Comments by "DeoMachina" (@DeoMachina) on "Unlearning Economics" channel.

  1.  @qualia8892  But investors continue to get paid even after they get their money back. In other words, even after the business no longer needs them, has paid back its debt, they still get paid for nothing. That's why people become investors! If that wasn't how it worked, nobody would do it!
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  2.  @qualia8892  You have hit on something very important, which is that even if you don't want to be greedy, you are forced to seek out the absolute maximum profit possible if you want to get through the difficult years. The problem is that every company which exists is playing that game, but no game can allow everybody to win. This is a problem, because every company relies on other companies to supply them or buy from them. Any time a company fails, it hurts every company who buys or sells from them. This is why recessions keep happening. Is an economic system built on constant crashes...a good one?
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  3.  @qualia8892  The world does have more than one iron mine, true. But the other mines see an increase of demand as the supply falls, so they put their prices up. Not every company can meet that cost, some necessarily fail because of this. And what did those companies make? Whatever it is, their clients suddenly can't get what they need. And the cycle repeats. Not every company fails, but enough of them do to cause the entire economy to crash. There is more to recessions than this, loans/interest play their role too. The problem is that every company must produce the absolute maximum using the least amount of money possible, or it fails. But in order to have a working economy, we need to have companies that won't fail. Yet we force them to play a game that necessarily makes some of them fail. There are systems that would solve this problem, for example a system where we only produce what we need, and production isn't always 'maximum' by default.
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  4. ​ @qualia8892  "If we had a system in which we didn't produce "maximum by default" wouldn't that mean that we would be constantly living in a recessions. A recession is only called a recession in reference to a better time" We call them recessions because the economy shrinks during them. People living during the great depression were better off than people in the middle ages? Well, some of them were. But people in the USSR were better off during the depression than in the USA, so by that logic... "Also if we had a system which produce only what we need, who would decide what would we need?" The people who own the means to produce things. That is to say, all workers collectively. Does that sound unrealistic to you? Ask yourself, who decides what we need right now? Isn't it weird how some trends are set by single companies? I think we need for example, healthier food produced more responsibly. But that doesn't matter, because the people who actually decide what food we need are the food production companies, owned by a few people. I think we need less bombs and warplanes, I think that money could be better spent elsewhere. But wealthy arms manufacturers decide otherwise. You have to admit, this whole thing could be a lot more democratic..
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  5. I mean it's either that or we all die from climate change
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  6. "The bubble of modern feminism is bursting" Uh states are literally lining up to ban healthcare specifically for women my dude Pretty sure feminism is going to enter a resurgance
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  7.  @endlesssolitaire731  In this context 'property' doesn't refer to personal possessions. We're talking about owning land, buildings and productive capacity. Our economic system is founded on denying these things to almost all people, so that they have no choice but to sell their labour power to survive.
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  8.  @endlesssolitaire731  No, this is not actually true. Most people in fact, do not. Additionally, having a screwdriver and a phone doesn't qualify as owning the means of production lol
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  9.  @endlesssolitaire731  A decent attempt, but pretending not to understand "means of production" while also using terminology like bourgieious gives the game away.
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  10.  @gordonfreeman4150  "So maybe it would help if more women would go tinto stem" I work in STEM, and every woman I know in the field was discouraged from entering it, some companies even refused to interview women. Deny it all you want, I don't care. "But maybe they would not become feminists afterwards." Oh yeah for sure my man Because women becoming engineers means they're suddenly going to stop caring about the ongoing epidemic of femicide and violence against women, or the loss of their basic rights That makes a lot of sense You don't sound remotely deranged at all
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  11.  @gordonfreeman4150  Very interesting that the moment you're faced with evidence of actual systemic discrimination you're whining about a lack of focus. That's very convenient timing. Okay, let's focus! Let's see you acknowledge what I said. I'll ignore the rest.
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  12. Statism? What you just said would easily pass master with the majority of gadsen flag wavers
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  13. Argentina looking wonderful atm
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  14. "Which is characteristic of people who want something for nothing." You're thinking of capitalism
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  15.  @mjbull5156  "Capitalism, by definition, means investing resources, financial, physical, mental into an enterprise in order to get something back" I just checked the dictionary and that's not what it says bro Capitalism is when you do all the work, and the guy who owns your tools gets the money. My boss gets to sit around and do nothing, yet he not only wants something, he wants most of the something.
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  16. Apple sabotaged their own phones when it was time for a new model fyi
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  17.  @lukajolich7669  After checking out their site it looks like they're putting right-wing news sources on the 'left' - is that your experience too? Do they actually have any real left-wing sources?
