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Comment by baron816 | Hacker News Reader

For all of human history, people have had to deal with a scarcity of resources. Yet in the last few years, that has changed. Our problem is not that we can't make enough stuff for everyone to be happy, it's that we're still acting like that is the case.

The age of inflation is over because producers in nearly every industry (there are a few notable exceptions) can absorb almost infinite demand for their products. The sooner governments and central banks accept this, and the sooner we move past the notion that a "job" is not an end but a means to an end, the sooner we can end poverty, achieve high levels of growth, and overcome our fear of globalization and technology.

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Citations needed.

I don't see any fundamental change in scarcity of resources in the last few years.

Additionally... to say that nearly every industry can absorb almost infinite demand for their products is absurd. Near infinite claims need near infinite evidence. Can we produce near infinite food? Can we produce near infinite precious metals?

There are certainly some very interesting characteristics about our economy right now, but this is not the right articulation. It's more that we are stuck in a liquidity trap, and we can grow our economy without increasing demand on the labor market.

You, as a human being, can only consume so much water. So much energy. So much food. Its already within our means to feed everyone (green revolution), shelter [1] everyone, and energy? Please! Enough sunlight hits the Earth in 5 minutes to power the world for a year (you will never see the price of power go up again [2] [3], renewables are simply too cheap now, and will continue to be deployed at a rate somewhere between linear and exponential, pushing out generation sources that have a consumable fuel with marginal cost).

Surely we'll need to drive down the cost of healthcare and housing [4]; that'll be tough and expensive to solve. But everything else? Its all clean energy, automated manufacturing, and bits across a wire.

We must choose to provide for everyone not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

The economy does not need to grow further; growth is not the problem, distribution is ("The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." -- William Gibson).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YcrO8ONcfY

[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=energy+deflation

[3] http://dqbasmyouzti2.cloudfront.net/content/images/articles/... (TL;DR Cost of energy from solar is dropping faster than Battlestar Galactica through a planet's atmosphere [3a])

[3a] https://youtu.be/JdkCpnGMyGw?t=6s

[4] https://i.imgur.com/hJewEUY.jpg

So, in other words... you agree with me. We cannot absorb "near infinite" demand. Rather, it's the opposite: demand might even have a finite upper bound!

But this is neither true, nor does it need to be. Economics is all about marginal curves. And I think what we are finding is that demand does increase, but that we can adapt to increased demand for most goods and services without increased demand on labor. So, inflation is not a threat, because wages don't go up. But it means ever-increasing return on capital... which is precisely what we've been seeing for decades.

Maybe we agree? I think for all intents and purposes, "infinite" does not mean "need additional pylons for remaining segments of Dyson sphere in order to power interplanetary colonial fleet Mark I via laser tether". Maybe we call it "per capita demand maximum"?

But labor isn't alone in not being necessary to satiate additional demand; note the trillions of dollars in capital struggling to find "acceptable" returns. Investors are even willing to invest in negative return bonds in parts of the first world to protect cash holdings of portfolios.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/14/news/tax-us-companies-offsho...

"Top 50 U.S. companies hold $1.4 trillion in cash offshore"

Assume these companies brought that cash back to the US. What would they do with it? Where is there to grow?

Yes, there's a massive savings glut. But a big part of that is due to central banks. If they tightened up monetary policy, interest rates go up, and investors would start getting better returns. But central banks are afraid to raise interest rates because they worry about the possibility of deflation.

If companies repatriated their cash, the main thing they would do with it is pay a hefty tax bill to Uncle Sam. This would be a good thing to do when the central banks do increase interest rates.

Interesting comment. I had not considered central bank monetary policy was holding back corporate profit repatriation, which would realize significant revenues for the federal government, which could be spent on infrastructure.

Can you explain the fear of deflation? I don't understand the reticence of central banks.

Why not have a shot of deflation?

Everyone with debt now has more debt (even though the number is the same). We are at the highest debt levels ever.

>We are at the highest debt levels ever

We also have the highest population levels ever, the most assets ever, and the most wealth ever.

Debt to GDP has fallen, drastically:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HDTGPDUSQ163N

I understand that people with debt don't want to pay more.

But they took a risk taking on that debt and perhaps they should go bankrupt.

Seems like I've triggered a nerve!

> If they tightened up monetary policy, interest rates go up

That causation is backwards. Raising interest rates makes money tighter. But tight money causes low interest rates.

There are many levels of cause and effect.

Central banks use open market operations. When they want interest rates to go down, they print money and buy debt on the open market until the rates reach their target. This new money is the cause... the new interest rates are the effect. The new money (aka "monetary base" or M0) is then multiplied 10x by private banks, due to fractional reserve banking. That M1 money is another effect. The controlled interest rate helps the private banks loan that money out.

Open market operations only change the "portfolio" makeup of the private sector on the margin. New new assets(new money) are added to the private sector. There is no money multiplier due to open market operations itself. Banks will lend as long as they can make a profit and since banks can create deposits out of thin air, what you are saying is inapplicable to modern monetary/banking systems. Banks can always create deposits to meet loan demand.

Except for reserve requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_requirement#United_Sta...

And once the reserve requirement is maxed out, the only thing that can permit more private money creation is central bank money creation

Right. Banks can borrow reserves to meet requirements. It doesn't prevent them from meeting loan demand. Money creation is congruent to loan demand. Also, reserve requirements are accounted for in the next accounting period not in real time.

>Yes, there's a massive savings glut. But a big part of that is due to central banks.

It's more a feature of wealth and income inequality than central bank policy.

Central bank policy accelerated this trend but the "savings glut" (1% wealth) has only been going up since the 70s.

The distribution of savings has little to do with it. The savings glut is caused by secular stagnation [1]. There is not much investment happening in our economy (savings and investment are two sides of the same coin). Since the 70s, there has been a net "value extraction" rather than "value creation" in the capital markets [2]. That is, rather than "retaining and reinvesting" profits, companies simply "downsize and distribute". This certainly reinforces wealth inequality. It doesn't help that monetary policy of the last 8 years created a liquidity trop that reinforced all this.

[1] http://larrysummers.com/category/secular-stagnation/ [2] https://hbr.org/2014/09/profits-without-prosperity

>The savings glut is caused by ... There is not much investment happening in our economy

There is not much investment in the economy because there is not much demand. There is not much demand because of income and wealth inequality.

After all, what's the point of producing goods and services for people who can't afford them?

>http://larrysummers.com/category/secular-stagnation/

Any economics projections made by Larry Summers ought to be taken with a metric ton of salt. After all, his track record at gambling with Harvard's money is just abysmal:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/larry-summers-federal-reserv...

Isn't the simple solution to force capital tied up by individuals and corporations back into the public sector and markets via policy increasing taxes for those at the top as well as forcing some minimum percent to be spent on either lower end job creation or a basic income program? Capitalism is fine, but it's just gotten really stagnant with the money flow it seems.

