Melonius [he/him]

The middle panel up top has baggage. Maybe it goes without saying, but even people with sizeable investments profit or exist at the whims of capitalism. More than 1 ghoulish landlord lost most of their hoarded wealth during the housing crisis, and plenty of “small business” owners can see themselves muscled out if larger capitalist set their eyes on a market and bribing (buying out) is off the table. Every petite bourgeoisie is always one manufactured capitalist crisis away from losing their artificially granted “class”.

They will probably not come around but it’s worth reminding them to take the wind out of their sails. Maybe they’ll be materially worse off under a Marxist system right now, but there is value in living in a society where you will not be abandoned by society or go hungry, nor have to see others suffer that way.

I went off topic but I think that “no other investments” line is too open to wrong interpretations.

Just buy the corn syrup and iodized salt direct from the manufacturer and skip all these middle men.

you think you can just force elected representatives to do what you like.

Imagine having elected officials doing what you like. Instead they do whatever corporate donors pay them to.

Best to let capital sort it out - wouldn’t want to enforce the will of the people or anything.

The game is kinda meh from what I’ve seen? Any positive impressions?

and each dollar has the same value

The intrinsic value of fiat currency is 0. Double, halve, quadruple 0 all you want makes no difference. It’s function and value is as a medium of exchange.

Imagine a copper based currency. If supplies of copper increase, the intrinsic value of copper falls, so the total value of the currency falls. The extrinsic value is not affected.

If I buy a widget for $1 and my labor is $2, I can be paid in 2 widgets. The money supply doesn’t change that my labor is 2 widgets. If prices are increased on widgets by a capitalist, then I would expect an increase in my labor price (in dollars), regardless of the money supply, because money has no intrinsic value.

I’ll state again that this difference (capitalists choosing to raise prices vs blaming external factors like “money supply”) is not just pedantic. Capital mentions it few times, the fetishization of money and capital accumulation/hoarding cause this belief that money has a function outside of exchange.

To put it mathematically: the rate of accumulation is the independent, not the dependent variable; the rate of wages is the dependent, not the independent variable. Thus, when the industrial cycle is in its phase of crisis, a general fall in the price of commodities is expressed as a rise in the relative value of money, and, in the phase of prosperity, a general rise in the price of commodities is expressed as a fall in the relative value of money. The so-called Currency School* conclude from this that with high prices too much money is in circulation, with low prices too little. Their ignorance and complete misunderstanding of the facts are worthily paralleled by the economists, who interpret the above phenomena of accumulation by saying that in one case there are too few, and in the other, too many wage-labourers in existence.

A transaction for stock is the same as any other transaction. It terminates once money is exchanged. You do not extrapolate what happens after. When I pay my check at a restaurant does the cook run out the door to spend my money or does it go in the register?

I saw your other posts and wanted to point out a few key points.

1. fiat money has no intrinsic value. Doubling or tripling the supply doesn’t change it’s value. Halving it doesn’t make it suddenly more valuable.
2. commodity based currency, like a gold standard, does have intrinsic value. Finding new supplies of gold will reduce the intrinsic value of all gold, so it would see a change from the money supply changing all else equal.
3. you mention it several times in other posts - it is the circulation of money that can (not necessarily) cause inflation. Imagine I sell $10 of goods at market and go home, vs selling $10 of goods then buying $10 of groceries. Money supply is irrelevant to the inflationary effects, so long as there is sufficient currency to account for all goods that are currently traded.
4. post housing crisis, the US money supply increased tremendously during QE, yet inflation was low. Monetarists shrug, but the simple reason is money supply doesn’t cause inflation.

Have you read Capital? It goes through money and velocity pretty thoroughly early on and I think addresses some pretty big assumptions econ classes tend to present.

Since the financial crisis banks have taken deposits and reinvested them at the Fed or other banks. Purchases of stock do not necessarily raise prices either. Prices can fall on heavy volume and rise in light volume.

That’s a paycut in purchasing power.

Only if prices rise. Consider that this island only sells widgets in this currency. Will they raise prices because the money supply has increased? They were “maximizing” profit before, but now the money supply is different and the employee on the island still makes 20 coins. Will selling widgets at a new price point get them more money?

The rich are spending the money

If a rich person gets money, what evidence do you have that they would spend it or invest it? It is not a factual assumption and depends on many factors, and not just in a pedantic way. If market conditions are sour, a rich person would avoid investing it for fear of losing it.

