready to uncritically employ the all too convenient mental shortcut that wealth and success is a sign of moral worth. God would not allow immoral sinners to succeed, would he? Both Main Street and Wall Street need policing, but under that logic, Wall Street can actually push the absurd nonsense that they can "self-regulate", and not be laughed out of the legislature. Since they and that sort of thinking wasn't greeted with the scorn and mockery it deserved, we ended up going through the Great Recession. Wall Street is not populated by angels, it's populated by cold, calculating, ruthless and entirely too socially irresponsible, amoral, and arrogant business people who will cheat if they think the risks of being caught are outweighed by the potential personal profit. Executive pay at large companies is ridiculously high. and why? Because executives all deserve such outsized compensation, even when the company posts a loss and a decline of market share? No, it's because corporate boards are packed with cronies.
> You want out of Capitalism?
No. We want out of corrupt crony Capitalism. We want out of monopolism. If we can't have fair Capitalism, with unbiased and unbought referees working to keep the game clean, then maybe Socialism is the answer, is the way to break the grip of the monopolists.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dingus on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:45AM
Where to start with Marx's errors... such a target rich environment it is amazing so many folks were blind enough to follow him into chaos and fire... murdering a hundred million or so and still counting in his name.
If we're blaming all atrocities performed by states on the ideologies they claim to follow, Capitalism has a much higher death count.
His first mistake is his Labor Theory of Value. Once you translate his Marx speak back to English he is saying that the product of a hundred socially useful hours of general labor in a diamond mine has the exact same exchange value as the same labor mining coal or loading horse crap. Nobody had a problem with that?
Value doesn't mean money. Value in the Marxist sense means the actual social usefulness of something, its actual price is subject to all sorts of bullshit like artificial scarcity.
Capital is short supply while Labor was bountiful and thus almost powerless to make demands for higher wages, working conditions, etc.
The exact same thing is happening now. You think the life of a sweatshop worker now is significantly better than a sweatshop worker in 1870, especially considering the technological advancements since then? We produce enough to feed the world 1.18 times over or something like that, but millions starve.
The organized labor movement, governments , socialism all claim credit for what the invisible hand would have cured if left to itself.
What? There is absolutely no pressure on the market to increase wages. Otherwise we would never have to force the Capitalists' hands on the issue.
The expansion of Capital obviously can't be infinite. Eventually we will produce enough that there isn't sufficient demand for more to make additional production profitable. But we ain't hit that limit and the smart money is on it not happening in the next hundred or so years.
So we should just blindly push forward, making the eventual total collapse worse and worse? Sounds like a terrible plan to me.
Also, at this rate, the collapse will come after we reach peak oil, not when demand slows.
You admit Socialism doesn't produce. So you propose putting the important things under a system where shortages are a certainty and allowing the plentiful supply of unimportant luxury goods. Wow. So you would make it illegal to grow and sell food outside the government store? Try to think these ideas through a bit before suggesting them and sounding like a Prog politician making stupid promises that don't pass the smell test.
Socialist societies sure as hell do produce. How do you go from a backwater agrarian country to an industrialized superpower in 30 years while enduring three invasions and a civil war? You have a socialist revolution, that's how. Criticize the USSR all you want, but they got shit done.
If you only want to eat and have a roof over your head, in the 1st world that is a solved problem. Anybody willing to do much of anything need never go hungry.
So something like 1/4 of the world's population can barely hang on when they lose their job(for usually arbitrary reasons). For the rest, fuck 'em, amirite?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:30AM
Yeah, the free fall is so great, we don't want to open the parachute. After all, the floor will stop us anyway. Better let the falling speed grow as long as possible; growth is good, right?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:26AM
Yes they did get shit done. Millions killed and even more slaved away in camps.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday May 02 2016, @04:09AM
So the same way as everyone else who got shit done.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:39PM
Capitalism has a much higher death count.
Citation needed. When has a free market driven country embarked on a program of genocide against their own population? On your team you get the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward, Pol Pot, etc. etc. All were explicitly programs carried out as implementation details of a socialist/communist government "breaking eggs to make the omlet". Show me a mass murder in the name of implementing Capitalism. Hint: Imperialism is orthogonal to Capitalism.