There is not much investment because profits are quite high. Companies don't have an incentive to reinvest when they can instead just reward shareholders. Perhaps what we need is more competition to drive profits down.

Decreasing wealth inequality is an end, not a means to an end. If you want a stable economy, focus on prices: inflation and deflation. If you want a functioning society, focus on income and employment. If you want both, then you get the Federal Reserve. Sometimes the two goals stand in each other's way. (Stagflation). When that happens, it's now obvious that central banks prioritize the economy over society.

>There is not much investment because profits are quite high.

There's no direct causal relationship between profits and investment. There aren't any companies that think "you know what? we've got enough profits for now, why do we need more?".

There are plenty of companies who see tapped out markets that aren't growing and decide not to invest.

Indirectly I guess the accumulation of wealth at the top via profits is party responsible for no money at the bottom to buy products and services.

>Decreasing wealth inequality is an end, not a means to an end. If you want a stable economy, focus on prices: inflation and deflation.

That's exactly what the fed has had its laser-like focus on for the last ~20 years. Stable the economy was not. Prioritizing inflation while inflation is under 15% is simply prioritizing the needs of those who don't work for a living over those who do.

>If you want a functioning society, focus on income and employment. If you want both, then you get the Federal Reserve.

The fed only really cared about inflation in the last 20 years in spite of its mandate.

There is totally a causal relationship between profits and investment: either you reinvest the profits or you don't. And if a huge pile of profits rolls your way... you might not be able to reinvest all of it. Yes, you are right, it can be thought of as a lack of demand. But if the cost of production is plummeting, due to automation, and profits soar... then you would need equally soaring demand to meet it. In this vein, Larry Summers is right with his call for fiscal policy. He is just repeating what Keynes said many years ago -- the government should be the spender of last resort.

But this is a race to the bottom (or the top?). How do we stimulate so much demand to keep up with this? Then there is Piketty -- the return on capital outpaces economic growth, and therefore wealth inequality gets worse with time. He proposes we should instate a global wealth tax. This is more along the lines of what you are saying. But his solution doesn't necessarily solve the demand problem. It just solves the wealth problem directly. We don't know, with a global wealth tax, what the impact on demand really will be. Maybe it would lead to a massive deleveraging of consumer and student debt. Demand isn't ultimately the problem... the economy is functioning pretty well. We can make the things that need to be made in the quantities they need at reasonable prices. The problem is the wealth distribution in itself.

As for the Fed only caring about inflation in the last 20 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Volcker

>and investors would start getting better returns.

One-sided accounting fallacy. For every lender receiving an interest rate, there is someone borrowing at the same rate. Why do you assume that the person lending is more deserving, when it is the risk-takers with need of capital (ie borrowers) who are the inventors and entrepreneurs? This place goes nuts for Elon Musk's projects; well it would be a different world if capital was more expensive for him to access.

> The economy does not need to grow further

This is pretty much false, because on the one end we have people in poverty who will hopefully move out of it, which will cause growth.

On the other end, most people on this forum are involved in finding new ways to unlock "value" and thus create new wealth.

The economy is not a pure zero sum game.

>This is pretty much false, because on the one end we have people in poverty who will hopefully move out of it, which will cause growth.

They can move out of poverty by society distributing wealth more equally, which is not dependent on growth. Especially when people have 100000 the net worth of other people.

>The economy is not a pure zero sum game.

Why do people keep saying this? This is a huge misconception. The economy IS zero sum.

Energy and physical resources are limited. When one person uses a limited resource, than another person will be unable to use that same resource. This is a Zero Sum.

I've heard people say that seemingly "unlimited" products like an idea, a painting or an abstract idea can be created out of thin air and because of this the economy is not zero sum. Well guess what? Have you ever heard of an economy that can exist while thriving only on abstract ideas and pieces of art? No. All economies thrive on energy and physical resources while abstraction only sits on top of these things as a luxury. AKA: A farmer can feed himself with his own crops, but an artist cannot survive without trading his painting with a farmer for food.

Another cop out people use is that although the sun is technically a limited resource (it will burn out one day), it is seemingly unlimited because it outputs more energy then humanity will ever need or comprehend. This argument is flawed too. We are limited by the amount of energy we can extract from the sun. There will always be a limit to the amount of energy we extract from the sun due to fundamental limits in technology and physics.

It gets worse than this, because technically speaking you are correct.. the economy is not zero sum, it's actually a negative sum. When you add up the numbers there will always be a net loss for all economic actors. The second law of thermodynamics dictates that even if an economic agent doesn't extract or use a resource, the resource on it's own will eventually, slowly degrade into an unusable state.

I have a saw, you have a log. If we bring our resources together, we can build something more economically valuable than the sum of the parts, and we both benefit. That's not a zero sum game.

It is zero sum. Did you even read past the first sentence of my post? The situation is much more complex, and unfortunately I can't elegantly shoot you down with one highly misguided sentence as you tried to do for my argument.

Let me spell it out for you in a way you can comprehend:

1. There is a limited amount of logs that the earth can produce.

2. There is also a limited amount of metal that the earth can produce.

3. There is also a limited amount of energy that we can extract from the earth or the sun.

4. Therefore, there is a LIMITED amount saws I can build with metal and energy.

5. With logs and saws being limited, then that means there is also is also a limited amount of "things" that can be built with the logs and saws.

What this all means:

The totality of "things" that can potentially be built with limited resources is limited because resources are in itself limited.

This totality can be referred to as our economic pie (or cake). Once a slice of pie is extracted and eaten another person cannot eat it. That is zero sum.

See cake example in the very short first paragraph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game

"It's not zero-sum" is a popular and lazy fallacy used by economically illiterate people to argue against welfare policies.

It goes hand in hand with the just world fallacy, which, in conjunction is used to justify the position of the currently capital-poor class.

E.G. Because the economy is not zero-sum, those people would have been able to produce wealth for themselves with the same ease as the people who are currently in possession of wealth/capital.

For the record, I'm certainly sympathetic to arguments re: wealth inequality. I've just observed first-hand that it's possible to create value without taking something away from someone else.

The value was never created. It was extracted from a resource. Creation implies that it came from nothing. It is highly unlikely whatever you created came from nothing.

Value is a subjective thing. Of course it can be created- if I decide to value something.

Then when you value an apple to be one billion trillion dollars did you increase the economy by one billion trillion dollars? No. That makes no sense.

There is value and then there is intrinsic value aka True value. True value is extracted not created.

Ah. Here you'll find you're miles from most people's definition.

Nobody in the real world thinks value is subjective because if I subjectively valued an apple at two billion dollars everyone would think I'm crazy.

Only people who blindly read economic textbooks will take that misguided definition at face value.

People who blindly read textbooks, as well as anyone with real world market experience. If you believe in economic value as an objective truth, and not based on the subjective view of a buyer or seller, we have no common ground to continue this discussion.

We do have common ground. The common ground is exactly as you say: real world people with real market experience.