Capitalists are middle men who sell our labor + a product back to us at a higher price. If they don’t need cash right now, they will raise prices and sell fewer units at a higher rate to maximize the margin (on durable goods). If they do want cash, they will lower prices and trade margins for volume. Take oil as an example - if you can sell a barrel now for X or tomorrow for more, you would price the oil higher as long as opportunity cost < selling it lower now. How does other people having more money affect this?

Consider your labor and pretend you are fairly compensated right now. If the money supply increases, do you demand, or at least deserve, higher wages? If so, why?

Money supply is a specific term and it will not always result in inflation. You’ve acknowledged that several times but still repeat it. It will depend how that increase in money supply is used, if at all.

If I got a trillion dollars printed and did nothing with it, no change in inflation. If I deposit it at banks, there would probably be some knock on effects on interest rates that make their way to the broader system.

If I go on a coordinated buying spree of oranges with the explicit goal of owning every last orange and orange producing land possible, inflation in oranges and substitute goods of oranges will occur. Easy conclusion.

You can argue that: When the capital owners get free money in bailouts, while workers get crumbs, there is an obvious disparity. Capitalists see less value in currency and will want more of it in exchange for their contributions (leeching) to society. So they raise prices because selling an orange for $1 doesn’t feel as good as before.

If workers got more money while capitalists got nothing, that disparity is reversed. Capitalists want to compete for a supply of cash that they didn’t have access to before. Prices will rise in inelastic markets because the opportunity to exploit presents itself, but in competitive markets there is a real drive to entice more purchasing. That’s not to say that prices will go down (they can!) But raising your prices on food because everyone got $1000 could mean missed sales if the price raise isn’t coordinated across the industry.

You saying that inflation is driven by money supply is not the direct reason for prices rising.

Megathreads, or just a good popular post in related popular communities can work pretty well until there is enough traction to warrant its own community. A lot of subreddits arose because half the posts in a sub became what was previously a fringe topic of the parent.

The agent is forbidden from reading any response, otherwise he might develop a conscience or worse, self awareness.

Fuck cars but trucks and SUVs are more dangerous than cars to pedestrians, and to argue otherwise just makes you look silly

https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=521

active disinformation campaign at worst

Relax

It’s so fucking annoying when I’m trying to turn and check for oncoming traffic and one of these or its smaller cousins pulls up next to me so I can’t see

Where I live people will park their tanks trucks in the driveway and block the sidewalk. At least they won’t be able to do that here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people just start parallel parking on the people gutter

I got a holographic original extended Daenerys sex scene!

Long term they may axe hulu but comcast still has an ownership interest. For now they have subscribers and show contracts that are probably limited to that platform. Let them expire, renew what’s earning, and write off any homegrown content for whatever % of goodwill of the acquisition price it accounts for. Most importantly though - they’ll continue to raise prices unabated.

I can’t predict the future but they’ll probably let hulu stagnate for the next few years and payoff remaining shareholders when its time to snuff it.

Can’t comment on Microsoft and Activision too much, but it will be the same drivers. Microsoft has been pushing game pass aggressively at a loss, and when companies are operating at a loss in a product segment they’re in the extend phase. They’re also very publicly focused on xbox market share. Maybe the next COD game will be gamepass exclusive or something dumb like that, idk.

Streaming could be a whole other post really. All these companies have bought into having their own app and they are all losing big time.

I’d be cautious jumping to that conclusion. Netflix, Disney, and Amazon are all extremely profitable. The news makes it sound like there’s blood in the street but its just that earnings aren’t growing exponentially as fast as before. The smaller ones might be having trouble competing but I haven’t really looked in to it.

Any good guides on setting it up?

By acquiring fox they have 60% ownership interest in Hulu. It’s that simple.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/09/hulu-and-disney-subscriptions-are-going-up-heres-how-much/

I’m sure the timing is coincidence and has nothing to do with Disney controlling the largest market share of streaming services.

Nearly every acquisition is about extinguishing competition and squeezing more juice from your core products. It’s why oil and gas buys green tech to toss it in the bin, it’s why Google buys waze and essentially halts development on it, it’s why Microsoft bought blizzard. They extract any value from what they bought but that is secondary to eliminating a company that they’d have to compete with on price.

https://dealroom.net/blog/biggest-m-a-deals-2022

Every coy news article that pretends there’s some sort of 3d chess going on or some big unknowable synergies is a joke. They’ll give the acquired divisions to some much more competent middle managers to see if there’s any value to extract, but it’s secondary to the main objective. Disney would much rather collaborate with n-1 competitors (Netflix is really it?)

The value of an acquisition is almost never about synergy, assets, tech, or the catalog you got out of it.

It’s usually about extinguishing competition and squeezing any remaining juice from your core offerings and products at a higher price.