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Comment by JamisonM | Hacker News Reader

"For example, when inflation has been low in the recent past, workers might not demand raises as they would in a world where inflation was high; after all, their existing paychecks go pretty much as far as they used to. You don’t need some theory involving inflation expectations to get there."

Isn't what is described here /actually/ a theory about inflation expectations?

Literally this mechanism that recent inflation creates the expectation of more inflation and that drives behaviour that generates further inflation.. and no one is sure how to turn that back around without a crushing recession. Isn't that the conventional wisdom this article is allegedly skewering?

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Cracking down hard on rent seeking parasites would go a long way to reduce costs in healthcare, housing, and the automotive industry.

And... Welcome to a bunch of layoffs from rent seeking parasite industries while all the fat cats try to park their capital somewhere else ahead of the regulatory crackdown curve.

The problem is centralization of wealth, absurd expectations on the returns of capital, and the coupled wage theft that enables those returns, popularized by an entire generation of Welch worshippers, and skewed expectations created by export of production, and increasing reliance on safe-harbor third world labor prices.

It's all way more interconnected than it looks.

As wealth inequality rises there are more people who have no idea what to do with their wealth and more people who have ideas but no wealth.

According to Dirk Löhr the biggest driver of wealth inequality is just good old real estate and it's mostly the land that appreciated in value. Chasing land rents (I mean speculation on rising land values, not renting out apartments as a landlord) feels wholly unproductive.

In the USA, I would like to see laws limiting whom, and how much realestate a person can accumulate.

1. You need to be a citizen in order to buy realestate.

No more wealthy guys buying our land with an email. No more homes siting empty, or filled with illegial.

2. Wealthy guys can only buy two, or three at most.

3. Outlaw corporate speculation in realestate, like Blackstone.

I feel #1 is something that should have been outlawed years ago.

Yes but... in healthcare, a lot of those "rent-seeking parasites" are in fact millions of low-skill middle-class paper pushers called "insurance coders", "claim adjusters", "billing specialists", etc.

You make healthcare cheaper, but need to concurrently give the millions of people who depend on this overcomplicated system a different path...

Isn't that exactly where the magic of capitalistic creative destruction is supposed to swoop in and save the day? Put them out of work and let the invisible hand sort them out.

I don't think that's as big a problem for white-collar workers as it is for blue-collar. Processing paperwork, managing a team, calculating risk, these are all things that readily translate to new fields, as opposed to something like mining or carpentry. I have zero concerns that someone losing their job in insurance would struggle to find work.

These are almost all blue-collar work. I don't know if you're familiar, but search for "medical coder" jobs online -- they are all $15-25/hr.

The right way to think of those jobs is roughly “specialization of the ‘secretary’ work force”.

A small minority of office jobs are “white collar” in the traditional sense

I think the point of that quote is people reacting only to the present and the past. I.e. not any beliefs (expectations) about the future.

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