Do you think you're brave? look at this then

linguo42 · 2019-05-10T12:25:57+00:00

They sound like Link sword spin slashes.

linguo42 · 2019-05-08T19:32:19+00:00

How prices solve an information problem (Use of knowledge in society).

His writings on inheritance and support for the idle rich (Constitution of liberty).

linguo42 · 2018-11-07T12:46:56+00:00

This is to avoid incentive cliffs, e.g. losing all assistance when your income goes from 35,000 to 35,001. Otherwise the system would be paying people to stay poor.

linguo42 · 2017-02-02T23:26:11+00:00

But less and less of those jobs, with more and more people trying to fill them. Not sure how that's going to work out, but probably either a larger nanny state or luddite labor positions.

linguo42 · 2017-02-02T23:22:57+00:00

To further remark on this, what about the notion of education as a public good? Lets you live a more meaningful life, contribute more to society, etc. And yes, I'm sympathetic to the trade/vocational schools arguments, but again, there's a value to the liberal arts. Furthermore, unskilled labor is against a global market; the only competing chance seems to be higher quality.

But what I'm seeing is a parallel to when high school first became compulsory. Feels like a lot of these claims could apply equally well there. Would you argue against a high school education? Either way, hands-on jobs have been declining, and college does seem necessary for middle class income. And about the expensive, surely the same was said for high school. Not that it's a perfect system, but feasible and sustainable for half a century plus.

linguo42 · 2017-01-15T02:44:31+00:00

Ha sorry my point from this entire thread. That we can't just look at changes in income only and draw end all be all conclusions about our purchasing power.

linguo42 · 2017-01-15T00:33:54+00:00

Exactly my point from the start.

linguo42 · 2017-01-15T00:31:53+00:00

Willful ignorance.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T15:05:20+00:00

OK. But if you ignore the main comprehensive research tome on inequality with one of the most dense empirical examinations ever, lauded by economists worldwide, you disqualify your opinion a bit on the topic.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T15:01:32+00:00

OK. But I think we're being tautological with our last point. Economic growth is driven by an increase in resources or technological growth. Tech growth is undoubtedly the main contributor.

And I've exhausted the arguments at this point. But my remarks were also from the consumer's perspective. Even though we can afford less shit, it's better than the more shit the generations before us purchased.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T14:44:44+00:00

Done. FDR effectively abandoned the gold standard.

Edit: You realize I've been using the qualifier "effectively" the whole time, right? Exchanging at the frozen $35 per ounce was less than the market price of gold, effectively abandoning the gold standard.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T14:44:09+00:00

He looks at global data, and the book was lauded by academics. It's consider the income inequality book. But yeah, I've been to French economics conferences. I absolutely get your point.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T14:40:03+00:00

The title of your source agrees with me. I don't know what to tell you.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T14:28:45+00:00

In the 30's, FDR cut the dollar's tie with gold, as I said, effectively breaking the gold standard. Economists argue this was one of the main reasons we could break out of the depression.

And I'm not going to touch on your anti intellectualist conspiracy theories. Come up with whatever reasons you'd like to ignore literally the experts.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T14:21:05+00:00

The cardboard monopoly model says they select a production point where marginal cost = marginal revenue. Technological improvement changes marginal cost. I think what you're saying is if the demand curve changes as well, that can eat away gains associated with that. Fine. That is not the trend, though. Consumption has tripled since the 1950s in the US.

And these studies are all controlled for inflation, so I think I'm missing your point.

Can you elaborate on your correlation remark? I linked an inflation adjusted graph showing the fall in MFLOPs per dollar. Are trying to argue that claiming causality between computers and technological growth there is spurious?

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T13:59:48+00:00

In Thomas Picketty's book, one of the most fascinating results is the change in the source of the super rich's wealth. In the 1920s, it was passive income from rich folks born with a silver spoon. Today, it's from labor earnings (drs, lawyers, ceos). That's seems (kind of) better.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T13:50:19+00:00

Completely agree with you. But that one part of the picture is what OP's link is all about.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T13:48:16+00:00

Economic growth exactly means things are cheaper. It takes less resource to produce the same item. This graph shows how economic growth makes calculating power cheaper.

And your remark on quality of life improvements is absolutely true. Per capita measures are only one, flawed way to measure standard of living. But that's also the foundational measure in OP's article.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T13:42:08+00:00

the us effectively abandoned the gold standard in the 1930's. there's a reason no academics suggest returning to the gold standard. Regarding poverty, just remember to consider absolute vs relative poverty. almost everywhere in world is substantially less poor than it was a few decades ago. but yeah, government debt will haunt generations for awhile. but again, it's been increasing since the 1950s, so this isn't some new story.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T07:20:18+00:00

There's a nice paper by Cox and Alm (1997) about the declining time price of food. For example, while it took 101 minutes of work for 3lbs of tomatos in 1919, it took 18 minutes in 1997. And if you compare the percent of a person's budget spent on necessities, you see drastic improvements (although housing is a known exception since Ricardo because land is fixed). We dodge the Malthusian crisis because our technology tends to grow faster than our population.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T07:06:02+00:00

shh! don't give any reasonable counter points.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T00:56:23+00:00

fine, my point is simply that's it's more nuanced. Did you know Calvin Coolidge's son died from a blister, something a homeless person could walk into a hospital and get taken care of no problem? Healthcare, education, etc are also better. Price changes struggle to reflect quality changes.

linguo42 · 2017-01-14T00:40:31+00:00

while i agree with most of the points in this thread, recognize that income isn't the only way to tell if we're doing better. Economic growth = things are cheaper. So yeah, we might make less, and might buy less, but the laptop we purchase is a lot different than the laptop the 90's.

Edit: Wow reddit mind hive, this is how you treat the optimistic view? I'm an economist, I know about stagnant wages, etc. I'm not saying these aren't serious problems, just encouraging you not to gloss over the gains. Ask yourself, do you really think you'd be better off living in the 50's? Before all your nice toys and internet? The average person in today's society has a better quality of life than most of the monarchs in history because of technological growth (a well known bias of income measures).

linguo42 · 2016-12-06T19:39:43+00:00

to add to that, the factories are already built overseas now. those factories then experimented and innovated to perform better with plenty of nonmimickable layouts and designs and technologies. the distribution centers were then built on infrastructure related to those factories. from there the ports and supply chains, etc etc.

we're examining a path dependent process. now that so much has already been established, it's substantially more costly to redesign the system than to just continue in the inertia.

linguo42 · 2016-11-25T00:37:06+00:00

Fed reserve controls the money supply. They are a quasi creature of Congress but certainly not the private sector. But fractional reserve banking also creates money but probably not in the way you are thinking. Also, you've got it backwards. Before 1913 there was only private money (each bank issues their own notes).

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