GG Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 21 minutes ago, DC Tom said: Wrong question. What you really mean to ask is "Does the benefit to the consumer of lower prices due to the economy of scale in Amazon's, Walmart's, etc's business models outweigh the barriers to innovation and market entry that those economies of scale also create?" It's not the wrong question. It's the first question of multiple questions that need to be answered to properly gauge the impact of companies growing bigly. You just moved on to one of the follow up questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdnlng Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 24 minutes ago, Deranged Rhino said: I don't mean to slide what has been a really interesting conversation the past few pages, but I hadn't really thought of the impact of this tech beyond "that would be cool"... but I would imagine if it ever were to become a reality it would completely and permanently alter everything about our economic system... or, I guess, whichever company manufactures the replicator machines would become the new Amazon/last mega corp left standing. I'm fearful that it could be used for nefarious purposes. Think of Boyst for an example. Would he use it to increase his herd or would he just use it for threesome purposes? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boyst Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 8 minutes ago, 3rdnlng said: I'm fearful that it could be used for nefarious purposes. Think of Boyst for an example. Would he use it to increase his herd or would he just use it for threesome purposes? Why can't one be the result of the other. First I get the 3sums. Then I get the cattle. Or better yet... First I get the cattle. Then I get the 3sums. Cattle r power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdnlng Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 1 minute ago, Boyst62 said: Why can't one be the result of the other. First I get the 3sums. Then I get the cattle. Or better yet... First I get the cattle. Then I get the 3sums. Cattle r power. All hat and more cattle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boyst Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Just now, 3rdnlng said: All hat and more cattle? If I had a billion cattle. I'd be rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdnlng Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 9 minutes ago, Boyst62 said: If I had a billion cattle. I'd be rich. You'd eat well. Come to think of it replicating the chick might do the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedge Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 13 minutes ago, Boyst62 said: If I had a billion cattle. I'd be rich. Then you could buy all the fanciest Dijon ketchups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxx Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, plenzmd1 said: Hmm, not so sure of that, and a little simplistic. Barriers to entry at the scale of an Amazon or Walmart are massive,it is not realistic to think another organization could throw the necessary investment to compete huh. i wonder how Amazon and Walmart got their start. 1 hour ago, Deranged Rhino said: Hoping it'll be replicators. we are already on our way. 3D printing is making significant progress in fields other than plastic. They already can do food, albeit i'm not sure you would want to eat that stuff, yet. they are working on body parts... a lot of stuff in the pipeline. Edited January 24, 2019 by Foxx 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plenzmd1 Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 14 minutes ago, Foxx said: huh. i wonder how Amazon and Walmart got their start. 1 a different landscape and time. I don't think there is any question monopolies are not good for the overall health and breadth of an economy is there? And Amazon will not be beaten by someone coming in and "outcompeting" them with better logistics, easier UX to buy something etc..it will be a new model that renders their model outdated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxx Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 (edited) 23 minutes ago, plenzmd1 said: a different landscape and time. I don't think there is any question monopolies are not good for the overall health and breadth of an economy is there? And Amazon will not be beaten by someone coming in and "outcompeting" them with better logistics, easier UX to buy something etc..it will be a new model that renders their model outdated. is not this the definition of what Walmart and Amazon, did? Edited January 24, 2019 by Foxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GG Posted January 24, 2019 Author Share Posted January 24, 2019 31 minutes ago, Foxx said: is not this the definition of what Walmart and Amazon, did? Yup. People love to say that WalMart killed the mom and pop stores. They may have on a very small scale. The biggest thing they did was kill horrible department stores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiberius Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 4 hours ago, TakeYouToTasker said: The defining problem of our age is laid bare in The Bell Curve, by Charles Murray. I think its a ridiculous idea. Linking race and intelligence through some test is weak. Obviously culture, environment and opportunity play a huge role in success in life and on those tests. Thomas Sowell who liked the book even pointed out: http://search.opinionarchives.com/Summary/AmericanSpectator/V28I2P32-1.htm Quote When European immigrant groups in the United States scored below the national average on mental tests, they scored lowest on the abstract parts of those tests. So did white mountaineer children in the United States tested back in the early 1930s ... Strangely, Herrnstein and Murray refer to "folklore" that "Jews and other immigrant groups were thought to be below average in intelligence." It was neither folklore nor anything as subjective as thoughts. It was based on hard data, as hard as any data in The Bell Curve. These groups repeatedly tested below average on the mental tests of the World War I era, both in the army and in civilian life. For Jews, it is clear that later tests showed radically different results—during an era when there was very little intermarriage to change the genetic makeup of American Jews. So those people were smeared in the past by tests but Jews are very successful. The authors of the bEll curve are anti-immigrant. How can that be? Did they test all immigrants and see they are unfit? The black middle class barely existed in 1965. Since the Civil Rights movement they have greatly expanded as they were allowed opportunity. I think its a bunch of baloney. Trump is as ignorant as the day is long, but he had a rich daddy. I've known really smart people who were brought up in dysfunctional alcoholic families and they got no where because they just settled into a place in life they felt comfortable in, wasting a lot of human potential. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeYouToTasker Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 (edited) There are genetic differences between the races, and this is not up for debate. Data bears out that there may be significant deviations in intelligence. This is not to say that a member of a given race cannot be hyper intelligent, but rather that the mean regresses to a lower level. This has the potential to be incredibly problematic in an advancing society. 