But before I get into that real world example... you just threatened to end the discussion if I disagree with you. This is weak. I am telling you I can end this argument not on a mere disagreement... I can end this argument with factual, non-subjective evidence that will prove you wrong.

Now, onto the real world example: Warren Buffet, arguably one of the most successful investors on the planet. Warren Buffet operates on a investment strategy known as investing on intrinsic value. In other words he believes that the market fluctuations of a stock price by the daily subjective valuations of day traders are meaningless, he peers beyond the noise and picks stocks based off of a very real economic concept called "intrinsic value" or a true value separate from the subjective valuations of people. Intrinsic value is a very real and actual concept. Warren Buffet believes it and many many other real world and experienced investors follow the strategy as well. See sources below:

This link is solid proof intrinsic value exists as a theory in economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_theory_of_value

This link shows intrinsic value applied in finance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_value_(finance)

This link shows intrinsic value applied as a stock investment strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_investing

This is a biography on warren buffet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett

Academia and "most people" are not unanimously sided with you. The above argument is solid proof. This is not a mere disagreement and if you end the discussion here it's an admission of total and utter loss.

Quick thoughts:

You didn't provide any "non-subjective evidence" - you just reframed what you think my position is to knock it down.

I'm familiar with value investing. It's not clear to me why you believe the occasional success of value investors is proof in inherent value as a universal economic truth. I haven't claimed anything about value other than that it's subjective- that doesn't preclude, for example, a company's perceived value relying on a number of other subjective values.

Anyway, again, I don't think we're getting anywhere here, and I think framing a discussion as requiring "admission of total and utter loss" to leave is childish and the hallmark of a troll. I'm equal parts embarrassed and impressed that I've been strung along this long.

Non subjective evidence? I gave you actual sources and actual real world people who use the concept in the "real world". Actual sources and actual people is not subjective evidence. These are things that directly contradict your statements.

>I'm familiar with value investing. It's not clear to me why you believe the occasional success of value investors is proof in inherent value as a universal economic truth.

Occasional success? I gave you a person who has year after year of success for around 50 years. There is no quantitative way of expressing this unparalleled success rate as "occasional success." Also what is a universal economic truth? There is no such thing. Economics is a soft science which consists of a bunch of varying theoretical models and schools of thought, none of which (like all science.) can ever be fully "proven" as a universal truth.

I presume you are actually asking whether or not intrinsic value is valid school of thought in the academic landscape? It is. See the economic definition of intrinsic value in the link I posted above. Or google it.

>I haven't claimed anything about value other than that it's subjective- that doesn't preclude, for example, a company's perceived value relying on a number of other subjective values.

Perceived value is subjective and therefore according to your definition a logical interpretation of value. There are many cases where the "Perceived value" of a company is different from the the sum of its parts or other "subjective valuations" in which the company is built upon. This leads to an inherit contradiction in the subjective theory of valuation. Meaning that a company has two different values: The subjective value of the company as a whole and the subjective value of the company as a sum of its parts. A contradiction indicates that this is a highly flawed way of thinking about valuation.

>to leave is childish and the hallmark of a troll.

You insulted me and called me a troll. Am I being the one being childish? I am simply stating facts. If you leave saying we have no subjective common ground when I only offer hard facts. The only logical conclusion is that you are trying to exit the conversation because you have no hard facts to prove your point.

Alternative conclusion- I'm exhausted by this conversation, and don't want to continue it. It has little to do with your argument and everything to do with the way you're arguing.

> It has little to do with your argument and everything to do with the way you're arguing.

Sure that's a valid possibility. But my hypothesis is valid as well.

One thing is solid though: Your statement is a subliminal personal attack on the "way" I "argue" and has nothing to do with the argument itself.

Perhaps another alternative conclusion is that you have no way of continuing the discussion because you have nothing solid left to say, so you decide to reframe the situation and end it with a cheap excuse that has nothing to do with the argument itself.

A painter creates value when they add color to a blank canvas. Some colored canvases are worth millions of dollars.

The value was not created. The value was extracted from supplies, skill and time required to paint it.

NOT from America, so I don't have to hold the same cultural beleifs you'll do. I have no idea why welfare is linked with the non Zero sumness of the economy, nor subscribe to the other notions mentioned.

Matter of fact, I have diametrically different positions.

My question to you though, is how the economy being non zero sum is a fallacy. I've had to work directly in economics and finance, so if I got this wrong it would be a huge gap. I'd really like to understand how it's a fallacy.

>...used by economically illiterate people

Please don't insult people on this forum.

In terms of your statement: >..."It's not zero-sum" is a popular and lazy fallacy

Simply look at the simplest case. Unless coercion is involved, if I make a trade with someone, the only reason I do it is because I am better off because of the trade or I wouldn't do it. The same goes for the other side of the trade. So we decide to do a trade and both of us are better off than we were before.

First of all, it's really not an insult and more of a statement.

Barging into a thread and yelling "economy is not zero sum" is the CS equivalent of doing the same and yelling something like "X is not a good programming language" with no explanation or context. Wouldn't you be considered illiterate in that programming language by someone who uses it?

> So we decide to do a trade and both of us are better off than we were before.

In a vacuum, yes. However, consider that no actual new goods have been produced. Does your example work in the case when one party is unable or unwilling to see the benefit of the trade? Does it work when no new goods can be produced by one of the parties, like in the example of land?

If you want a more detailed statement - in the short run, everything in economics is essentially zero-sum. As we progress towards a longer time frame, it shifts to being non-zero sum, with the exception of intrinsically limited resources.

> Simply look at the simplest case.

Yes, most users of this site look at Economics as some series of simplest case scenarios. I'm standing by this statement until I see evidence to the contrary.

What's misguided is your fatalistic application of thermodynamics. I of course understand that there is a limited amount of energy in the universe, and that it will one day all stop due to heat death. I disagree that that has any impact on our much smaller, more limited human experience.

I also disagree that the entirety of human demand is about raw resources, ignoring art, romance, or other interests in our lives. Unfortunately, you'd then argue that there are only 10^78 atoms in the universe, with which we can only build 10^24 paintbrushes.

Thermodynamics does have an impact. I don't need to show you ludicrous examples to prove my point either.

Take gasoline. When you use it, you convert it to a unusable state. Oil is finite and as fracking wanes the supply will lessen and the price will go up.

This is not a unrealistic application, but a very real application of thermodynamics that will have a very real impact on your life.

>I also disagree that the entirety of human demand is about raw resources, ignoring art, romance, or other interests in our lives.

I don't ignore art or romance. But every economic product follows an economic food chain and the root of that chain is ALWAYS a raw resource. Take romance for instance:

IN order to experience romance you must be alive. IN order to be alive you need food and air (raw resource). In order to make food you need to grow plants or animals. In order to grow an animal you need to feed it plants. In order to grow plants you need to give it earth (raw resource), sun (raw resource) and water (raw resource).

Note how the economic chain splits into many threads and always terminates at a raw resource. This chain of dependence ends at a resource that is limited therefore all of art and other abstractions are limited.

