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Forums - General Discussion - A $1,000 per month cash handout would grow the U.S economy by $2.5 trillion, new study says

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Pyro as Bill said:
Superman4 said:

Best comment yet. I agree completly. It will however never happen, too many people are now in a position of power who continue to get rich off the way the system works. 

Exactly, thanks for understanding.

Nobody taught you that price controls are the quickest way to make a bad situation worse?

Bakers make bread for 9 cents and sell for 10 cents. Government increases money supply causing inflation. It now costs bakers 10 cents to make bread and they have to sell at 11 cents. Gov decrees bread must be capped at 10 cents (no profit for the bakers). Bakers stop making bread for the poor and bake cakes for the rich instead. No bread on shelves but black market bread is available at 20 cents (risk-reward cost for breaking law). The poor starve, the rich get cheaper cake. Socialism wins again.

I am sorry, "nobody taught me?" I am a college professor in several institutions across two countries (9 months in the US, summers in another), and I know everything that they teach because I have been teaching the same things for the last decade! So please do not repeat the undergraduate introductory material to me, because pretty much all of it is either B.S. or simply inaccurate ideological propaganda.

Price controls may make things very bad or good, depending on the market conditions. MINIMUM WAGE, for instance, can be detrimental or beneficial to the economy. At college, of course, they only teach the ideologically convenient (neoclassical) solution, which is, do not interfere the market at all. In the neoclassical mindset, the minimum wages are completely evil. HOWEVER, that is NOT what the real data suggest, according to which, minimum wages have either no or negligible effect on the economic efficiency, and if at all, the effects are temporary. So with no real effect on efficiency, minimum wage in the US only re-distributes income but has no bearing on the market efficiency (unlike what the neoclassicals would claim!) and this is a FACT (for the US)!

How can that be? BECAUSE the markets are NOT perfectly competitive (unlike the fundamental assumption!). It is TRIVIAL to show that, increasing minimum wage (a type of price control), may actually increase efficiency as well as improving income inequality, IF the markets are NOT competitive to begin with. The exact same is true for the real estate markets, which are usually not competitive (but often held by a strong rich elite), causing IMPERFECT market prices and artifically low housing supply. This is why there are MORE VACANT HOUSES THAN THE HOMELESS in the US, as the owners are waiting for a higher bid!

If you want to go into the specifics, only and only if you have at least a PHD in Economics, then let's discuss, otherwise, I am afraid, you won't have a clue about the details of how the economy works beyond the superficial millenial ideological propaganda they have given you. Hopefully you are not one of those who still think "college premium is due to rising productivity" nonsense.




Playstation 5 vs XBox Series Market Share Estimates

Regional Analysis  (only MS and Sony Consoles)
Europe     => XB1 : 23-24 % vs PS4 : 76-77%
N. America => XB1 :  49-52% vs PS4 : 48-51%
Global     => XB1 :  32-34% vs PS4 : 66-68%

Sales Estimations for 8th Generation Consoles

Next Gen Consoles Impressions and Estimates

Around the Network
Pemalite said:
DonFerrari said:

Most of you guys saying robots and automatization will rob almost all jobs.

Economy will always change.

Robotics will reduce the amount of unskilled available jobs.
But it will increase the amount of skilled jobs... Which means people need to upskill more.

As computers and robotics becoms more common... You need people to maintain them, update them, build them, design them and so on.

Probably not all jobs are going to be replaced by new jobs on the same market, but new jobs on other markets... just look at economy distribution of labor in USA 200 years ago and now. People moved from agro, to manufacture, to services in the time between. So it will be much more people oriented and services heavy economy than production.

Superman4 said:
Pyro as Bill said:

Nobody taught you that price controls are the quickest way to make a bad situation worse?

Bakers make bread for 9 cents and sell for 10 cents. Government increases money supply causing inflation. It now costs bakers 10 cents to make bread and they have to sell at 11 cents. Gov decrees bread must be capped at 10 cents (no profit for the bakers). Bakers stop making bread for the poor and bake cakes for the rich instead. No bread on shelves but black market bread is available at 20 cents (risk-reward cost for breaking law). The poor starve, the rich get cheaper cake. Socialism wins again.

