This is the right way to handle over-inflated prices.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/15/uk-drug-companies-fined-260m-overcharging-nhs
Shaving off 15% would trim new capacity additions by more than 2.3 GW this year alone, based on Energy Information Administration forecasts. Higher prices throughout the solar supply chain are being blamed.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2021/05/18/price-pressures-may-delay-15-of-utility-scale-solar-projects-this-year-roth-capital-warns/
#prices, #covid-19, #cost, #business, #upstream, #markets, #modules
background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
Chia #Coin now using over 1 exabyte of #storage, HDD/SSD shortage feared
Actually, I had hoped we would use the Internet for knowledge exchange and international understanding and not for such a #waste of #resources.
#xch #economy #technology #internet #hype #hdd #ssd #hardware #news #environment
keyboarduserforever0 comments at Reddit:
Basically he says there are 3 classes: workers, landlords, businessmen. Workers are ignorant of their condition because they're too busy toiling. Landlords are ignorant because they're too busy managing their estates and living lavish lifestyles. But businessmen, on the other hand, know exactly what's in their interests, and act accordingly. The problem is that what's in their interest is often not in the interest of the rest of society.
Smith's discussion of types of labour, or really, types of economic goods, is only partially developed and but still nuanced.
In his chapters on prices, wages, stock, interest, money, and taxes, you'll find a few divisions worth noting.
There are the five determinants of wages, from Book I Chapter 5:
- First, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves;
- secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning them;
- thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them;
- fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and,
- fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them.
If you tease these out, you start getting the rudiments of a classification of activities and trades:
It's also possible to look at areas of economic activity, which range from Quesnay's Tableau économique (which serves as the fronticepiece of my own print copy of Wealth of Nations) to modern SIC, NAICS, and ISIC codes, and, at least the way I squint at it, there seem to be six-ish general classifications:
Monetisations vary. Sourcing and making both rely on direct tangible item sales, occasionally contract sales. Risk is managed through arbitrage and gatekeeping. Note that this includes landlords, and may include some elements of capital. Government / public sector is financed via taxes, or if you're of the MMT school, through money creation balanced by taxes. Services may be compensated on an hourly, annual, or contract basis, and incorporate the elements of Smith's Five Determinants. The positions of unskilled, skilled, and highly-trusted labour differ markedly. In the case of information goods and distribution on recurring periodic payments (subscriptions), or for information: advertising and manipulation services riding parasitically on the information stream and generating revenues. Distribution and other networked businesses return rents, prices commanding not merely the costs of production but also a fraction of consumer surplus, along with the FIRE sector.
I'll note that I classify the classic "FIRE" sector (finance, insurance, and real estate) as fundamentally concerning risk. They return rents, though are not alone in doing so. I'm not aware that this is commonly held, and it's possibly flawed. All economic activity involves risk, but in the FIRE sector, it is asset value and revenue stream risk which has primacy. The means of managing that deviate from those of other sectors, say, sourcing (prospecting or resource risk, cultivation or extraction skill), making (dominated by capitalisation and technique), and services (likewise). Real estate is included as this forms a major, often the major, asset class. It's classic risk-management strategies that dominate in all three components:
It's worth noting that it's the finance sector, inclusive of insurance, was the sole exception to Smith's general opposition to joint-stock (shareholder) corporations.
And though I've split these out separately, there are major elements of risk involved especially in high-technology sectors, which also typically return rents.
Adapted from a Reddit comment
I've been reflecting on Paul Mason's Postcapitalism, particularly as concerns what he identifies as a hum-dinger of information goods: Information goods destroy the price formation mechanism based on scarcity.
That's one of a few cases in which markets as price-setting mechanisms fail, or are subject to very high degrees of ambiguity...
Continued at the dreddit.
#economics #prices #markets #value #information #finance #luxury #assets