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  18.  @lukajolich7669  I found their methodology page and they openly admit that they are simply putting right-wing sources in both sides, apparently content to pretend that left-wing sources don't exist This is extremely biased imo
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  19. Commodifying food made the rich overeat and the poor starve to death Commodifying housing made the rich own thousands of houses while the poor died on the street Commodifying healthcare has slaughtered thousands upon thousands of people, bankrupted many more, all so rich people could...skip the queue? What do you think will happen with education?
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  20.  @water2770  Here's the thing: Centuries ago, people starved when there wasn't enough food. We weren't able to build houses easily. We had no clue about medicine. Now? There is in fact a surplus of food. People starve even when thousands, millions of tons of food sail past every day! Housing? We can crank out homes for hundreds of people in weeks if we really want to! Not only that, in some cities there are more empty homes than homeless people! As for medicine, can't you at least admit it's a little bit weird that insulin costs pennies to make but costs as much as rent?
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  21.  @water2770  "some areas make it hard for businesses to exist that can provide good food at reasonable prices. This is not a result of comodification" You can't mention prices and then say it's not about commodification. You've already agreed with me. " For example in sf where there is a giant homelessness problem you cant crank out new housing there, because of zoning laws" And who made the zoning laws? People who invested in property that benefit from the status quo. "More of a government problem than a capitalism problem" It's a capitalist government, made by capitalists for capitalists. "Finally yeah its crazy how insulin costs so much... because of the way the patents work" Actually no it's because of price gouging, the USA is the only country where this happens. " researching how to make it takes a lot of money and you arent guaranteed to actually get anything out of that investment" Medical companies get huge amounts of government money to conduct research, fyi
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  22.  @water2770  " I dont think slapping a price tag on something or being expected to be compensated for your work causes starvation" Question: Can people without money buy food? Yes or no? Follow-up question: Can the companies which make tens of billions of dollars a year afford to give food away? Yes or no? "You can get lobbyists, but generally the average citizen doesnt have the power to draft laws" Yeah that's why lobbying exists "Lol, government isnt capitalist" Incorrect "also it wouldnt be in debt and maybe make its own wealth instead of stealing it." Capitalism is 100% about stealing wealth instead of creating it That's the entire premise "You cant price gouge unless there is no competition" Sure would be a shame if there were centuries of examples of price-gouging despite competition existing
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  23.  @keypawn3024  Putting yourself in the 'did not vote' demographic is also a political act, you have not isolated yourself from your subject in this instance. Incidentally, you also completely misunderstand the reason why doctors cannot have relationships with their patients. That's not why.
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  24.  @keypawn3024  "You say I'm wrong, but you're too righteous to explain why" It's a safeguarding issue. It is for the protection of patients. Same with teachers, counsellors etc. Not sure where you get the idea that emotional connection would impact diagnosis but that wasn't it. "I would love to hear how not voting is a political act" Look at voter turnout figures. Most people aren't voting. Imagine if they did. Imagine how differently political campaigns would have to run, imagine what candidates would have to say to these people to get them on board. Low turnout isn't an accident, look at how many polling places were shut down at the last election, look at how long the lines are in the USA. Other democracies don't have this problem. In other countries you won't even be waiting 30 minutes. It's very clear that one group of people is choosing to make it more difficult for another group of people to vote. Are you really going to tell me that doing what a political party wants isn't political? It's especially weird that you'd say this as an economist, when the two main parties are nearly identical on economic issues.
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  25.  @vorynrosethorn903  "the idea that their incentive structure is any better than that in the private realm is delusional. " Okay, so explain why Scotland and Northern Ireland don't have these problems with their water supplies. You can't.
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  26.  @vorynrosethorn903  I didn't ask you to tell me that the water is going to be bad, I asked you to tell me why the water in Scotland is of far higher quality than that of England and why Scotland doesn't fill its own waterways with human excrement. You don't have an answer.
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  27.  @vorynrosethorn903  I said you don't have an answer, and you don't have an answer. I have an example of state-run industry working well and the best you can say is "weeeh one day it might not be so nice waaaa" You don't know what socialism or post-modernism are, I think you should stick to the more familiar two-syllable words when you speak to me.
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  28. The CEO got money primarily through exploiting the employees, (although they could argue that by weighing up the pros and cons of the deal they did perform some labour)
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  29.  @PvblivsAelivs  "But I think you are just trying to signal "don't listen."" Close, I'm actually trying to signal "wind your fucking neck in".