Value doesn't mean money. Value in the Marxist sense means the actual social usefulness of something, its actual price is subject to all sorts of bullshit like artificial scarcity.
Yea that is what I meant when I spoke of translating Marx's Newspeak to English. And if economic value / usefulness isn't to be measured in money, what do you propose as a substitute that won't instantly be the monetary unit? You guys didn't even understand Marx, he understood money. Hell, he is a bigger gold bug than Ron Paul.
We produce enough to feed the world 1.18 times over or something like that, but millions starve.
Our problem isn't, as you point out, insufficient production. It is distribution. The unequal distribution of Capitalism, Rule of Law, etc. You can't even send free food to most of the starving because local warlords steal it.
What? There is absolutely no pressure on the market to increase wages.
So you don't think the normal market forces of Supply and Demand apply to labor? Of course they do. Why do you think some jobs pay more than others?
How do you go from a backwater agrarian country to an industrialized superpower in 30 years while enduring three invasions and a civil war?
I could get into a long argument about what Russia needed was sound money and the rule of law and that given those two things they would have had prosperity. But I won't because that is a hypothetical and we have almost lab quality case studies we can use instead to compare Capitalism and Communism. Germany. The whole country was shattered into ruins after WWII and was split in two, both sides started with the same near zero industrial base, the same basic genetic stock of population with the only difference the governing philosophy. East Germany turned into a basket case, West Germany returned to being an industrial powerhouse and major world power.
Korea. North Korea is a basket case, South Korea isn't. China's economic rise has been almost directly proportional to the extent they relaxed central socialist control and allowed market forces to allocate resources. Cuba is a basket case. Venezuela is a basket case. Show me an example of a successful Communist country? Even the quasi-socialist Western European countries have figured out it is a failure and are moving toward free market based reforms.
For the rest, fuck 'em, amirite?
Pretty much. We have seen that even the might of the U.S. military can't bring stable government to many parts of the world unless and until the people there are educated enough to understand the issues of governing themselves and want to give up their failing governments. I don't see it as my duty to provide unlimited charity to fellow Americans, I certainly do not feel an obligation to provide the entire world a 1st world lifestyle whether they want it or not.
(Score: 2) by dingus on Monday May 02 2016, @02:02AM
Citation needed.
Well, first off: The holocaust was done by fascists, the mortal enemies of all communists and socialists. Hitler's regime regularly supported large businesses, and to a certain extent relied on their support. People often forget that communists were sent to the death camps too.
Second, this reddit post does a pretty good job of tallying off various atrocities committed by Capitalist countries: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/3i05ft/death_toll_of_capitalism/cuc6pz2. [reddit.com] Again, what states do while claiming to follow an ideology isn't really indicative of anything, it's just indicitive of how bad states are. The Soviets justified their murder with "Communism", we justify our murder with "Democracy" or maybe "We can't let the Commies win!". It's all the same thing.
Hint: Imperialism is orthogonal to Capitalism.
They're interdependent. How do you get resources when you're all out? Take it from some Africans. How do you keep producing things when your workers are demanding better wages? You move all the production to some third-world shithole where the people are used to taking starvation wages. How do you keep getting oil when all the oil-producing nations are getting all uppidy? Invade them. It's really convenient when you have the government in your back pocket.
And if economic value / usefulness isn't to be measured in money, what do you propose as a substitute that won't instantly be the monetary unit?
Labor vouchers(which are not money, they're one-time-use) have been suggested by some. Central planning by others. Allende's government tried to use computers to do it, but that was in the 70s so it didn't really work(well, and a US-backed coup put this wonderful man named Pinochet into power).
You can't even send free food to most of the starving because local warlords steal it.
And all the people starving to death in, say, Panama?
Or what about all the food that gets thrown away because it doesn't look nice enough to sell? Or all the food that rots because it costs too much for the hungry to buy?
So you don't think the normal market forces of Supply and Demand apply to labor?
It's been shown that labor does have a very different supply curve than other things. People will be desperate for jobs no matter how low they pay, because they'll live in abject (as compared to only normal) poverty otherwise.