>Unfortunately, you'd then argue that there are only 10^78 atoms in the universe, with which we can only build 10^24 paintbrushes.

What's unfortunate is not the fact that I have an argument but the fact that you have NO argument.

My argument is fairly straightforward. The universe is much larger than our appetites, and that's the horizon we're talking about with economics- centuries, not the heat death of the universe.

Your comment about gasoline is a good example of a resource that has a real world constraint, but it doesn't show that economics is zero sum. It shows that the limited game, where the goal is to obtain as much gasoline as possible, is zero sum. If I also use nuclear power, I'm not playing that game.

We have a sad tendency to ignore negative externalities, as a species. And it could be our undoing. But countering that by claiming that human econonic activity is zero sum is an abuse of game theory.

You argument is not straightforward. It is logically flawed.

> The universe is much larger than our appetites, and that's the horizon we're talking about with economics- centuries, not the heat death of the universe.

You don't have access to the universe. You only have access to the earth. If you reduce the time horizon to centuries you must also reduce the resource horizon to that which is available on earth. The earth is a highly limited resource. The situation is not even close to your flawed argument of limited appetites vs unlimited resources.

That is fairly straight forward. I never talked about the heat death of the universe nor any epic cataclysms outside of the human experience. That came from you. Thermodynamics applies to smaller systems as well as the universe and is highly relevant to the human experience.

>Your comment about gasoline is a good example of a resource that has a real world constraint, but it doesn't show that economics is zero sum. It shows that the limited game, where the goal is to obtain as much gasoline as possible, is zero sum. If I also use nuclear power, I'm not playing that game.

How is nuclear power not a zero sum game? Follow the economic chain. Nuclear power involves a resource called uranium. Uranium is used up in process of generating nuclear energy. Uranium is mined from the earth and therefore limited. Additionally, the global supply of uranium is nowhere near high enough to be classified as a seemingly 'unlimited' resource. You cannot escape the game.

Your best argument here is the sun. The sun can be classified as a seemingly 'unlimited' resource. However the bottleneck here is the amount of solar energy we can extract from the sun. That energy amount extracted is limited by technology and physics to a concrete amount. That concrete amount is significantly less than the energy we demand.

>We have a sad tendency to ignore negative externalities, as a species. And it could be our undoing. But countering that by claiming that human econonic activity is zero sum is an abuse of game theory.

By claiming that economic activity is not a zero sum game is an abuse of reality. Find an example that isn't zero sum. Find a resource that isn't constrained.

There's some evidence that democracy is unsustainable without economic growth.

Most measures of economic activity like GDP are measures of the total movement of resources, where such movements are monetized. That is, increasing growth means increasing distribution. (There's no guarantee that the distribution is better, of course.)

>There's some evidence that democracy is unsustainable without economic growth.

Democracy is how a society chooses to govern itself.

Above a certain point (e.g. when food is so scarce people kill each over for it) it's not about how much money or resources it has.

There have been in ethnography tribes with democratic self-governance that had 1/1000 the resources we have, and no "growth" year over year.

Love that Gibson quote. Have you come across research or pilots that have made progress on the distribution problem? Without being an expert, it appears to be caused by greed.

> I don't see any fundamental change in scarcity in the last few years.

I do. There have always been economies of scale, but the first shipment of Call of Duty costs tens of millions of dollars. Shipments #2 to #1000000 over the wire cost next to nothing.

A movie like The Avengers exhibits the same behavior.

Sixty years ago, a new car rolling off an assembly line of a Detroit factory was the epitome of the world economy, technology and engineering. Which was not all that different from the process of a weave rolling off a flying shuttle in 1740. This is a new thing, where piece #1 of a piece of IP is very costly, but the next few million pieces are cheap to produce.

To have a focus on the old thing of a scarcity of materials as this goes on seems to be missing the boat on what is happening. Not that I put much creedence in the scarcity focus before, but it has just become completely ridiculous.

This is something I've been interested in, the idea of having a marginal cost lifestyle.

The main problem with it for physical items is that there is always a large upfront lump sum cost. A small hydroelectric system produces energy for practically free but costs a lot to build. It will last until your grandchildren are old though, it is a true investment.

The first car for a given model year might cost a billion dollars the second might cost 10k. So, it's more the gap has been growing than it's suddenly a new thing.

Of course we can't produce infinite anything. We can't even make infinite copies of a piece of software.

So instead of "infinite" or "near infinite", let's say "at least two orders of magnitude".

Can we produce 100x as much precious metals? Yes.[1]

Can we produce 100x as much energy? Yes.[2]

Can we produce 100x as much food? Yes.[3]

Can we produce 100x as much living space? Yes.

1: Exercise: think of an elemental metal we're short of. Look it up in Wikipedia, look at what % of the Earth's crust consists of that resource, and compare that to current usage.

2: With enough money, we could do this with nuclear power today. I don't think we're too far away from being able to do this with solar, again given enough money.

3: Greenhouses.

Precious metals, food, energy and prime living space are very scarce in economic terms. It would cost very real and very significant amounts money to produce more. But given enough money, we could produce a lot more of them. If the world economy grew 100x too, could we increase these scarce resources 100-fold? I assert yes.

> 1: Exercise: think of an elemental metal we're short of. Look it up in Wikipedia, look at what % of the Earth's crust consists of that resource, and compare that to current usage.

Just because it is somewhere in the Earth's crust, it doesn't mean that we are able to harvest it.

> 2: With enough money, we could do this with nuclear power today. I don't think we're too far away from being able to do this with solar, again given enough money.

You are talking about producing 100X as much energy as we do today. Nuclear power is already used in many countries. Scaling up our energy production with a factor 100 just by replacing traditional power plants with nuclear will never reach that factor. And solar power is not even able to fulfill our current energy need, there is just not enough free surface on the earth for all those solar panels.

> 3: Greenhouses.

The claim that the use of greenhouses could scale up our global food production with a factor 100 is absurd.

> Just because it is somewhere in the Earth's crust, it doesn't mean that we are able to harvest it.

That's basically what we already do for copper. A copper "mine" takes something that isn't much different from random rocks, and separates out the copper. Copper ores that have a high percentage of copper have been gone for a while now. Copper used to be so cheap they used it for pennies, now it's so expensive that people break into houses to steal the wire. But we haven't run out.

>Scaling up our energy production with a factor 100 just by replacing traditional power plants with nuclear will never reach that factor.

Well obviously we'd need to build new plants. What's the limiting factor preventing us from creating 100x as many nuclear plants, provided sufficient money to build them?

> The claim that the use of greenhouses could scale up our global food production with a factor 100 is absurd.

Why? Greenhouses produce far more than 100x the calories/acre than wheat or corn land. It's far less absurd than urban vertical farming which uses artificial light instead of sunlight, yet there are several startups that think vertical farming is viable and have received tons of investment.

People will pay any amount for goofy food. There's always a market among people with money.

