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Comment by burlesona | Hacker News Reader

From the article:

> Beside a lack of competition, the investment slump stems from what Summers calls the de-massification of the economy. Developers aren’t building as many malls and stores, because goods now go straight from warehouses to homes. Offices don’t need as much storage space. Cellphones have replaced not just desktop computers but also cameras, stereos, books and more. Many young people have decided they’re happy living in small apartments, without cars.

My reaction to that is LOL. Those changes represent forward progress, we can have more and better stuff easier than before, and/or our preferences have changed. If that somehow is “the cause” of our “economic suffering,” then maybe it’s time to change the way we measure.

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Measurement is, of course, a key issue, but it's less clear than you think that these changes represent forward progress.

Device convergence is pretty handy, and the shift towards spacial minimalism suits me nicely.

Is having less time in shared physical space, fewer "third places" really good? Do virtual replacements -- and their tendency toward sorted-ness -- really replace them effectively?

But most of all, a narrower demand profile leads to people who are left out of the labor market (and an even larger number of people who may be included but are poorly rewarded).

Make sure any alternatie measure you suggest keeps an eye on these issues.

I think you (and me and our extended social bubble) have less time in a shared physical space. People living in the village where I have a cottage all spend more time together outside thanks to technological progress. Back when I was young (and there was no mobile phone signal - just 10 years ago!), people from other villages didn't even interact with them [people from my village], today it is normal to just hit each other up on Messenger and go hang out.

>the shift towards spacial minimalism suits me nicely.

It hasn't for me. Rent has gone in the opposite direction as I've downsized.

We haven't optimized low-cost, small, quality homes despite all of technological progress and I'm pretty sure it's intentional.

The author, in my reading, isn’t claiming these are bad changes. They are just saying that the changes require adjustments of how we manage the economy.

Some of those are good for moving towards an ecologically sustainable economy... but consumer "preferences" changing due to stagnating wages in the face of rising costs of living is not a good thing. Labor liquidity is vital for a fast adaptive economy.

The metrics show economic suffering because that's the reality, this complex dynamic system is still adapting to the internet revolution and many are being left behind thanks to the anti-competitive effects of QE.

Consolidation, optimization, and related vertical integration in manufacturing leaves people out of the value chain. Many roles will eventually evaporate without competition and/or new advancements. In general, growth follows an S-curve with market saturation and consolidation eventually inhibiting growth. I beleive it will get harder and harder to afford "more and better stuff" over the long term with the way our economic system is set up. I encourage people to take a look at the concept of binary economics which was fathered by Louise Kelso; his ideas gave rise to employee stock ownership programs. My ultimate point is: Labor will eventually evaporate and we, as individuals, should look towards ownership and invest our wealth in companies who will ultimately own production and services.

Those changes only represent progress if they represent preference choice. However I very much doubt that most people are preferring to have living standards lower than their parents.

In order to evaluate preferences you need to observer Choice.

It might be good for you and me say, because we can order stuff easily and cheaply ship it to us, but the economy is hurt because a whole lot of local jobs were eliminated without many replacement jobs - there's an hourly amazon delivery worker plus a truck driver to the center maybe. Before there were retail workers, managers, mall security and janitors, trucks taking stuff to the mall.

We don't have as good a jobs for a lot of those people.

Fewer jobs is also progress. That's what the development of civilization and technology is all about.

Anyway, there is still plenty of work for people to do. (There's no upper limit on the number of mathematicians society can use, for example.) It just isn't work that society is yet willing to pay a living wage for, and perhaps that's a problem.

I agree with you, but mathematicians aren't a good example when replying to a concern about job replacement for truck drivers. Training middle aged truck drivers to be mathematicians would be extremely difficult, expensive, and their math career would last 10-20years at best.

Even if we do this right, we will face a lag where we have to deal with millions of middle-aged workers losing their jobs and not being able to participate in the very-high-level knowledge economy (eg. Mathematicans, Physicists, Philosphers)

>Training middle aged truck drivers to be mathematicians would be extremely difficult, expensive, and their math career would last 10-20years at best.

I don't think these kinds of inefficiencies are as big of a problem when we're already talking about how their current jobs are so efficient we don't need human input anymore. In effect, they are so efficient at being truck drivers that they don't even need to be present, so we should pay them to do that job as well as they are, with the expectation that they put the extra time/effort into things we otherwise wouldn't pay for.

Mathematics is just one example. Pretty much any volunteer work would do, or any creative/intellectual pursuit.

Sorry but that's just naive from an american perspective. In the US if you get seriously hurt without health insurance you might just die. Politically it's not conceivable that we'll have UBI or pay people for not working. It's at the least a little controversial to pay UBI in most western countries. I see UBI as different than basic adequate social services so people don't live on the street or can get health insurance without it being tied to their job - the us is ridiculous in that way of course.

I think the weird part is that as large successful companies are turning to vertical integration, at least many western societies are going the other way.

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