The whole country was shattered into ruins after WWII and was split in two, both sides started with the same near zero industrial base, the same basic genetic stock of population with the only difference the governing philosophy.
Actually, East Germany started out way behind because the Soviets plundered it all. Soldiers were literally taking kitchen sinks and toilets out of houses, along with industrial implements. They also had severe brain drain problems. If that's not starting behind, I don't know what is.
North Korea is a basket case, South Korea isn't.
Maybe because North Korea only barely gets support from China, and South Korea gets full global support. Well, that and Juche is terrible.
Cuba is a basket case
Really now? Cuba's doing pretty good, especially for a country that's had to deal with constant aggression from its big powerful neighbor for 50 years. They have a better healthcare system than ours, and they've raised their literacy rates by 24%(it's higher than ours!). Barely anyone begs on the streets anymore. I'd say it's a big improvement over what they had previously.
Venezuela is a basket case
Venezuela's "socialism" didn't work because they tried to keep within the Capitalist system. Thus, they ended up basing their entire economy on the nationalized oil industry, which predictably screwed up.
Even the quasi-socialist Western European countries have figured out it is a failure and are moving toward free market based reforms.
You mean like France, where people are currently rioting over labor "reforms" imposed by their government? Yeah, seems like they really want them free markets.
Pretty much.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, sums up the entire Lolbertarian ideology. Fuck the poor.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday May 02 2016, @05:23AM
Well, first off: The holocaust was done by fascists, the mortal enemies of all communists and socialists.
I know you guys keep trying to throw 'ol Adolph under the bus or even give him to the Right but sorry, you get to keep him. National Socialism, i.e. mixing Nationalism with Socialism is just as socialist as Lenin's International Socialism or what Mao's Socialism has mutated into. Google up the origins of fascism and you will find it forked off of Socialism when Mussolini decided to just shotgun marry State and Capital instead of seizing it. But it comes off the Socialist family tree just the same. Same with Adolph mixing parts of fascism with his brand of Nationalism and yes, Socialism. The nastiest fights are in the family and the fight between Moscow oriented International Socialists and German oriented National Socialists was indeed fierce. But the Platform of the NAZI Party leave zero doubt as to their Socialism since Bernie Sanders would support more the planks than any of the other current candidates... and he is a confessed Socialist. q.e.d.
> Hint: Imperialism is orthogonal to Capitalism.
They're interdependent.
Capitalism is an Enlightenment idea, Imperialism was old when Rome was a little village.
Labor vouchers(which are not money, they're one-time-use) have been suggested by some. Central planning by others. Allende's government tried to use computers to do it, but that was in the 70s so it didn't really work(well, and a US-backed coup put this wonderful man named Pinochet into power).
In other words, stuff that didn't work or abstract theory that hasn't been tried yet so it hasn't failed. Yet. You seem to like Marxism, how about doing something really radical and try reading him.
Then go read some Austrian economics and get basic agreement on money and the need for it. You really can't get social division of labor developed very far without it.
It's been shown that labor does have a very different supply curve than other things. People will be desperate for jobs no matter how low they pay, because they'll live in abject (as compared to only normal) poverty otherwise.
So is food, basic shelter and anything else required to sustain life. Your point?
Next you handwave away every example of a Socialist hellhole with a series of No True Scotsman fallacies. So basically you are saying Socialism hasn't actually been tried correctly ANYWHERE yet, but if we only give it one more go it will work... if we all really believe super hard.
You mean like France, where people are currently rioting over labor "reforms" imposed by their government? Yeah, seems like they really want them free markets.
Of course people are rioting when the freebies are taken away. But France has run out of other people's money and that is that. They can just not like it, change comes.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, sums up the entire Lolbertarian ideology. Fuck the poor.
Not quite. If an opportunity presents itself it is perfectly good to help the poor... but only when it has a fair chance of actually helping a poor person, group of, or even country actually stop being poor. Dumping endless resources into a pointless effort only impoverishes everyone. If you send a shipload of grain to a starving country that is a hellhole and do nothing else you simply permit them to exist, but have done nothing to help them avoid needing another next week, next month, year, etc. They have too many people for their physical/social infrastructure to support, keep feeding them and it only gets worse as they continue breeding while the local warlord tightens his power by controlling the deliveries, the piles of free food destroy local farmers, etc. Recent history is replete with examples of good intentions causing great harm. On the other hand if there is a natural disaster, helping a country until another crop comes in is a wonderful thing, even better if private charity does it.
