Tagged “economics”

highlighting new additions in green is cool.

If capital is not invested in providing a good service via a profitable business, it will never sustain things that are societally useful.

hopefully this doesn't imply that things need to be profitable to be societally useful

Will GPT improve GDP? Eli suspects probably not. Mentions that computers didn't (or haven't yet), and examples of larger industries that are not likely to be immediately affected; either slow moving regulatory blockers, or stuff like buildings that people are still better at.

the low low low returns to artists from music streaming

Self-recommending

Keep slightly tweaking and patenting the "new" thing.

macro predictions of major changes to markets

It seems to me that a significant portion of all the money investors made over this period resulted from the tailwind generated by the massive drop in interest rates. I consider it nearly impossible to overstate the influence of declining rates over the last four decades.

People who came into the business world after 2008 – or veteran investors with short memories – might think of today’s interest rates as elevated. But they’re not in the longer sweep of history, meaning there’s no obvious reason why they should be lower.

Treating houses as an investment is bad for people who want to live in them. Houses suffer wear and tear, but still just appreciate in value over time.

To make housing affordable, it needs to be cheap and widely available. Things that are cheap and widely available are not typically good investments.

Archived version

Australia abolished "statutory reserve deposits" in 1988, which were replaced with 1% non-callable deposits.

Can we reduce resource use and emissions more rapidly than increases caused by growing affluence? History does not think so.

The utility derived from planning, having, and remembering a vacation. Wonderful stuff.

High prices and shaping before, even long after it's over. Remember reading some story of someone's parents washing/reusing plastic wrap and foil and things after a war.

• Gifts increase in value when given away
• Most platforms now don't sell music, either subscriptions or ads

Or apple podcast link.

Alex T on the need for innovation in America

Some good bits around how using past information can backfire. Either overfitting if looking too far back, or spending too much effort on predictions.

Enough effort goes into an initial forecast that updating your views when new information becomes available can trigger the sunk-cost fallacy and cause you to be right or wrong for the wrong reason.

Always interesting, and very clever. Talks about upcoming technology (real and expected), cultural and institutional changes, government as buyer to incentivise development, a bunch on companies and employees.

Mostly sensible looking predictions, interesting set of topcs: Enterprise software, phone form factor, SF / NYC tech rivalry apparently, Crypto as dissident tech, fall of grad school, biotech bubble, microplastics health fears, campaign growth hacking, and SV startup scam.

Notes from an interview over dinner at Mama Chang

Interesting analysis on immigration, unemployment, language, housing, and economy of Spain. Who writes like this after a vacation?!

Overall, my visit has made me more optimistic about Spain. Much of the measured unemployment is illusory, and immigrants are pouring in to profit from Spain’s combination of high productivity and linguistic accessibility. Housing policy remains bad. Since housing regulation is decentralized, however, some regions of Spain will be atypically tolerant of new construction. Where is the Texas of Spain? I don’t know, but that’s where the future is.

supply and demand is one special case which comprises a fraction of the total pressure on wages and prices and success or failure at any moment.

Not sure tihs is actually everything I needed to know and I still have many questions. Good historical overview of the rise of them though.

Instead, you should try to blend together the needed disciplines as best you can, consulting others when necessary, an offer the best plan you can, namely the best plan all things considered.

That might fill you with horror, but please recall from Tetlock that usually the generalists are the best predictors.

It is a long lesson that I am still not through, will see if it can live up to the bold claim of its title

The problem with economic model of scarcity. More savings does not mean more spending - people eventually have enough cash and enough things; at this point they are taking more money out of the economy than putting back in.

We continue to encourage an outmoded mode of home ownership, and incentivize buying in spite of no economic argument