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  30.  @PvblivsAelivs  "Well, let me help you out here. I will not give in to your intimidation tactics" But you have given up, it seems
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  31.  @Jessevibes  "It is an illusion we have constructed" These are abstract concepts if that's what you mean, yeah. "Killing on either side is wrong" What happened to there not being any sides? "Also you can't get rid of the rich, not for long anyways" Sure we can. " Communist regimes had some of the worst wealth inequality" No, you made that up. Wealth inequality is worst in capitalist economies. "dictator fat cats sitting in there expensive offices surrounded by there good, well paid, friends who put them in power. " Again this sounds like capitalism. "Wealth redistribution doesn't fix the problem it just restarts the time" I agree with you on this one. "Our systems aren't the problem, we, humanity, are the problem" The evidence is against this. We would have never made it out of the stone age if you were correct. Humans act differently when in different conditions. So just change the conditions.
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  32. If your statement was true, then nobody would care about being charged far more than the value of the thing they are paying for. But that's obviously not the case, is it? So your statement is false.
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  33.  @JH-ty2cs  Just because you can think of a second variable that contributes to the same factor, doesn't mean the variable I describe is redundant. If X = a + y and I say "a contributes to X", your statement "y contributes to X" doesn't contradict me. You haven't contradicted me. What I said is true: If people know that the price far outstrips the value, they feel cheated! As an example, prices for energy jumped up to a ridiculous level last year. Not because raw materials got more expensive, not because of tax, not because of demand, but because the energy companies decided to set the price far higher than the value. And we were angry about it, much angrier than we would have been if there had been a more legitimate reason for it.
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  34.  @JH-ty2cs  The term 'value' predates the phrase 'input costs', it is not a new concept and it is not a new word. But call it what you want - the fact remains that you've conceded my general point is valid, people do care about value.
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  35.  @endlesssolitaire731  Our best specialists aren't even close to being the richest. They don't even make six figures. And Bezos/Musk etc do not coordinate the companies they own. They pay people to do that for them.
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  36.  @endlesssolitaire731  Again, not even close
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  37.  @endlesssolitaire731  Prove it, then.
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  38.  @endlesssolitaire731  This isn't even about the pay rate of specialists?
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  39. Ironically the "Everybody is so stupid except for me" shtick is exactly the kind of shit I expect to see on reddit
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  40. Women have the right to be trans, trans people have always existed in all cultures of the world If you oppose trans people existing, you're against women's rights.
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  41.  @peakedmalefeminist9782  Eurocentric thinking, sorry but your beliefs are not the default position, and they do not emerge from any kind of societal or scientific understanding.
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  42. Millions of people are dying.
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  43.  @sebastianbrodkin3685  Sebastian, you realise that the status quo we live with today is wholly emergent from the libertarian rules you just advocated for, right? The richest in society paid for violence (police, military) against those who had opposing interests, and used this position of power to bend the rules to suit their own needs. If that's the society you want, you're telling us that your only problem with society is that you personally aren't at the top of it.
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  44. It's actually the opposite, private interests suppress scientific development and innovation. A huge proportion of new technology is from state-subsidised projects, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Scientific funding is a fraction of what it used to be in many advanced economies. Here's a topical example: Research into coronavirus vaccines was in progress years ago, but despite knowing with certainty that there would be a future pandemic not a single biotech company invested the money. Capitalism cannot even sustain itself, and will gladly destroy future profits to save money in the short-term.
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  45. @антон тхір Preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths is logical, actually. And yes, it was widely known that there would be future pandemics and that coronaviruses in particular would be a problem. We know this because there have been three or four pandemics this century already. "Hilarious".
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  46. @антон тхір You can just admit you didn't know about coronavirus research prior to the pandemic, you know. You can just acknowledge that you didn't understand pandemic response has long been a thing.
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  47. @антон тхір " Your statement that we could prepare the vaccine but capitalism prevent us means that we should have made vaccines for all the viable genetic variants of coronavirus " What part of "prevent" are you failing to comprehend here
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  48. @антон тхір I think choosing not to fund important areas of research qualifies as 'preventing', thanks for playing but you can admit you fucked up now
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  49. @антон тхір "1)You pretend that there wasn't enough of coronavirus research which is a lie." The fact we were caught unprepared for the covid-19 strain proves it to be true. "Actually, one of the reasons we got vaccines so fast was mRNA vaccines research and coronavirus research done before the pandemic" Proving my point for me, thanks "You pretend that we could use the SARS‑CoV‑1 vaccine against SARS‑CoV‑2" This is a lie, disregarding
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  50.  @saintmichael5547  While I don't know the specifics of mRNA, I do know that the biotech industry is heavily state-subsidised because it's literally the only way we can get any research to happen
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