These guidelines apply equally to individuals. Don't give the homeless guy $5, do work with a shelter to help them get their lives together. It is fine to want to feel good. However your first impulse should be to do no harm. It is better to think, even if sometimes it means doing something hard like doing nothing.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:46PM
God, he's a piece of work, ain't he? @_@ Thanks for saying a lot of what I wanted to and couldn't work up the caring to.
I hope someday he gets unlucky and ends up on public assistance. The morally-consistent thing for him to do would be to commit suicide at that point.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by dingus on Monday May 02 2016, @02:12AM
Yeah, every once in awhile I get really pissed and spend 20 minutes on a post like that :P
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:19PM
Listen, you stupid motherfucker: much as you want to lump me in with the idiot SJWs and naive privileged college-club socialists, it's not gonna happen. My view on this is that we need a blend of capitalistic and socialistic policies; anything else ignores human nature with predictably fatal results. Sorry, but you don't get to pull that strawman on me and ignore what I'm saying.
The rest of your post is so incredibly poorly-researched, fallacious, and strawmanning I'm not even going to dignify it with a point by point response, which is my usual habit. You're both evil and willfully ignorant, as I said a perverted Calvinist who'd rather see people suffer ans die in misery than get "something they don't deserve."
We'll see how effective your money and your guns are in getting you out of hell in a few decades...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @12:14AM
His problem is that he doesn't even see the world in greyscale, which is why he'll never understand why we need a UBI. He can't distinguish UBI from our current welfare system that effectively discourages people who are dependent on it from seeking work because their benefits are worth more than they could possibly make in an entry-level position. That's perverse.
Every now and then I hear about somebody who's interviewed well at work but declined our offer because we couldn't pay them enough. If they accepted the job we were offering, they would have lost their cash benefits, food stamps, subsidized housing, and medicaid. I imagine this story plays out more than I would ever have a chance to hear about it.
But I don't need to convince you; it sounds like you already get it. Our Calvinist friend can't distinguish UBI from New Deal from European socialism from 5 year plans and labor camps in Stalinist Russia and Mao's China. There isn't even greyscale. There is only black and white, and anything that's even has a hint of what he's decided is evil mixed in is automatically evil, reality be damned.
UBI is my personal favorite answer to the realities you've identified, but it's not the only one.
I'm trying to remember where I saw the headline about some economist who said (probably cynically) that we'd be better off paying 90% of the remaining workforce to just stay at home and smoke pot all day. We'd be better off if most people would just get out of the way of the people who *actually* want to contribute and have the skills/knowledge/experience to do so. Of course we can't kill them, no matter how much I want to at the end of a work day of dealing with people whose only talent seems to be keeping a chair warm and playing a game of telephone with other telephone players. Nobody creates anything anymore. Nobody produces anything anymore.
I'm just thinking out loud waiting for the final economic collapse that will happen likely before 2019. All those telephone game jobs will evaporate because they contribute no real value, if anything negative value. It doesn't necessarily need to end in doom and gloom. Maybe I'm being too hasty by predicting 2019. But people will be starving while the social security office is swamped by desperate people who have fallen off the unemployment cliff trying to claim whatever disability they can. Starving people don't generally sit around doing nothing all day, especially when they have children to feed as well.
I just wonder what the TANSTAAFL! crowd will do. #1 thing they do wrong is shout "TANSTAAFL!" and conclude that because, yeah, somebody has to pay for the lunch of the guy who didn't "earn" it that, therefore, he shouldn't have it. Best invest in popcorn. Doomsday preppers are beginning to look less crazy every day to me.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 02 2016, @01:21AM
Christ, I hope I'll be in Canada or Germany before THAT dunghill hits the national windmill. It's a long shot but there's a friend who does blacksmithing and needs a web/linux/computer person (and hell, we can two-fer, blacksmithing and computer services!) who says he can get me over there on a work visa if need be.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:24AM
Where would people need to read to find out about these warnings?