150 years ago a difference of 25-40 IQ points may not have made a huge difference, as nearly all people were subsistence farmers to some degree or another, and there was very low potential for variations in wealth accumulation. Fast forward the clock to today, and our technologically advanced world, and that same deviation is a massive gap in the potential for achievement. Edited January 24, 2019 by TakeYouToTasker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxx Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 6 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said: There are genetic differences between the races, and this is not up for debate. Data bears out that there may be significant deviations in intelligence. This is not to say that a member of a given race cannot be hyper intelligent, but rather that the mean regresses to a lower level. This has the potential to be incredibly problematic in an advancing society. 150 years ago a difference of 25-40 IQ points may not have made a huge difference, as nearly all people were subsistence farmers to some degree or another, and there was very low potential for variations in wealth accumulation. Fast forward the clock to today, and out technologically advanced world, and that same deviation is a massive gap in the potential for achievement. somewhere in my annals, i have a whole bunch of items on this topic. it is controversial for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiberius Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 10 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said: There are genetic differences between the races, and this is not up for debate. Data bears out that there may be significant deviations in intelligence. This is not to say that a member of a given race cannot be hyper intelligent, but rather that the mean regresses to a lower level. This has the potential to be incredibly problematic in an advancing society. 150 years ago a difference of 25-40 IQ points may not have made a huge difference, as nearly all people were subsistence farmers to some degree or another, and there was very low potential for variations in wealth accumulation. Fast forward the clock to today, and out technologically advanced world, and that same deviation is a massive gap in the potential for achievement. Yes there are difference but that in no way means darker skin has anything at all to do with cognitive ability. People brought up with books from childhood are simply going to score better on those tests. And simply measuring intelligence that way is fool hearty. I was a mechanic in the Air Force and it was an introduction for me. But most of the guys I worked with were great mechanics because they had a wrench in their hands since birth. But they were not exactly great at the reading and writing stuff. Intelligence is so many different things. That book was written to fit a conclusion, IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeYouToTasker Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Only a person who hasn't read the book would say it's written to fit any specific conclusion. I would suggest anyone holding that opinion listen to Murray's interview with Sam Harris which I have provided above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPS Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 5 hours ago, TakeYouToTasker said: The defining problem of our age is laid bare in The Bell Curve, by Charles Murray. To your point: we don't live in a free market, or capitalist if you prefer, society. Our economy is structured to be neo-mercantilist and empower duopoly. Capitalist societies only exist where economic advantage is not encoded into law which can be purchased by businesses or industries. We agree on the main point. I'd certainly like to hear what you think about "free exchange" between individuals in the market if it's understood that, in the labor market for example, one side has more power over the other. Regarding the first point, you would have to provide more info since people have interpreted these conclusions different ways. I've certainly read enough criticisms of their use of statistics. There are other criticisms as well. For example, if one believes that IQ is related to race, however defined, then that must also mean we human beings are NOT the descendants of the same ***** sapiens. If IQ is based on "race," then how could we all have the same forefather/mother (Lucy)? Unfortunately this will probably take us away from the other topic... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPS Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 7 hours ago, GG said: Simple question. Does an average person benefit more from buying everything they want at lower prices from Amazon, Walmart, etc. or going to multiple websites to fill out the shopping cart and paying a lot more in the process? It's NOT a simple question. The question should be: is the average person better off from an economy that is dominated by monopolies? Your question, which is behind the law and econ movement, became the focus in order to allow corporations to get bigger and bigger, and as we already argued, there are plenty of economists for hire who will testify that a merger is good for the consumer, though there is no way to quantify the effects through time. The effects on the macroeconomy are now pretty clear. As the book suggests, it is what underlies the rise in inequality. Economic power allows the powerful to extract more and more "economic rent", whether it's the monopolistic prices it can charge because there's no competition, or the monopolistic power it can use to dictate prices to producers. Both of which create more profit for the monopolist. The average person, the bottom 99%, is worse off now than they were 20 years ago, and the top 1% has been the beneficiary, as the gains from economic rent flow to the top. As Tasker stated, those with economic power make the rules because they have more free speech ($$) than the rest of us. Bezos/Amazon gained his advantage by paying off legislatures to prevent interstate taxation of online sales, providing a "competitive advantage." Walmart destroys small businesses wherever they locate. I know the average person should be thankful that they can buy the cheap Chinese crap sold at Walmart because that's the only way they can afford to survive on the ***** wages they receive from Walmart. But, yeah, let's be thankful for the company store.... You say the author's argument is BS, and I say the excuse that monopolies benefit the average consumer is BS. We disagree, as usual. But I'd still buy you a beer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiberius Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 43 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said: Only a person who hasn't read the book would say it's written to fit any specific conclusion. I would suggest anyone holding that opinion listen to Murray's interview with Sam Harris which I have provided above. I'll watch it later and get back to you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
row_33 Posted January 24, 2019 Share Posted January 24, 2019 Where is that bear leading our descent into an immediate Depression? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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