To change food for everybody, it has to scale. Greenhouses are a pretty expensive way to grow food. Just look at the prices charged for greenhouse vegetables.

100X would be hard to hit. Iowa grows enough corn to feed 2 USAs (if we were content to eat just corn). But that's a long way from 100X.

I should have stated the original statement more clearly. If the global economy was 100X the size per capita, and demand for food was 100X (implying there's 100X as many people), could we feed everybody? With an economy 10,000X as big, could we grow 100X as much food?

I say we could easily do so. But you need all three 100X's: miss one and it would be probably impossible, as you say.

Easy to say "the economy". But Iowa, for instance, is all planted up. Not going to find another 3 million acres to plant. Much less 100X that. No matter how many people you throw at the problem. It just doesn't scale.

And most any place else has less yield per acre. So now what? Its a big world but the low hanging fruit is already in use.

100X is a mighty stretch. Even Wallace and Borlaug would throw up their hands.

3 million acres? That's the 10 largest ranches in Texas. Cover them over with greenhouses rather than the prime farmland in Iowa. And Texas ranches are relatively productive compared to Montana or Alaska or the Sahara or ...

Nope. Its impossible. There is a finite amount of nutrients. Phosphorus turns out to be the limiting reagent. Then there are freshwater supplies, and other problems.

http://www.livescience.com/16493-people-planet-earth-support...

0.099% of the Earth's crust is phosphorus. If that's the limiting reagent, then that's very easy to fix with money.

Freshwater is synthesized from seawater now. If the GDP increases 10,000% it will be inexpensive.

you are right. TIL

http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2013/04/01/phosphorus-essential...

20,000 calories per day is not better than 10,000 calories per day. Thus, food has reached a point where enough no longer the problem, and if we made twice as much we probably would burn it not eat it.

As to stuff, it's content which tends to be the real limitation not the TV. And content can be unlimited we simply impose artificial limitations.

We are already throwing massive amounts of food away.

"Getting food from the farm to our fork eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of all freshwater consumed in the United States. Yet, 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. This not only means that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also that the uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills as the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste where it accounts for a large portion of U.S. methane emissions." [1]

[1] https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-food-IP.pdf

There are some advantages to being over provisioned though: it is more resilient to disruption and downturns for one.

Think about a book with information in it on, oh I don't know, basic first aid principles.

1000 Years ago it wasn't available.

200 years ago, it was available only to those who could afford to go to university, and had reached a very socially expensive and scarce educational level.

Now you can download it for nothing. With pictures. Ditto music, film, etc.

The financial apparatus that you're referring to can solve more or less for the scarcity case, but it cannot solve (i.e. find prices for) the abundance case. The liquidity issues are a sideshow to what will be the main event.

> The financial apparatus that you're referring to can solve more or less for the scarcity case, but it cannot solve (i.e. find prices for) the abundance case.

Prices should be declining if supply are increasing.

If you're right, which you're not, then prices should be decreasing very quickly.

Food and energy bills for the average person in my country and others I've been to are steadily increasing.

USA 2011 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/food-prices-increase-most-in-36-...

USA 2014 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/food-prices-soar-as-incomes-stan...

World graph http://www.worldwatch.org/global-food-prices-continue-rise-0

EX-computation, tell me something good. We can't eat silicon wafers.

The cost of energy alone is exponentially higher than it was in the early 70s.

We're not living in an enchanted forest, formerly progressive trends are going into reverse on most counts outside of computers.

I'm not sure that computation is much of an exception. Yes, we have more transistors on chips, but can we actually make them do more useful things? It's not always clear cut. Also it seems like many employed in software are mostly reinventing older ideas poorly.

Didn't see your post there, sorry.

I agree, but I try to lead with my strongest case that can't be denied objectively. The concern about implementing 'actual useful shit' e.g. not flinging birds at pigs, is very much at the forefront of my mind but it's a harder case to argue even if it would be more meaningful, esp. to the uninitiated.

The other factor in pricing is monetary expansion. Every 10 years the US money supply doubles.

Factor that in, and essentially what we´re looking at is a world where production is increasing, reducing prices, money and credit supply are increasing, increasing them - at the same time. At the moment the two are more or less (more in the case of TV´s, less in the case of housing) balancing each other out.

>There are certainly some very interesting characteristics about our economy right now, but this is not the right articulation. It's more that we are stuck in a liquidity trap, and we can grow our economy without increasing demand on the labor market.

Financial metrics can grow without substantially increasing demand for labor. Most of the nonfinancial economy, however, is stuck in recession or stagnation. The tech sector only differs in being fueled by the flood of capital into VCs.

After the Second Great Depression was narrowly headed off by TARP, we're still stuck waiting for the Second New Deal and Second Post-War Reconstruction.

> Our problem is not that we can't make enough stuff for everyone to be happy, it's that we're still acting like that is the case.

The real issue is that the ruling class makes their money off capital. That's why Tiny Houses are banned in San Francisco and elsewhere. Because no one really needs more than 400 square feet of (well-designed) living space, but if people were allowed to buy houses and apartments that small then they wouldn't need to go into debt.

If the basic necessities of life become free then capital itself becomes devalued, so don't expect it to be an easy fight.

It's called the studio apartment :D

NIMBY has many reasons behind it, and one of them is trying to increase housing values. Other things are guarding precious "free" parking spaces, being old and not liking change, or being afraid of changes effecting the quality of your children's school and other things.

the parking spot issue is real (I don't drive, but I can see people struggling with that every day). Adding too many units in an area plagued by grid lock can also be problematic and you have to add public transportation first.

My personal reason for being NIMBY is pretty simple though: I just want to sleep at night. and since municipal rules are hardly ever enforced in high density areas, I'll have to deal with kids screaming, idiot drunks trashing the place at 3 am, graffiti and people having parties at all hours of the night and day with the cops telling me to just deal with it because I live in a high density area. So when they try to build more on top, I'm like "Err, no".

I literally dont care if my property value dropped to zero, as long as I can sleep without needing earplugs. I already have to run the A/C or heat twice as much as I should because I can't open the windows without "enjoying" whatever activity my neighbors are doing that involve screaming on top of their lungs.

Besides, I live in one of the top 10 most densely populated neighborhoods in the country, and then people want to add more. ::shrugs::

In my home country this was not an issue because people could respect each other, and rules were enforced. In that case, build as much as you want in my backyard.

>In my home country this was not an issue because people could respect each other, and rules were enforced.

It sounds like you came from a nice, civilized country. Why then did you move to whatever 3rd-world hellhole you currently live in? It sounds like you'd be happier going back home.

I did not know this when I originally moved, and now I managed to find a decent spot in the hellhole. When its harder to keep it nice than to move back, I will.

Uh, there are plenty of ways to get 400sqft or less living spaces in SF, just not as a freestanding structure (and tiny houses are kind of a waste when we could be building more tall stacks of several adjacent tiny apartments).

