Hacker News Reader

Comment by decebalus1 | Hacker News Reader

I'm waiting for the common folks to start hoarding money too and decrease consumption. Ford figured this problem out at the start of the 20th century but apparently everyone forgot about it (if my employees aren't well off enough to buy my product, I'm screwed).

I personally believe that what we're going through right now isn't going to scale and it will collapse. It's probably one of the very few times in agree with Ron Paul: https://www.inquisitr.com/4704540/ron-paul-we-are-on-the-ver...

View on HN

Ford’s assembly line required higher investment in worker training, so churn was more expensive for Ford than other autoworkers. Ford employees did not represent a major buying market for the company and did not own vehicles in higher proportion when compared to the rest of the population.

If we decide that we want to encourage companies whose final products workers can afford and discourage companes whose final products are unaffordable, we desperately need more manufacturers of pencils, plastic bags or napkins (single month’s salary buys one a lifetime supply) and need fewer companies like Boeing or SpaceX (even after a 100 year career the workers cannot afford the final product).

Although this wasn't your primary statement, wanted to take a bite out of your second clause about "encouraging cheaper product companies" as this is a point close to my heart as a regular advocate for consumer demand driven economics.

Boeing or Spacex's product demand is driven directly by transitive demand for an affordable product; air travel and to give one "space" example; gps, are both "consumer tier" products that facilitate a whole vertical of production. I'm hard pressed to think of a single super-expensive item that doesn't in some way link back to consumer demand; outside of additional injections via nations. To me this seems intuitive; as I'm hard pressed to think of another driver of production with comparable volume, and as such don't see any reason increasing that source of demand would bias "cheap" products any more than they are now.

I get the feeling that we're (the US) in a few bad ruts right now:

1. We have identity-based policies in place. People are attempting to blacklist others based on where they stand on politics/etc (non-money based discrimination). I've seeing this in the tech industry where the most passive-aggressive individuals succeed. (i.e. Tests we don't need them)

2. We're seeing lots of profit grabs and they're being ignored due to PR reasons. (I.e. Silicon Valley and workers rights.. oh wait, nevermind this startup isn't bad because they're "diverse")

3. Inflation, we're seeing a lot of inflation of prices, and decrease in value. (Go overseas to see how bad this is) Even Germany with a 20% vat on products is a cheaper COL.

When will people stop with that Henry Ford myth? You don't have to pay employees a high wage so they can afford to buy things that are produced.

You hear it when automation is mentioned: "Businesses are constantly automating production, so who is going to buy the output?". The answer is that other robot owners can buy it or the producer himself can consume it. The type of goods produced changes. Instead of cheap cars or pillows, you have more yachts, boats and other luxury items.

Ford famously raised the wages he offered, resulting in much better employees; however the only way he could make it so that his employees could afford to buy his cars was to make the cars affordable for the average family, since if he raised the wages to a level that meant they could afford his cars, he would only sell to his own employees and then he would have made no profit.

I won't comment on your assertion, except to say that Marx predicted the same, and yet it hasen't happened yet.

Haven't read Marx.. I guess the speculations are going full-circle. Hopefully only the speculations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com