Price controls on items like housing, not on food or food ingredients. You have a situation now where companies like Exxon make billions more every time a natural disaster happens. Regardless of if they are actually affected or not, they raise prices to increase profit. Summer time and more people driving? Raise prices. Does it actually cost more to make gasoline in the summer? No. Housing is in a similar situation, rent or even a mortgage on a house that cost maybe 20K to build is going for $1 million because of its location, cities like SF, LA etc. Setting a cap on price based on square footage would help the housing market greatly. How is my house worth 300K now when I only bought it for 150K? It sold before I bought it for 450K. It’s not a collector car, it’s a house. Making things like car insurance mandatory but not creating a limit on price only allows the companies to gouge you and leaves you defenseless against it. Creating a high minimum wage just increases inflation since now all food items will cost more, do you think the restaurants will only increase the price to offset the new labor? No, they will increase it to offset plus some and end up making more money while the person with the new "high wage" now ends paying an even higher percentage of their income for the same items.

 Items like electricity, gasoline, natural gas etc. are all a required item to live now. Even having Solar on your house doesn’t get you “off-grid”, you still need to keep your house connected and pay the connection fees. Once an item becomes required or mandatory it needs to 100% be regulated and pricing controlled. 

So explain how price regulation on the bread that you already understood doesn't work would suddenly work for anything else.

I already told on this very thread what happened to ALL prices being frozen in Brazil.

freedquaker said:
Pyro as Bill said:

Nobody taught you that price controls are the quickest way to make a bad situation worse?

Bakers make bread for 9 cents and sell for 10 cents. Government increases money supply causing inflation. It now costs bakers 10 cents to make bread and they have to sell at 11 cents. Gov decrees bread must be capped at 10 cents (no profit for the bakers). Bakers stop making bread for the poor and bake cakes for the rich instead. No bread on shelves but black market bread is available at 20 cents (risk-reward cost for breaking law). The poor starve, the rich get cheaper cake. Socialism wins again.

I am sorry, "nobody taught me?" I am a college professor in several institutions across two countries (9 months in the US, summers in another), and I know everything that they teach because I have been teaching the same things for the last decade! So please do not repeat the undergraduate introductory material to me, because pretty much all of it is either B.S. or simply inaccurate ideological propaganda.

Price controls may make things very bad or good, depending on the market conditions. MINIMUM WAGE, for instance, can be detrimental or beneficial to the economy. At college, of course, they only teach the ideologically convenient (neoclassical) solution, which is, do not interfere the market at all. In the neoclassical mindset, the minimum wages are completely evil. HOWEVER, that is NOT what the real data suggest, according to which, minimum wages have either no or negligible effect on the economic efficiency, and if at all, the effects are temporary. So with no real effect on efficiency, minimum wage in the US only re-distributes income but has no bearing on the market efficiency (unlike what the neoclassicals would claim!) and this is a FACT (for the US)!

How can that be? BECAUSE the markets are NOT perfectly competitive (unlike the fundamental assumption!). It is TRIVIAL to show that, increasing minimum wage (a type of price control), may actually increase efficiency as well as improving income inequality, IF the markets are NOT competitive to begin with. The exact same is true for the real estate markets, which are usually not competitive (but often held by a strong rich elite), causing IMPERFECT market prices and artifically low housing supply. This is why there are MORE VACANT HOUSES THAN THE HOMELESS in the US, as the owners are waiting for a higher bid!

If you want to go into the specifics, only and only if you have at least a PHD in Economics, then let's discuss, otherwise, I am afraid, you won't have a clue about the details of how the economy works beyond the superficial millenial ideological propaganda they have given you. Hopefully you are not one of those who still think "college premium is due to rising productivity" nonsense.

The real evidence of a full market like Brazil clearly showed what happened on government doing price control full scale instead of sanitizing it's own cost structure and debt heavy strategy.

And basically your solution to a market that is imperfect basically because of government control is increase government control? Makes zero sense and you know it. You may have 20 PhDs if you want, but infering that increasing something ineficient will make it efficient is bizarre to say the least.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari said:
Pemalite said:

Robotics will reduce the amount of unskilled available jobs.
But it will increase the amount of skilled jobs... Which means people need to upskill more.

As computers and robotics becoms more common... You need people to maintain them, update them, build them, design them and so on.

Probably not all jobs are going to be replaced by new jobs on the same market, but new jobs on other markets... just look at economy distribution of labor in USA 200 years ago and now. People moved from agro, to manufacture, to services in the time between. So it will be much more people oriented and services heavy economy than production.

Same thing happened with Australia.
We used to be heavy into manufacturing, making stuff like cars, washing machines... You name it.
Then our Manufacturing imploded... Our high minimum wages (Almost $18 an hour) didn't help matters.
We transitioned our economy to resources, services and tourism and high-skilled work and it turned out... It was better for everyone anyway.

China right now is undergoing it's own Industrial revolution, it's difficult for anyone who isn't an emerging economy to compete with that, I personally think Brazil, Indonesia and India are probably the best equipped nations to take on manufacturing after China starts to falter/gets to expensive. And that is okay.