I lived in new, modern, fairly-well-layed-out 330sqft and 450sqft apartments for four years, and you know what? It was fine, but you definitely get tired of it. I will gladly pay more to get more space. Things that can quickly make this even more urgent: pets, relationships, children, certain hobbies, a social circle that enjoys private get-togethers, working from home, etc.

I also find stuff makes me happier than experiences, so I realize I'm not representative of current fashionable lifestyles, but pretending everyone's the same or telling people "you shouldn't want that" isn't a practical policy solution.

(Or let's talk about medicine. Can we grow new livers, kidneys, etc, yet? How about when can we do it cheaply enough to easily be able to afford one for everyone who needs one?)

I also find stuff makes me happier than experiences, so I realize I'm not representative of current fashionable lifestyles,

Current fashionable lifestyles? The idea of earthly possessions not being the source of true happiness (and really being the reason for suffering) is as old as at least Buddhism. If you want just an American source, we're still talking Thoreau, here.

It might be old but it's more trendy than it used to be. In the 80's it was considered normal to want to get a big house with a big backyard, big car, etc.

The idea may be old, that does not make it true.

It is backed up by scientific research. With the exception that stuff which enables you to do something has a lot of value, however your 5th car is almost meaningless in terms of happyness. What's easy to forget is advertising is designed to push past that minimal stuff threshold.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/04/10/5-reliable-...

Well, recently I am taking any psych research with a saltmine. Also, "once you reach certain amount" is quite a disclaimer. Sure you often hear, that experiences not stuff makes you happier, however when the money is no longer a limitation you can afford much reacher experiences. E.g.: how remarkable it would be to visit space? How many can afford that?

Money means you can do a wider range of things, but those things are different not nessisarily better. I don't think going to space would be all that much more interesting than going snorkeling coral reefs the first time.

Also, if you look at the lives of people that inherent lot's of money they tend to do the higher versions of the same kind of things. It's like throw a party with great music, vs throw a party with a live band when what makes a party fun is not the music it's the people there.

This is true but it has to do with habituation more than the 'stuff' itself.[1]

People quickly become accustomed to any new positive thing introduced into their lives, make that the baseline and then start wanting something better.

The minimal stuff threshold is about survival and homeostasis, once that is achieved, anything beyond that does not produce lasting gains in happiness.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habituation

It's more than just food and shelter.

Having a computer with internet connection can increase happiness. For example elderly that feel more connected with their families. The important thing is the minimum threshold is a computer, so a 200$ laptop can fill this need just as well as a 10,000$ laptop.

Further, in that case it's connecting to people that's bringing happiness not the physical device.

>I lived in new, modern, fairly-well-layed-out 330sqft and 450sqft apartments for four years, and you know what? It was fine, but you definitely get tired of it.

To put it in perspective, hundreds of millions of families of 4 and more live in non-well-layed out 330sqft and 450sqft apartments in the developing world, to which a couple or a family of 3 living in a fairly-well-layed-out apartment with our modern trimmings would seem like a dream.

Seconded :-) as I am just starting PD dialysis

It fine for you to have preferences about living space, but can you at least recognize that other people have different preferences and that their preferences shouldn't be outlawed any more than yours should?

Sure, just arguing against claims that it would be "easy" to solve housing, income equality, etc, if only we could kill the evil marketers etc and do with just what we "need." (Taking it to hyperbolic extremes there, but essentially while one can certainly be happy in small spaces, there are lots of things even beyond the simple accumulation of stuff that can take advantage of a lot more space.)

I'm sure the utopia of 400 sq ft filing cabinets will have us all looking back on these foolish times and wondering how we could be so blind.

I like what Gandhi said about resources:

'The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.'

True and not true. It is true that economists have not factored in the economics of information into their analysis of GDP yet but it isn't true to say we live in a post scarcity world or that we are even yet approaching such a world.

What is true is that we've probably reached the point where competition for programming jobs will put negative pressure on salaries. Basically Google and AWS make 90% gross margin on the electrons they convert from electrical power to search advertising or web services. They can live on probably a third of that. Today we see the excess margin being spent on speculative things (Google X as an example) but as the margins get squeezed that will go away, then excess salary will go away. We talk about ageism but really there is a ceiling on salaries for most people and if they aren't in the "special 1%" they are replaced by cheaper people as soon as their salary hits that peak. That used to be around 50 now it seems it is around 40 and has been coming down nearly linearly for the last 5 years. Basically any job that can be done by someone fresh out of college with a modicum of search skills on Stack Overflow or other forum sites is going to have zero real wage growth.

I had a really interesting exchange with senior folks at IBM talking about office space and office plans. Looking at it at the surface, saving money on office space helps increase the money you can pay the employees and keeps margins up. But when you look at it in the context of dollars of margin per employee, it makes no sense at all.

Consider a classic "widgets" company. Perhaps 5 people designing widgets, 10 engineering the parts and designing flows for assembling them, maybe 20 on a factory floor putting them together, testing them, and putting them out for shipping. All to sell thousands of $45 widgets making $15 gross margin. How much do you spend on office space for those 35 people affects if it is $15 gross margin or $10 gross margin. But when you have 3 people designing, 2 developing, and 2 testing and releasing a software product that sells millions of units at $4 with $2 gross margin, you have cut revenue per sale 10x but increased sales 1000x. And because the employees are still living in the lie about "we have to keep costs down" you get these companies pocketing billions of dollars in free cash flow that they just sit on.

The economics of information are completely different than the economics of goods and using "classic" economic analysis you get really out of whack numbers and expectations. Think about this, Google could literally lay off half the engineers in the company with zero impact on their revenue numbers.

It will be interesting to see how this settles out, I don't expect programmers to suddenly get a proportional share of the revenue from information goods, but I also think work is going to be vastly different. I can easily see the goods economy moving to large conglomerate fabricators like FoxCon which end up manufacturing anything and everything to the wishes of a handful of designers and engineers. Their forte' is electronics, LG has appliances pretty much sewn up (no pun intended), can you imagine if Ford or Toyota could create the 'foxcon of auto manufacturing' ?

Existing economic models have a bunch of ways GDP recirculates in an economy, those ways are mostly toast in an information economy leaving behind giant pools of cash. Finding a way to put that cash back into the economy will be the challenge for the information revolution.

"Basically Google and AWS make 90% gross margin on the electrons they convert from electrical power to search advertising or web services."

Nobody on earth would suggest that google's margins are derived from their revenues minus the cost of 'electricity'.

They are a services company, pure and simple. Their 'gross margins' are their revenues, minus royalties to web-sites - that's it.

Their costs are R&D and Sales & Marketing - and a little bit of ops - that's it.

Agreed they could do it with 1/3 the staff, but it's not an issue of 'gross margins'.

Nobody on earth would suggest that google's margins are derived from their revenues minus the cost of 'electricity'.

To be slightly pedantic, I did assert that and I do live on Earth :-). But to be fair, the claim is a way of illustrating the challenge.

