chuckroast
Established
Yabut does anyone actually need a $1000 smart phone. I have never spent more than about $250 for a smart phone, use them for 3-4 years and rinse repeat.
I am an well experienced engineer, it's not like I don't like technology. But spending $1000 on a tiny screen makes no sense to me.
chuckroast
Established
The vast majority of corporate stock is owned by institutional investors investing for everyman's retirement fund from public sector union pensions to defered programs like IRAs and 401Ks in the US. As one of the beneficiaries of said programs, I want those corporations cranking out maximum profits quarter over quarter not bowing to the "you're making too much money and gouging me" crowd.
And Friedman was whatever he was, but he was not hack. If, I'm not mistaken, he won a Nobel in 1976. He also was a student of F.A. Hayek who exactly predicted what would happen if the West didn't embrace free market economics after WWII. Reading "The Road To Serfdom" now is eerie insofar as it provides and almost perfect roadmap of what big, profligate, government and a regulatory state has done to the West.
It's ain't markets that make people poor. It's the assumption that you can control them by force.
chuckroast
Established
Except that you claim is both unsupported and fundamentally wrong. The overall living conditions for people - especially poorer people - has been getting better and better, not worse. "Income Inequality" is an ideological talking point and not a real thing. There is no reason to believe that I should enjoy the same income, as say, Elon Musk. It's nothing more than thinly veiled class envy.
I'd encourage you become acquainted with the work of Julian Simon, who's data-based writing lays to waste these kinds of claims. He writes first from a factual point of view, not ideological and shows how the past 100 years have been the best in human history by pretty much every objective measure.
The fact that someone cannot buy eggs for $0.79 any more doesn't change that.
In fairness, while the technocracy of the past century has pretty much lifted the quality of life for people everywhere on the planet, it's also created a huge void in people's lives and spirits. In the West, especially, there is a satisfaction gap that is very real and it's not rooted in money or the lack thereof. It caused by people being increasingly disconnected from one another. Mattias DeSmet's "The Psychology Of Totalitarianism" is a recent book that covers this brilliant.ly Very highly recommended reading.
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Nobody asked you to buy one, Nobody needs your blessing to get one. My wife has her Masters in Biomedical Engineering and I am a Computer Engineer.
She uses her Smartphone a lot. The Smart Flip Phone provides more screen protection. As an Engineer, I know it takes a lot more work to squeeze the electronics down to a compact size that is efficient to run off batteries.
back on the original topic- I spent easily $2K on picking up Contax and Leica mount Sonnars in the last few months. Most needed work, most cleaned up nicely. Made a best two out of three today. "Sweat Equity" if I ever sold any of them. Problem is- selling any, I simply do not need to. Being an engineer for 45 years has advantages.
Coldkennels
Barnack-toting Brit.
This is factually incorrect.
I write from the perspective of a Briton who's watched "austerity politics" lay waste to this country.
Thanks to the gradual increase of poverty, we've seen a soaring rise in food banks (Revealed: record number of households in UK depending on food banks), a drop in life expectancy since 2010 (which is when the Conservative government came in and started pushing for "austerity"; Life expectancy falling in parts of England before pandemic - study - note also the huge difference between life expectancy for men in the richest area in London, Chelsea, at 95.3 years, and life expectancy in one of the poorest regions, 68.3 years), and a ridiculous rise in the incidence of diseases associated with poverty and malnutrition like rickets and scurvy (Huge rise in ‘Victorian diseases’ like rickets, scurvy and gout across UK), with newspapers widely referring to them as "Victorian diseases" due to the fact they'd not really been seen in England outside of Dickens novels since the turn of the century.
Unsurprisingly, this is connected to a massive increase in income inequality (North-south wealth inequality in England on course to grow, report finds); things have reached the point now where for younger generations, it is becoming nigh-impossible to earn your way up the social mobility ladder via actual work, and instead social mobility is tied to inheritance; things are getting so bad that even the deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has been quoted as saying “The fact that we can no longer be sure that the young will grow up with living standards that match [those of] their predecessors is a remarkable social change” (Rising asset wealth and falling real wages ‘drive inequality in Britain’).
This lack of financial stability and economic future has wider social concerns, too; birth rates in the UK are now the lowest they've been in two decades (Birthrate in England and Wales drops to lowest level in two decades) as young people not only have less "disposable income" to afford having children, but also often don't have the space due to rising housing costs relative to their income (More homes, more babies? Why Britain's falling birth rate needs a housing fix).