Economies transitioning is a natural process propelled by capitalism, it shouldn't be seen as a bad thing in my eyes.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

So explain how price regulation on the bread that you already understood doesn't work would suddenly work for anything else.

I already told on this very thread what happened to ALL prices being frozen in Brazil.

freedquaker said:

I am sorry, "nobody taught me?" I am a college professor in several institutions across two countries (9 months in the US, summers in another), and I know everything that they teach because I have been teaching the same things for the last decade! So please do not repeat the undergraduate introductory material to me, because pretty much all of it is either B.S. or simply inaccurate ideological propaganda.

Price controls may make things very bad or good, depending on the market conditions. MINIMUM WAGE, for instance, can be detrimental or beneficial to the economy. At college, of course, they only teach the ideologically convenient (neoclassical) solution, which is, do not interfere the market at all. In the neoclassical mindset, the minimum wages are completely evil. HOWEVER, that is NOT what the real data suggest, according to which, minimum wages have either no or negligible effect on the economic efficiency, and if at all, the effects are temporary. So with no real effect on efficiency, minimum wage in the US only re-distributes income but has no bearing on the market efficiency (unlike what the neoclassicals would claim!) and this is a FACT (for the US)!

How can that be? BECAUSE the markets are NOT perfectly competitive (unlike the fundamental assumption!). It is TRIVIAL to show that, increasing minimum wage (a type of price control), may actually increase efficiency as well as improving income inequality, IF the markets are NOT competitive to begin with. The exact same is true for the real estate markets, which are usually not competitive (but often held by a strong rich elite), causing IMPERFECT market prices and artifically low housing supply. This is why there are MORE VACANT HOUSES THAN THE HOMELESS in the US, as the owners are waiting for a higher bid!

If you want to go into the specifics, only and only if you have at least a PHD in Economics, then let's discuss, otherwise, I am afraid, you won't have a clue about the details of how the economy works beyond the superficial millenial ideological propaganda they have given you. Hopefully you are not one of those who still think "college premium is due to rising productivity" nonsense.

The real evidence of a full market like Brazil clearly showed what happened on government doing price control full scale instead of sanitizing it's own cost structure and debt heavy strategy.

And basically your solution to a market that is imperfect basically because of government control is increase government control? Makes zero sense and you know it. You may have 20 PhDs if you want, but infering that increasing something ineficient will make it efficient is bizarre to say the least.

Like I said, price controls may be good or bad for the economy and it is a case by case situation, varying between the type of markets and economies. Brazil and US are VERY DIFFERENT end of the spectrum, and a policy that works perfectly in one may not work at all in the other. I believe you are coming from a Brazil point of view, about which I do not have sufficient information and a subsequent analysis, so I will reserve judgment on that. But you should realize that you simply cannot generalize your conclusions from one country, even one time frame, even a market to all.

Like I said, if the market is highly IMPERFECT (oligopoly, monopolistic competition, imperfect competition etc.), then the prices, by definition, are already higher than the equilibrium level, with an aritifcially restricted market output. In this case, establishing or raising the minimum wage to the virtual market equilibrium levels would, at the same time,

a) decrease the marginal cost of labor (as it is simply zero at the frozen minimum wage up to the equilibrium point)
b) thus increase the employment and market output (reaching to the market equilibrium)

However, if you go beyond that equilibrium point and raise the minimum wage too much, then the both the employment, and market output along efficiency will fall again. The problem with developing countries like Brazil is (among others),

a) There are too many market imperfections that need to be tackled before price controls (which also make it real difficult to have a real direct and clear results from the policy decisions),
b) The populist policies usually push the wage controls too high (for the economic efficiency, not necessarily sufficient for a decent living).

The very same thing can be said for pretty much all other markets with certain caveats.



Playstation 5 vs XBox Series Market Share Estimates

Regional Analysis  (only MS and Sony Consoles)
Europe     => XB1 : 23-24 % vs PS4 : 76-77%
N. America => XB1 :  49-52% vs PS4 : 48-51%
Global     => XB1 :  32-34% vs PS4 : 66-68%

Sales Estimations for 8th Generation Consoles

Next Gen Consoles Impressions and Estimates

Pemalite said:

China right now is undergoing it's own Industrial revolution, it's difficult for anyone who isn't an emerging economy to compete with that, I personally think Brazil, Indonesia and India are probably the best equipped nations to take on manufacturing after China starts to falter/gets to expensive. And that is okay.

Economies transitioning is a natural process propelled by capitalism, it shouldn't be seen as a bad thing in my eyes.

I don't think China will ever falter for a long time in manufacturing, it'll probably take decades (if not over a century) to unseat them in that area ... 