In the goods economy the analysis of a widget factory and the widget business might reasonably start with the cost to the factory of the parts that were consumed in assembling a widget. This is something of a game where folks tear down the electronics of our age and tell you what the cost is of each of the parts in the gizmo. So we'll start with "An iPhone is only $245 in parts."[1] and it cost $650[2]. And then start walking through the costs that are also incurred by the widget maker until you run out of costs and are left with profit (or loss).

And one way in which we know that its not too far off to consider that as the first cost are Google's public statements about power efficiency[3]. Power is their "raw material of most impact."

And that is another way of saying that without R&D or Sales or Marketing people could buy and use their product but without power or "a little bit of ops" they have no business. And since HWOPS/SRE are the goods economy equivalent of factory workers and manufacturing engineers, an information business' core production capability is just those groups and the electricity they use.

Of course if you really want to get metaphysical consider who pays for the electrons and photons that compose the product as it moves from data center to my computer screen. Its like a giant marble game where the electrons cascade through the chips, one of which turns them into photons, and theh they fly through a fiber and kick of another cascade of electrons which result in more photons, and they bounce through the system until the photons they create emerge from my screen in the form of a search result.

[1] http://www.techinsights.com/teardown.com/apple-iphone-6s/

[2] http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone6s

[3] The system cut power usage in the data centers by several percentage points, "which is a huge saving in terms of cost but, also, great for the environment," he said. -- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-19/google-cu...

There is no point in putting 'electricity usage' into the discussion.

The problem is that stuff isn't what makes people happy. Sure if you give a poor person money they'll be happier, but that effect doesn't work for the middle class and above where people generally want a little more than they had before, and a little more than their neighbor. Of course a lot of people realize that material wealth won't make them happy, but that's an individual philosophical point that doesn't carry a lot of weight when you feel comparatively disadvantaged.

The real problem you have to solve then, is not the quantity of stuff, but the allocation of stuff. This is very difficult one to solve, especially in America, because of the deep puritanical culture. It's going to get a lot worse too as robotics, software and automation lead to ever greater consolidation of wealth. This is where capitalism starts to break down as economies of scale push us towards something resembling a feudal society, but the problem is we don't have any other system that people are ready to accept as "fair".

The problem is wealth affects happiness more than it used to because of things like health care. Give yourself a nice middle class healthcare plan. Give me wealth. If we both get cancer I have a lot more options and more ways to guarantee the highest level of care. Wealth makes happiness if it enables you to stay alive.

Likewise with opportunities for raising children - there are lots of ways to help children thrive with wealth, but it's not what i would consider the classical "material need".

I disagree with you, because there are countries on earth where wealth doesn't play as big of a role in happiness as it does in the American culture. Take Sweden for example, where I'm from, where literally every citizen has access to top-tier healthcare & education that's free (funded through taxes), 16 months paid parental leave, among many other nice things. This while still being very liberal (although social democratic) and one of the world's most developed countries in terms of technology, energy, transportation and taking care of the environment.

Over here happiness can be found without being wealthy, and generally you don't have to worry about your financial status as much because you'll always have access to top-tier healthcare, education and benefits if things goes south at some point, no matter what.

If you get what appears to be a routine cancer in Sweden, does an entire team of leading oncologists meet together in a room to fully review your diagnosis and discuss what additional cutting edge techniques you might benefit from?

Do they apply machine learning to help you that is so good 30% of the time it suggests actionable ideas that the oncologist didn't notice or even know about?

In Sweden if you have hepatitis C, do they give you the gold standard treatment that costs $70,000 US for 90 days of pills, or do they give you the older cheaper option?

Today, you get all of that and more if you have enough money.

I did live in Canada for a while, and noticed it was very common for the wealthy to bypass lines and access higher quality care by paying for private treatment out of pocket.

The reality is not many governments have the resources to afford the best possible care for all people in all situations. And innovation makes it worse. There is always something newer, better, more expensive.

You have to understand that this is a cultural difference between Sweden and the US, and Canada is more like Sweden but far from the same. In Sweden, the culture of things like the best possible healthcare and education is not a "premium" thing like it is in the US, over here it is seen as a basic human right to have access to the best possible healthcare and education no matter what your financial status is.

Thanks to this culture, ideas like making a profit off of peoples health issues is frowned upon and therefore medicine for example is not even close to as expensive as it is in the US. It's the same with the 16 months parental leave, it's considered a basic human right to be able to spend more time with your newborn if you want to, without impacting your finanical status as much.

Of course there is always something better available if you've got the dollar for it, but the Swedish healthcare is generally very good. I've had an uncle done heart surgery, a friend with brain tumour and both are healthy as horses now and they didn't have to spend any money.

I should also mention that the Swedish people is generally very healthy thanks to our laws and EU directives surrounding food and medicine standards. Overall the quality of food is better here than in the US, due to new chemicals has to be proven that they are not harmful to your health, while in the US new chemicals has to be proven that they are harmful to your health before it can get banned (so all new chemicals are banned by default, and allowed when proven otherwise). Additionally, antibiotics and other harmful medical treatment for livestock is banned in Sweden, so the resistance towards antibiotics is generally lower here as well. The reason I mention this is because it goes hand-in-hand with our government-funded healthcare. We invest a lot in making the people healtier overall.

This is a cultural difference, and the reason I stress that so much is because I don't want you to mistake this for a socialistic country, like so many do, because Sweden is very liberal overall.

It sounds like a great place to live and I appreciate the difference of culture you describe.

However, you didn't answer my three real life questions, which I take to mean most people wouldn't get those benefits.

The people there who decide what is allowable treatment are optimizing for a certain cost/benefit ratio. While wealthy people only optimize for quality of life and longevity.

The reason I didn't answer those question is because I am not a doctor and personally don't have any experience with any of those particular cases. I'd love to answer each of your questions point blank, but I just don't have an answer to them.

But the point of my response is that there are cultures in the world where healthcare and education isn't a problem for your happiness, because your citizenship has those benefits covered. I do however fully agree with you that it is as you say in the American culture, and many others.

That's not true in all countries. In France no matter what your wealth is, when you get a long-lasting disease like cancer you get 100% coverage from the public healthcare for that and can be cured in high quality hospital.

Now if you're extremely rich you might be able to get a famous surgeon that middle class doesn't have access to, or get a new treatment only available in foreign countries, but at the end of the day I don't think it's going to have a huge impact on your chances of survival because what you get from healthcare is already really good.

I think it is true in almost all countries. Please see my reply above to Svenskunganka's comment.

I'd be willing to bet most wealthy people in France have occasion to pay out of pocket beyond the healthcare they could get for free from the government.

I'm not quite sure what your point is.

Yes, there is always something better that only the wealthy may afford-but that doesn't mean the baseline level of care for most people can't be improved. People don't expect the world's best surgeon to work on them.

And either way-the care for most Americans isn't necessarily better than Canadian or Swedish care, many rankings are significantly worse while costing the most.

