Hacker News Reader

> Poor impulse control periods

> the seasonality of human behavior

Is it really a thing? Does impulse control come in waves?

> > Does impulse control come in waves?

We know inflation, debt and violence do. What human behavior can possibly be the base cause for such effects?

Yeah that sounds ridiculous to me. Yes I can understand that high interest rates come from periods of iresponsible borrowing by capitalists who have become complacent due to low interest rates continuing for a long time. However, to act like this complacency, which is caused by a deep understanding of the economy and business-minded spirit, would also affect the lower classes in some way even though they are largely unaware of the details of the economy or lack the ability to exploit it, is a strange stretch. Even more of a stretch is saying that the lower class equivalent of risky borrowing because of a feeling of security is... doing crime because you feel so secure in your employment?? Why would anyone in their right mind be compelled to do crime because your life is just going too well and you have too many opportunities to better yourself legally? The claims of the article make much more sense.

> > your life is just going too well and you have too many opportunities to better yourself legally?

Internalized concerns about time opportunity cost and sense of urgency and the aforementioned poor impulse control and irrational exuberance, a mix of all of them too.

Test it on yourself, when you are in a good mood or in a 'let's go after it' mood you are more likely to be speeding, the higher the mood, the lower the impulse control, it can drive you up to 120-130 mph maybe while your favorite song is playing and there is a stretch of open road ahead. Even 140 if your car is powerful, and you don't notice it. You are breaking a bunch of laws in that moment without realizing.

It comes from within, it has nothing to do with finances, job market, savings or any reasoned thought. Thank God! Being irrational and getting away with it, and then looking back in a moment of rationality is an emotion that makes us human.

I think you would need to prove to me that most of these crimes are poor impulse control in everyday activities rather than large life decisions that most people don't do when they have other oppurtunities - like joining gangs.

> > large life decisions like joining gangs

Have you ever lived in bad neighborhoods? There is no interview process to join a gang, a person starts with something mundane like moving drugs for some very low ranking affiliate from some area of the city to another. Literally just driving, nothing life changing.

You could rebut, why not become an Uber driver, to which I reply: same amount of money that Uber driver makes in a whole day in about 1-2 hours tops.

When you hear news reports saying "X or Y joined Z gang in 2016 and climbed within the criminal organization" , you can be sure that the first mundane task he made for some low ranking affiliate back in 2010 perhaps even earlier.

And do you not think that the problem with the gang giving you way more money is caused by minimum wages being well below the living wage (so legal work keeps you in poverty), social mobility being low (so working hard never gets you an improvement in your lot), unemployment being high, and people's only choices being jobs where they have zero hours contracts and reduced workers rights like Uber (making again, it seem less worth it and still sorta risky as a choice). Deciding to run drugs for a gang is again, not something you do on impulse like pushing harder on the accelerator pedal. You do it based on cost-benefit analysis. This cost benefit analysis comes from you being exploited my capitlists making record profits. They are having a great time and are borrowing recklessly. The people at the bottom of society do not see any sort of benefits proportional to the labour they would have to put in to participate. They are clearly not just happy campers suffering from poor impulse control from having it too good.

No

Despite what your indoctrination books say, consumers don't set prices - businesses do. You don't "bid" on the price of food, stationary, tyres... In fact, in developed economies consumers can "bid up" very few items - basically only real estate. The price of everything else is supply-driven.

High inflation, in the modern world, happens at times of shocks on the supply chain - energy, raw materials, catastrophic events and so on.

I don't know why you'd peddle some pseudo-psychology with a side-serving of bad moralism, but it's not the truth.

> > I don't know why you'd peddle some pseudo-psychology with a side-serving of bad moralism, but it's not the truth.

Businesses don't exist in vacuum, they are always maniacally monitoring how fast or slowly consumers buy up all their inventory of that particular item or grocery.

You should stop acting like everybody isn't watching everybody else in the pursuit of maxiumum result with minimum effort. Even you are doing so right now by looking up at what 'the other side' (businesses) are doing and trying to politically ostracise 'the other side'.

I said consumers in my OP just because they are a largest group of people, because it also includes business owners, they too are consumers! I further believe the largest group of people always has the lion share of input in a phenomenon.

But of course when a business owner arrives on their premises in the morning and stops wearing the hat of the consumer, they will too be subject to impulsivity by making a impulse purchase of some item from their supplier (based on data, or even more probably gut instinct that it would sell), and the supplier does the same with the farmer, or the raw material procurer etc. etc.

Everybody is watching everybody else, they see that impulsivity pays rewards so they start acting impulsively too, this affects and spreads among the population very evenly regardless of social class, the higher classes impulsivity and impulsive purchases just makes the news while the lower classes doesn't.

> they are always maniacally monitoring how fast or slowly consumers buy up

Of course, but consumer behaviour on most items is relatively fixed, and largely reactive to shocks. That is very visible in the current situation: we had little or no inflation for 20 years and then BANG the cost of natural gas and wheat skyrockets because of herr Putin, and suddenly we're in an inflation-heavy world. That's not consumer-driven, that's supply-driven.

> trying to politically ostracise 'the other side'.

I'm not ostracising anyone. The fact is that prices are set by business owners to maximize their profits - that's just how it is. Consumers can only react to that. Your quixotic comments try to blame consumers for "impulsively" paying higher prices for food or basic supplies, and that's just preposterous.

> consumers in my OP just because they are a largest group of people, because it also includes business owners

No, it does not. Gas-industry CEOs don't bid on gas supplies for their own garage or "impulsively" because they like it; they speculate on a scarce resource, rationally taking opportunities to maximize their gain - and that is what drives inflation, the selling side engaged in rational maximization of profits. Same for petrol, wheat, etc. Everything else, including final consumers, can only react in cascade effects, and trying to blame them is just cruel.

You are kind of on the right track but still messing up.

Interest rates are up in times of present scarcity and future abundance.

So given a supply shock that increases scarcity, there might not be enough resources for everyone.

Then you will see both crime and interest rates coincide.

Meanwhile if there are enough resources for everyone, it is obvious that simply working will get you the resources you need.

Enough resources for real time order and consumption, maybe.

But the thought process that compels people (both consumers and businesses) to desire more than real time order and consumption , or even just upgrade to products that are more intensive as far as raw materials are concerned, is psychological and contagious.

It's not like everybody suddenly arrived independently at the same conclusion

High Inflation is present in periods of corporate price gouging when given the opportunity...