There's also the issue of how money moves around the economy; the idea of "trickle down economics" is often touted, but never comes good. Most studies have shown the opposite to be true; "according to research from the Brookings Institution and the Reserve Bank of Australia, the marginal propensity to consume of high-income earners is substantially less than for low-income earners. In other words, poorer people are likely to spend the bulk of any extra income while the wealthy are more likely to save it." (Economic growth more likely when wealth distributed to poor instead of rich)
So while no one's saying you should be earning the same as Elon Musk, the data all seems to point to the fact that as the Gini Coefficient increases, the more unhealthy the populace, the society, and the economy is.
chuckroast
Established
I apologize if it sounded like I was being critical of her choices.
I was just making the point that there is no requirement to buy a $1000 phone, and it's not a predictor of some huge economic disaster, it's simply a luxury some people really like.
Again, wasn't trying to be snide. The internet sucks at subtlety ...
raydm6
Yay! Cameras! 🙈🙉🙊┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘ [◉"]
I miss my old (pre-iPhone) Motorola razr phone. Loved that thing. So small and slim.
New ones seem a little larger.
www.motorola.com
New ones seem a little larger.
Latest Motorola Razr | motorola razr+ and motorola razr | motorola US
Looking for the biggest display and highest resolution camera smartphone? Meet motorola razr+ and motorola razr.
chuckroast
Established
Cause and correlation are two very different things. The sun doesn't set because the street lights go on. I am not deeply familiar with the UK's situation in detail, but as a general matter, you pay the piper sooner or later. The UK's failure to embrace the warnings of Hayek after WWII meant that when the inevitable corrections started to happen, they were harsh.
The birth rates have been falling all across Europe because as people achieve greater prosperity, they have fewer children. Lot's of kids trends to be the province of agrarian societies and poor people in the developed world.
What you say about class mobility is fundamentally true in the UK as best as I can tell, but has nothing to do with income inequality. It's rooted in the class system that has pervaded British culture for hundreds of years.
Like expectancy has been falling in places all over the West, here and there. But this has to do with widely available cheaper foods that are likely not good for you, not wealth inequality.
Hayek warned Europe. Europe ignored it. Europe tried to postpone the inevitable by creating the EU, which is slowly crumbling under forces of economic fantasy coupled to xenophobia.
I say all this as someone is both a member of the Commonwealth, who has lived in Europe, and who has worked there on- and off.
Mos6502
Well-known
I suppose you don't understand the concept of price fixing.
Egg producers must pay at least $18 million in damages for price gouging in 2000s that involved conspiring to limit U.S. supplies
According to federal antitrust law, the damages are automatically tripled, bringing the total to over $53 million.
Split off from the used camera discussion.
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wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
I have the current Razr on order. Should be in my hands by Tuesday, $499 list, it'll be $23/month on my phone bill. I too use a smart phone enough to make it worth the price.I miss my old (pre-iPhone) Motorola razr phone. Loved that thing. So small and slim.
New ones seem a little larger.
Latest Motorola Razr | motorola razr+ and motorola razr | motorola US
Looking for the biggest display and highest resolution camera smartphone? Meet motorola razr+ and motorola razr.
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
Read Keynes instead of Hayek and you'll learn real economics.
x-ray
Mentor
The fed aims for 2% per year. When Covid came along and the government started injecting huge amounts of cash into everyone’s pockets and into businesses we all found we had more money to spend. It made it easier to run up the price on auction items like in ebsy. Corporations realized we had more money and wanted a piece of it. Workers wanted a piece of the pie too which increased production costs which caused prices to rise.
One event like an increase in minimum wage or an increase in energy prices has a dramatic ripple effect through the economy.
Another thing that affected the cost of goods were Covid lockdown. Less goods were produced, integrated circuits used in automobiles, causing a shortage of cars so people had to take some of that excess pocket money, Covid funds, and to get a car pay $10,000 or more over sticker price to get it. This was exacerbated by rising fuel prices due to federal cuts in drilling leases and geopolitical factors.
If the supply of a good drops below demand prices go up. If demand decreases below supply prices go down. The price of houses did the same thing. Due to the near 0% interest rates home demand increased beyond the supply. People were bidding prices up on homes well above asking price and homes were selling as fast as they hit the market.
That seems to me that action taken by the federal gov caused inflation. Too much money in the system, too few goods and near 0% interest rates created this massive inflation and it’s going to take some time to cool it down.
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
Thank you.