I know one thing-if I had health care covered, I'd be more willing to start a business or take a break from work. That would make me happier.

The point is that being very wealthy can in fact improve happiness. This is contrary to conventional wisdom that once basic needs are covered, any additional money only serves to keep people running on the hedonistic treadmill.

To support this argument I cite real world scenarios where the difference between your loved ones living and dying could possibly come down to how much money you have.

Distributing things equally is not possible. For example, if you need heart surgery, who gets the best surgeon? For another, who gets the dwelling with the nicer view? Even parents who try to treat their kids equally soon realize it is an impossible task.

Note that the comment you replied to didn't mention distributing things equally. Just noted that allocation is the problem that needs to be solved.

Not speaking to you in particular, but many people seem to equate any talk of redistribution to the extreme case of absolute equal distribution. But I've never seen anyone rationally arguing for that case. In reality, what most people seem to want involve some concept of 'fairness' in deciding who gets what, or minimums to what people should get just for being a part of society, or perhaps sane limits to the deviations between bottom, middle, and top.

So, yes, the questions you ask are exactly the questions we need to solve. How do we decide who gets the best surgeon, and who gets the trainee? How do we decide who gets a mansion with a view and who gets a closet with thin walls, if that? Most people seem to think that the way we are doing it now isn't ideal, so what is ideal, and how would we get there?

Your questions are unresolvable, because the person who gets the worst heart surgeon is inevitably going to agitate that the system is inequitable and unfair.

It isn't solvable in a binary way, certainly, but we can potentially find an optimal solution that at least reaches a level of fairness that the vast majority of people are comfortable with. Yes, you're always going to end up with some people unhappy with their lot, but there's a huge gray area between not pleasing everyone and not pleasing anyone (aside from a very few very lucky people).

If the most benefit for the most people is your criteria, historically a free market coupled with enforcement of basic rights has done the best.

> the sooner we can end poverty, achieve high levels of growth, and overcome our fear of globalization and technology.

How? Curious to know more, thanks.

"The age of inflation is over because producers in nearly every industry (there are a few notable exceptions) can absorb almost infinite demand for their products."

why do we need so much crap? lets roll back the consumerism.

Just say that you will keep your cell phone over a year or two and you'll get 10 replies here on why they upgrade their perfectly fine phone every year. Waste is an addiction, and it's a common one when it comes to electronics.

I'm the other way around, I'm using a 5yo desktop (i5-2500k) and a four year old phone.

Both do exactly what I need them to do and upgrading would be a marginal improvement.

I loathe buying technology my gf says I'm the worst techie ever :)

2 year old phone, Macbook Pro 15' from 2009 (the only model not to have video card issues since, what? 2007?) I'll replace it eventually....

i was also referring to clothing that looses material quality rapidly....etc etc.

It has almost nothing to do with raw materials.

Resource consumption is growing, but as economies have long ago shifted to services and advanced products, it's less a part of the equation.

Your mac, your iPhone, your 'Internet' your 'wireless mobile' , your Netflix, your 500 channels - these are all new services which everyone pays for and consume very little 'resources' in the classical sense.

Even as we switched from drip coffee to Lattes, from crappy restaurants to better ones - this does not affect 'resources' so much.

This is brilliantly put.

So whats the solution?

UBI probably, but funding it with newly printed money.

Another way to think of what I'm saying is this: there are billions of people out there in the world who want more stuff. There are lot of companies and workers who want sell those people more stuff. And there are enough resources out there to make all that stuff for them (energy for a long time was the big limiter). Obviously, there is an economic disconnect that is limiting people from getting the goods that they want and need. What's really happening is that poor people just don't have anything to trade with. The solution is to give them something to trade with.

We don't have to do a UBI. I think we would be fine if central banks did something like give the bottom 20% of income earners a one time payment of ~$20k.

This is called helicopter money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_money

It sucks because it is irreversible. This is unnecessary. Just have the government finance UBI. After all, people like Larry Summers, with his "secular stagnation" theory, are calling for a shift from monetary policy to fiscal policy. And I think UBI, as you say, would be a very effective fiscal policy tool.

I am not attacking your idea but am curious to know how is this not inflation for everyone else?

UBI goes to everyone and affects everyone. Who's the "everyone else"?

In other words, people who already have money would see that money devalued, perhaps very significantly and in excess of the new money they receive. I'm not terribly averse to the concept, but it would seem to be a redistribution of value that would significantly impact the wealthy. Which makes it tough to actually pull off, because they have a lot of resources to fight such a thing.

"And there are enough resources out there to make all that stuff for them "

Yes, there is.

Advanced economies are mostly service based.

Countries are poor because of lack of social organization.

Many poor countries have tons of resources (Africa).

Many rich countries (UK, Japan, Germany, Singapore) etc. - have none.

The UK had huge coal reserves and decent sized oil reserves - the former powered the Industrial Revolution and the latter kept the lights on during the 1980s.

Coal definitely was important for the industrialized revolution, but UK oil is not a hugely important ingredient today. They would be rich without it.

George was right. Productivity is accelerating towards infinity, and that value is being captured in land values and being allocated to rentiers rather than the population as a whole. Tax land value and distribute the proceeds.

I never entirely understood Georgism's focus on land value rather than capital in general.

Surely owning a factory is capturing the benefits of productivity just as much as owning the land it stands on?

Building a factory is a social contribution. More generally factories are (usually) subject to the normal laws of supply and demand: if they get too expensive, people can build more, if there are too many people can convert them into housing etc.

(if we have a fixed supply of factories e.g. because of zoning laws then it could become a case of economic rents. But the simple solution there is "don't do that then")

Can you elaborate how inflation is connected with scarcity of resources?

Prices are driven up when there is too much demand competing for a limited amount of goods. When a company can scale infinitely, they don't have to raise their prices. Lower prices keep demand up, so producers tend to want to keep their prices low.

Inflation has nothing to do with scarcity. It is the result of the supply of money increasing relative to the value in the economy. It's supply & demand, which applies to money just like everything else.

Scarcity does raise prices, but that is not inflation, because if X's price rises, you spend more on X, but you have less to spend on Y, which lowers that price.

Scarcity changes the price of something.

Inflation can really be thought of as expansion of the money supply while all other things remain steady - stuff just arbitrarily gets more expensive.

Central Banks target 2% inflation so that we don't fall into a deflationary trap. It's like keeping the treadmill running just a little bit, to force the person to run forward.

Austrian school economists basically equate inflation with money printing - to them it's the same thing.

But most things increase in price due to a) better quality product and b) regular dynamics of business c) currency.

So when the beer gets more expensive it's:

a) Better beer (at least in the eyes of the consumer), i.e. longer brew times, better taste, better ingredients b) More expensive input costs c) Currency issues with imports etc.

Those are not inflation, just price fluxuation.

Inflation is when the exact same thing gets costlier, all other things being equal.

I think you misunderstand inflation.

Inflation is based on a the supply and demand for a currency - not goods that the currency can buy.

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