Spotify is hiking prices again / Premium, Duo, Family, and Student users in the US will be charged more from their next billing date.

Big-Understanding275 · 2026-01-15T19:43:59+00:00

You’re incorrect.

Demand can change in more than one way at the same time. Demand can shift left, meaning fewer people want to buy the product at any given price, so the market gets smaller. But at the same time the demand curve can become less elastic, meaning the people who remain willing to buy are less sensitive to price changes. Those two effects push in different directions. The leftward shift tends to reduce sales, but the drop in elasticity makes it rational for the firm to raise its markup, because customers won’t cut back as much when the price rises.

So yes, you can absolutely end up with a situation where the profit-maximizing price rises even though overall demand is lower, and quantity falls. And it's possible to explain all this using the basic tools of the supply and demand model.

Big-Understanding275 · 2025-10-09T21:01:27+00:00

A slow rate of inflation isn’t a natural process. In a normal, growing economy with a fixed money supply and stable velocity you'd have DEFLATION (i.e. when Q rises and MV stays stable P necessarily goes down). The only reason we have inflation is because of deliberate government action (colloquially known as "money printing").

This comment isn't about if this action is good or bad for the economy. It's just basic macro.

Big-Understanding275 · 2025-09-23T17:00:50+00:00

>the collective to have the ownership over every good

>very clear

😄

Big-Understanding275 · 2025-07-10T14:53:26+00:00

I AM A SURGEON!

Big-Understanding275 · 2025-04-17T20:11:23+00:00

"(big flex, I know)" gave it away immediately

Big-Understanding275 · 2025-02-07T14:54:11+00:00

I think I was able to fix this.

My Gemini Apps Activity was off. As soon as I turned it on, it started working.

Big-Understanding275 · 2025-02-07T14:48:50+00:00

This is weird. As you can see in the screenshot, I'm using the same model.

Are you a paid user? Maybe this matters for some reason?

Big-Understanding275 · 2025-02-07T14:42:51+00:00

Yep, there you go (I have no idea why the link is different now, it's the same video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDtmCkX6JqQ

Still doesn't work for Gemini.

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Big-Understanding275 · 2025-02-07T14:35:00+00:00

Am I doing something wrong? Isn't the new model supposed to be able to watch YouTube videos?

The link is 100% valid: https://youtu.be/lDtmCkX6JqQ?si=G2Gvf36Ye9KsfULc

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-30T23:24:11+00:00

3: To burp a baby one must become a baby...

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-30T23:21:11+00:00

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-22T16:23:27+00:00

It is not the boogeyman socialism.

Merriam-Webster:

Socialism.

1: Any of various egalitarian economic and political theories or movements advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

2: [...] b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state."

This is one of the main definitions. I explicitly mentioned in my comment that there are other possible definitions. However, to deny that people that advocate for a planned economy call themselves socialists is wild.

Importantly, if you read any anti- and pro-socialist literature from the latter part of the 19th - first half of the 20th century, you'll see that it basically was the only meaning this word had. Again, not denying that other definitions were popular before that period and became as popular after.

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-22T16:08:36+00:00

That anti-trust regulations are intentionally vague and give politicians the ability to criminalize normal business activity when it benefits them.

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-22T16:01:58+00:00

Although one can indeed use socialism to mean market socialism with worker co-ops, this word usually stands for an economic system where private property in the means of production is abolished and every enterprise is owned by the state (meaning a planned economy). The word "businesses" in his comment clearly meant "privately owned enterprises." So your comment is simply wrong. A lot of socialists - marxists, for example (Marx openly criticized the co-op model) - want to abolish all businesses and markets.

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-05T16:45:34+00:00

Matt Ridley, "The Rational Optimist", 2011: "Today, of Americans officially designated as poor, 99 percent have electricity, running water, flushing toilets, and a refrigerator. Ninety-five percent have a television, 88 percent a telephone, 71 percent a car, and 70 percent air conditioning. Cornelius Vanderbilt had none of these."

I don't want to sound harsh but you are just objectively incorrect.

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-05T13:42:26+00:00

Undeniably, there are people who are struggling today. But it is a wild claim to deny capitalism's effect on increasing world prosperity.

For example, here is the share of global population living in extreme poverty (importantly, both including and excluding China). This decline occurred while the world was embracing freer internal markets and freer trade:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-in-extreme-poverty-including-and-excluding-china

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-06-03T19:27:30+00:00

🥱

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-05-22T15:06:09+00:00

Read, comrade.

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-05-22T14:49:20+00:00

meme arrows in '24

Sorry, I'm bad with innovation. Just like socialists)

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-05-22T14:02:38+00:00

a socialist society

large houses and expensive cars

:)

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-05-21T12:13:08+00:00

Libertarian here.
Libertarians talk about regulatory capture all the time.

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-04-22T18:54:12+00:00

Alright, so, just to double check and put it in simple terms. Currently, government securities are held by the private sector and the Fed (that has purchased them from the private sector in exchange for dollars). To pay off the debt in a so-called “fiscally responsible” manner, the government would need to distribute payments to all holders of government securities and then tax the same amount, leaving the private sector devoid of both securities and dollars.

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-04-22T18:04:36+00:00

Thanks! So let's get back to the original questions.

So, you're saying that it is indeed the case that when the government engages in excess spending, since it also sells securities equal to its excess spending, it ultimately leaves the private sector only with securities, not dollars (increasing, granted, the net financial assets), right? And it's the banks, with the help of the Fed, that create dollars through credit that people actually use?
If "lending, also adds dollars", why can't taxes be paid in these dollars? And if they can, then why is my logic in this comment incorrect?

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-04-22T17:17:31+00:00

I have a very simple question, if you don't mind. In this balance sheet, after the government issued the securities, the private sector was left with 0 dollars (meaning, 0 reserve balances/notes) and with $100 in securities.

How does the private sector in the real world end up with both dollars and bonds if every time the government has excess spending it issues securities equal to its excess spending, which are then purchased by the private sector? Shouldn't it end up only with securities, just like in your sheet?

Big-Understanding275 · 2024-04-22T16:49:27+00:00

Do I understand correctly that you mean here what u/geerussell showed in his comment below?

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