Mos6502
Well-known
This is one that always gets me wondering. Has anybody ever been able to prove any correlation between increasing the minimum wage and, well, anything? We often hear theory about how increasing minimum wage will have this or that benefit or drawback, but historically, there is no apparent correlation between an increase in minimum wage and really anything. When minimum wage was increased in the 90s, unemployment rates fell year after year, despite the "common knowledge" that raising minimum wage will put every person on earth out of the job and ruin the economy. As well, there was no apparent spike in inflation and there was also no apparent difference in GDP growth. I think people hyperfixate on minimum wage (it makes a great talking point) but it's really such a minuscule part of the overall picture.
x-ray
Mentor
I was a business owner, commercial studio, for much of my 55 year career. I can tell you as a successful business owner that every penny of cost must be passed on to the customer. If my utilities went up or film prices increased or the assistants wanted more money I had to pass it on to the customer with a markup. In the markup I had to take into account all the costs, every penny, of running the business times 3. The reason, to pay for the expenses, pay the taxes on the money I earned and put a reasonable profit in my pocket to make it worthwhile putting my neck in the line every day.
Successful businesses can’t or don’t absorb cost increases long term. At some point they must increase costs or start cutting cost. It’s simple math, the money to run a business has to come from somewhere and for most of us we didn’t have the millions of dollars to start with to operate a business as a hobby. Even the IRS says if you’re not making a profit in your business in 5 years, it’s not a business, it’s a hobby.
In recent weeks I e read several articles regarding increased costs. With inflation pinching most of our wallets, business owners have started cutting jobs to makeup for increased costs. Research some of the massive layoffs that have happened and others about to start. It really doesn’t matter where the additional cost comes from, it increases overhead one way or another.
x-ray
Mentor
I just wanted to leave a couple of thought with you.
McDonalds is starting to use robots now to replace workers. The have a fully automated restaurant with no humans. More to come.
Walmart is one example. Not too many years ago cashiers and checkout lines were the norm. Who ever thought we’d be checking ourselves out and bagging our own items?
Another is self service gas stations. In my earlier driving days every service station had attendants that washed your windshield, checked the oil and radiator while they were pumping your gas. Try to find a service station now.
Why is almost everything you see in stores now made in China or overseas? Because they make things cheaper? Right, products and components are made by people making a fraction of what minimum wage is here in the US.
I’m no arguing that people shouldn’t make a decent wage. No, everyone deserves a reasonable wage based on what they do and skill level and demand for what they do.
We’ve deviated from my original post that every penny of additional cost must be passed on or something or someone must be sacrificed to bring cost in line or prices must go up. Shrinkflation, lay-offs, shipping production overseas, robotics are just a few ways companies are dealing with increasing costs, not just labor.
McDonalds is starting to use robots now to replace workers. The have a fully automated restaurant with no humans. More to come.
Walmart is one example. Not too many years ago cashiers and checkout lines were the norm. Who ever thought we’d be checking ourselves out and bagging our own items?
Another is self service gas stations. In my earlier driving days every service station had attendants that washed your windshield, checked the oil and radiator while they were pumping your gas. Try to find a service station now.
Why is almost everything you see in stores now made in China or overseas? Because they make things cheaper? Right, products and components are made by people making a fraction of what minimum wage is here in the US.
I’m no arguing that people shouldn’t make a decent wage. No, everyone deserves a reasonable wage based on what they do and skill level and demand for what they do.
We’ve deviated from my original post that every penny of additional cost must be passed on or something or someone must be sacrificed to bring cost in line or prices must go up. Shrinkflation, lay-offs, shipping production overseas, robotics are just a few ways companies are dealing with increasing costs, not just labor.
Mos6502
Well-known
Here's the thing: it's a non-issue. I'm a hiring manager at a grocery store and we have no minimum wage positions. Indeed actual minimum wage jobs are not common anywhere. Barely over 1% of jobs in the U.S. pay minimum wage. So somebody warning about the economic danger of increasing the minimum wage, in real, practical terms, is about as relevant as somebody warning about the economic danger of increasing the sales tax on buggy whips or whale oil lamps.
chuckroast
Established
The fact is that labor is bought and sold no differently than any other good. It's priced based on the supply/demand curve. The various Cause Warriors want to pretend that labor "deserves" a certain minimum compensation. But it doesn't. It "Deserves" what the market will bear, no more, no less.
chuckroast
Established
I'll learn how failed economics work. Hayek made predictions and they turned out to be essential spot on. Keynes flogged theory that has never worked anywhere. And we have proof of this. Until about 30 years ago, the US was far closer to the neo-Austrian ideal and Europe was engaged in Keynesian regulation and market distortions. Go see where, say, technical and medical innovation took off. Where the rate of per capita economic growth was greatest.
The real reason for the supposed income gap Keyensians keep bellowing about isn't that more people got poor. It's because more people moved up and many got rich. There has never been a more prosperous time in the West than right now, but especially in the US. There have never been more per capital millionaires in the US than right now. Tragically, people keep wanting to return to failed ideas of the the progressives, socialists, Keyensians and the rest of the academic snake oil salesmen.
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