Out of all the developing nations, China still maintains one of the best credit ratings so foreign investors are less spooked/more compelled about investing in China than in those listed nations. Once we factor in other things such as supply chains, infrastructure and a transition to automation/high tech manufacturing the nation will probably cement it's lead or grow it even further possibly! 

Once they get the robots to handle most of the menial tasks they'll move on to the high end semiconductor industry or other high end manufacturing industries like Pharma so that they can compete with developed nations usch as South Korea, the US or whoeve's leading in that industry ... (protectionism makes sense in China's case since they want to lower their foreign dependence on their aggressors and they want tighter price control so that foreign nations won't be able to profit so easily much like how the US developed shale technology to get a leverage on OPEC's oil pricing) 

After that they'll use all of the previously developed tools to compete with the US in medical science and biotechnology ... 



Around the Network
Pemalite said:
DonFerrari said:

Probably not all jobs are going to be replaced by new jobs on the same market, but new jobs on other markets... just look at economy distribution of labor in USA 200 years ago and now. People moved from agro, to manufacture, to services in the time between. So it will be much more people oriented and services heavy economy than production.

Same thing happened with Australia.
We used to be heavy into manufacturing, making stuff like cars, washing machines... You name it.
Then our Manufacturing imploded... Our high minimum wages (Almost $18 an hour) didn't help matters.
We transitioned our economy to resources, services and tourism and high-skilled work and it turned out... It was better for everyone anyway.

China right now is undergoing it's own Industrial revolution, it's difficult for anyone who isn't an emerging economy to compete with that, I personally think Brazil, Indonesia and India are probably the best equipped nations to take on manufacturing after China starts to falter/gets to expensive. And that is okay.

Economies transitioning is a natural process propelled by capitalism, it shouldn't be seen as a bad thing in my eyes.

Totally agree on the premisse, but prospecting the future is always uncert, so maybe these countries will or not be the next boom on manufacturing.

But the truth is that one way or another the market will keep shifting and no economy will make sense with everyone unemployed and no circulation of goods and money, so new jobs and positions will appear that people that at first had to work 14h a day just to eat will have to work less than 1h to eat and that work wouldn't be muscle work but new things that we didn't even thought as a need before.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

freedquaker said:

So explain how price regulation on the bread that you already understood doesn't work would suddenly work for anything else.

I already told on this very thread what happened to ALL prices being frozen in Brazil.

The real evidence of a full market like Brazil clearly showed what happened on government doing price control full scale instead of sanitizing it's own cost structure and debt heavy strategy.

And basically your solution to a market that is imperfect basically because of government control is increase government control? Makes zero sense and you know it. You may have 20 PhDs if you want, but infering that increasing something ineficient will make it efficient is bizarre to say the least.

Like I said, price controls may be good or bad for the economy and it is a case by case situation, varying between the type of markets and economies. Brazil and US are VERY DIFFERENT end of the spectrum, and a policy that works perfectly in one may not work at all in the other. I believe you are coming from a Brazil point of view, about which I do not have sufficient information and a subsequent analysis, so I will reserve judgment on that. But you should realize that you simply cannot generalize your conclusions from one country, even one time frame, even a market to all.

Like I said, if the market is highly IMPERFECT (oligopoly, monopolistic competition, imperfect competition etc.), then the prices, by definition, are already higher than the equilibrium level, with an aritifcially restricted market output. In this case, establishing or raising the minimum wage to the virtual market equilibrium levels would, at the same time,

a) decrease the marginal cost of labor (as it is simply zero at the frozen minimum wage up to the equilibrium point)
b) thus increase the employment and market output (reaching to the market equilibrium)

However, if you go beyond that equilibrium point and raise the minimum wage too much, then the both the employment, and market output along efficiency will fall again. The problem with developing countries like Brazil is (among others),

a) There are too many market imperfections that need to be tackled before price controls (which also make it real difficult to have a real direct and clear results from the policy decisions),
b) The populist policies usually push the wage controls too high (for the economic efficiency, not necessarily sufficient for a decent living).

The very same thing can be said for pretty much all other markets with certain caveats.

I'll agree with you, even more because you seem to understand that the government control contributes more to the problem than to the solution of most problems related to economy (mainly due to the excessive power in the hand of few helping to create or nurish the examples you gave of imperfect market).



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

tokilamockingbrd said:
Which is the premise behind Trump's tax plan. I stand to increase my post tax take home by 3 or 4 grand if it happens. I prefer tax cuts because it rewards those who actually contribute to the economy.                                     

Again, no it doesn't.

Tax cuts to the rich has never, I repeat NEVER worked and it never will. Look no further than Bush's failed tax cuts.