The Trump Presidency

Hawk said:
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jpx7 said:
Planned obsolescence. We've mostly just accepted this fun benefit of globalized capitalism, so there's no reason to feature a bored Maytag man (or a long-lasting product) anymore.
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lol capitalism's fault, of course.

we'd be much better off with massive lines and no product - then it'll be fair!
 
Hawk said:
Is it just me, or does it feel like everyone is a sex predator these days?
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Not everyone but it's clearly more prevalent than we like to believe, same as other dark strains in the culture.

Or are you implying that it's another liberal conspiracy?
 
jpx7 said:
Planned obsolescence. We've mostly just accepted this fun benefit of globalized capitalism, so there's no reason to feature a bored Maytag man (or a long-lasting product) anymore.
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It's frustrating that often the part that breaks is some hard to get to but otherwise easily replaceable piece of cheap plastic.
 
this piece of **** decided to try to talk **** about the "media" in front of children

seriously

anything that bad that can happen to this garbage is in the best interest of this country

**** the orange one
 
Evan McMullin‏Verified account @Evan_McMullin Oct 27

Buckle up. We can expect Trump’s efforts to confuse and divide Americans against each other to shift into overdrive. Don’t fall for it.
 
To those of us that don't "understand the tax code" but do understand shell games
this came back to life in Sunday NYT

That’s where 401(k)’s come in. Rather than allow workers to continue delaying their tax payments, the Republican leadership wants to collect tax revenue on most new contributions upfront so they can use it to pay for those expensive corporate tax cuts. That’s the equivalent of a middle-class tax increase.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/28/...column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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Before our economic seer's weigh in ---
a quick google search:

http://money.cnn.com/infographic/economy/what-is-middle-class-anyway/index.html

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from NYT:

The accounting sleight-of-hand irks Mr. Gale, a former economic adviser to President George H.W. Bush, because, he says, it is financially irresponsible. “It’s just government borrowing by another name,” he said. “You’re not really raising revenue,” just changing when it’s collected.
 
his tweet storm this morning makes it seem they are pretty close to some damning info with how much he is crying on twitter
 
I thought there might be a chance he would make it to noon without launching into a tirade and just staying focused on that $4K raise he's going to deliver us.
 
sturg33 said:
lol capitalism's fault, of course.

we'd be much better off with massive lines and no product - then it'll be fair!
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Where's the market incentive to build a product with really serious longevity? Think about it: assume you design and produce the "perfect" product, in terms of operational window—it won't break, it won't deteriorate, it won't need service; at best, it might be improved upon enough that some original customers will want to upgrade. You'll have a lot more ongoing sales potential if you both work to upgrade other features of the product (integrating new bells and whistles, which applies another kind of obsolescence to older models) whilst also producing products that aren't designed to operate beyond a pretty short-term window (say, just about as long as it takes for newer models to accrue sufficient enough upgrades to seem purchasing, versus paying to repair the older model).

This is not only annoying to the rare consumer who wants to buy something and continue using it a long time; it's also a kind of we can't much longer afford, as a species.

But you'll notice I didn't just say "capitalism" but "globalized capitalism", because I believe it's the latter specifically that's really exacerbated this kind of obsolescence-by-design industriousness.
 
jpx7 said:
Where's the market incentive to build a product with really serious longevity? Think about it: assume you design and produce the "perfect" product, in terms of operational window—it won't break, it won't deteriorate, it won't need service; at best, it might be improved upon enough that some original customers will want to upgrade. You'll have a lot more ongoing sales potential if you both work to upgrade other features of the product (integrating new bells and whistles, which applies another kind of obsolescence to older models) whilst also producing products that aren't designed to operate beyond a pretty short-term window (say, just about as long as it takes for newer models to accrue sufficient enough upgrades to seem purchasing, versus paying to repair the older model).

This is not only annoying to the rare consumer who wants to buy something and continue using it a long time; it's also a kind of we can't much longer afford, as a species.

But you'll notice I didn't just say "capitalism" but "globalized capitalism", because I believe it's the latter specifically that's really exacerbated this kind of obsolescence-by-design industriousness.
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Oh, you're saying that people espousing a globalist economic/political system are robbing the world blind?
 
That moment when playbill

Yes, playbill

Has to call the president out for being a lying piece of ****

[tw]924417813632176128[/tw]
 
jpx7 said:
Where's the market incentive to build a product with really serious longevity? Think about it: assume you design and produce the "perfect" product, in terms of operational window—it won't break, it won't deteriorate, it won't need service; at best, it might be improved upon enough that some original customers will want to upgrade. You'll have a lot more ongoing sales potential if you both work to upgrade other features of the product (integrating new bells and whistles, which applies another kind of obsolescence to older models) whilst also producing products that aren't designed to operate beyond a pretty short-term window (say, just about as long as it takes for newer models to accrue sufficient enough upgrades to seem purchasing, versus paying to repair the older model).

This is not only annoying to the rare consumer who wants to buy something and continue using it a long time; it's also a kind of we can't much longer afford, as a species.

But you'll notice I didn't just say "capitalism" but "globalized capitalism", because I believe it's the latter specifically that's really exacerbated this kind of obsolescence-by-design industriousness.
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When a company makes a perfect product that works forever - like Gilead's cure for Hep-C for example - we have people like Bernie Sanders and yourself crying about how greedy they are for selling the product at a high cost.

A company's incentive to build a good product to keep their customers happy. Like with most technology, the cost of goods continues to go down while the quality continues to improve. The exception, of course, is when the government subsidizes, regulates, or controls a particular market
 
sturg33 said:
When a company makes a perfect product that works forever - like Gilead's cure for Hep-C for example - we have people like Bernie Sanders and yourself crying about how greedy they are for selling the product at a high cost.
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You're purposefully confusing the grounds on which they were criticized. It's not because they made too good of a product, but because of their pricing-structure represents the violent asymmetries attendant to the hyper-commodification of health. This is why commodified healthcare is both socially dangerous and morally bankrupt.

sturg33 said:
A company's incentive to build a good product to keep their customers happy.
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A company's incentive is profit; you're conveniently eliding that because it's rosier to think of profit as principally or exclusively resulting from happy customers. But, using your own Gilead example, market incentive structures instead lead to a handful of means-having cured customers (who were no doubt happy for it) and whole baskets full of unhappy non-customers lacking the means to not die.

In short: incentivization in the marketplace is a hell-of-a-lot more complicated than "keeping customers happy".

sturg33 said:
Like with most technology, the cost of goods continues to go down while the quality continues to improve. The exception, of course, is when the government subsidizes, regulates, or controls a particular market
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The window is closing on the sort of hyper-exploitative labor- and resource-extraction that allows continual decrease in cost-of-goods. That's a debt that globalized capitalism has been building feverishly for the better part of a century, and the planet is going to come calling sooner than any of us would like. The notion that this can continue, unabated—that the only thing standing in the way of infinite bounty is governmental red-tape—is simply magical thinking or the result of avaricious blinders.
 
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