Had an Idea on the Way Home But Probably Regurgitated Shit I Read Somewhere Else

[POFP]

The US economy, especially during the start of Industrialization, was formatted/reformatted based on the assumption that we would need to increase efficiency of Production to meet an ever-growing domestic and foreign Demand (Supply-side economics). It's no accident that this unsustainable ideology is almost identical to the basis of the relationship between drugs and addiction.

The cycle of addiction is based on the idea that Demand is equal to Supply. In other words, you use whatever you have access to.

However, in most cases, due to the fundamental nature of our brain's Reward System, people reach a point where their Supply can't feed their Demand. So, the Suppliers use cheaper substances to make more out of less and meet the growing Demand. Sometimes, that means they use other substances as filler that are less pure because they're easier to find or cheaper to buy. Almost like how most of our food nowadays is rarely pure or untainted by cheap and/or toxic fillers. It's fairly obvious at this point, to anyone paying attention, that we've seriously over-shot our goal of allowing Supply to meet Demand, meaning we've reached, and far surpassed the point of addiction.

In hindsight, it seems like it was inevitable. But why?

Because it was intentional:

It's not that surprising that the US economy's Supply/Demand dynamics run parallel to the fundamental nature of addiction. It was designed before addiction science and treatment was invented, and during a time when drugs were traded openly without any level of regulation or constraint (And were often the most popular trade commodities). It was also during a time when the wealthy were allowed to grow their wealth unrestricted using the profit that came from being the Suppliers (Or the "Suppliers of Suppliers," and so on. I'll explain this concept more a bit later.).

So, what happens when Suppliers become dependent on their excess wealth? They become addicted to it, and so become addicted to the Demand that creates it.

The Demand becomes their Supply.

So, the Suppliers, in need of Demand, began studying and taking advantage of man's vulnerability to desire. Thus, Toxic Marketing and Advertising was born, which has now fully integrated itself into literally every single aspect of our lives. And when Supplying cheap, worthless shit became too personal and real, the wealthiest Suppliers decided to add layers of abstraction between them and their customers to avoid their discomfort. And thus Corporatism was born to integrate Beaurocracy into Supplier organizations and make Supplier markets more complex. It added processes between the Suppliers and the Consumers to blur the lines and fuel plausible deniability and willful ignorance.

How did we get to this point? We were already there. The system was designed based on:

Supply = Demand

It's really that simple. The system assumes Supply is equal to (or infinitely approaching) Demand. Mathematically, and logically, they are one in the same - Two sides of the same coin: An unsustainable system of trade in which neither side is capable of winning because the point of satisfaction for either side is an infinitely moving target. The goal of those with Demand is to be a Supplier. And the goal of the Supplier is to create (not feed, because that's more expensive) Demand and be Demanded.

But if they're the same thing, and we obviously need some things to survive, meaning someone has to Supply the basics for life to meet a basic Demand, does that mean we were doomed to become unsustainable?

Not at all. We've only ever entertained this equation in one direction: Up.

We've been ignoring the fact that the equation can be read the other way:

(-1)Demand = (-1)Supply

More to come some other time.

Feel free to rip apart and put back together again, or add to it. Part of me is very certain that someone's come up with this analogy before, but I have no idea where I would have read it other than here.

[rong]

a tremendous supply of bullshit does not create a tremendous demand for bullshit.

but if there was a bullshit shortage, there would be a run on bullshit

but lets be serious - there's a never ending supply of bullshit.

even though it's bullshit, it's a bear market.

better short the bullshit market.

[The Wizard Joseph]

For fucksake do finish this thought PoFP. I have nothing to add because I want to see where you go with it, but I am listening closely.

[The Johnny]

People like Ian Curtis ("The Century of the Self") have argued that rather Demand was manipulated to stay on the level of the new capacity for massive Supply and production.

Demand =/= Supply in its natural state, it has to be pushed in that direction so that people don't build up savings or investments.

Bad quality of Supply is not dictated by insatiable Demand... it's dictated by Profit and its maximization and how good they can manipulate people to buy garbage.

So i mean, you do eventually speak of the marketing and manipulation of desire, but I just think it came into play way earlier than the chronology you are basing your argument on.

[chaotic neutral observer]

Supply isn't equal to demand, though, and a business can't survive if it makes that assumption.  Produce too much, and you end up with excess inventory, and the prices drop, and cut away your profit margin.  Produce too little, and there's a shortage, which leaves money on the table, and can create an opportunity for potential competitors.  Sometimes, supply is even intentionally reduced to attempt to drive up prices (I think this was the case with oil in the 1980s).

We've been ignoring the fact that the equation can be read the other way:

(-1)Demand = (-1)Supply

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean; it doesn't give me any new information.  Being in a position of negative demand means I have stuff I don't want (and want to sell) which means I'm a supplier.  One could just as easily say:

Supply - Demand = 0 (not that I think this is necessarily correct, either).

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The "Supply-side" of the economic equation isn't really the supplier of anything. They provide a service - namely, the magical transformation of consumers' economic potential (as expressed in currency) into tangible commodities (or services, or experiences, or whatever). It's like collapsing a wave function. A dollar might be anything at all, but nobody knows what exactly until they walk out of the store or click Submit Payment. Sellers are betting on the probability that dollars will transform into their products, and doing what they can to push that probability around.

But the "Demand-side" isn't limited to wanting things, either. They, too, provide the valuable service of exporting economic potential. That potential is what the supply side wants out of the transaction. So there's demand on both sides, and supply on both sides.

Most of the unsusatainability arises because sellers don't want to be buyers. When a company like Apple makes ten billion dollars from selling phones, that money is recycled as little as possible - especially when it comes to any sort of recycling that might move that economic potential back to buyers. That's because at some level, restoring the potential to buyers would seem to eliminate the necessity of the seller in the first place except as the service provider they are -- the buyers would end up with both the phones they wanted and the potential to do it again.

So rather than a cycle of collapsing economic wave functions (I'm calling dollars that from now on, you can't stop me) where the potential to buy things remains exactly where it must be for the system to continue -- with buyers -- we have an artificial restraint on that potential. Buyers end up with a poverty of riches (cell phones, cell phones everywhere, but not a drop to drink), and sellers end up with a bunch of buyers who can't buy anything because they've been sapped of all their potential.

I would posit that this kind of unsustainability will disrupt the system before hard limits on resources and the technology to process them will.

[Doktor Howl]

Keep going.

I don't think you're barking up the right tree, but it is interesting regardless.

[POFP]

So i mean, you do eventually speak of the marketing and manipulation of desire, but I just think it came into play way earlier than the chronology you are basing your argument on.

That's a fair point. We can see obvious evidence of greed and market manipulation much earlier than the Industrial Era. The methods that American Corporatists use to make a profit were definitely inherited, or at least re-implemented using concepts documented by the greedy bastards of Olde.

I guess I would say that the purpose of this text had more to do with establishing contained cause and effect scenarios to explain the Why and How and its relation to addiction, and had much less to do with actual timelines. That being said, I made explicit references to timeline specifics, and should either keep the timelines accurate or express the idea in a different way to maintain consistency and avoid needless confusion or historical falsification.

People like Ian Curtis ("The Century of the Self") have argued that rather Demand was manipulated to stay on the level of the new capacity for massive Supply and production.

Demand =/= Supply in its natural state, it has to be pushed in that direction so that people don't build up savings or investments.

Bad quality of Supply is not dictated by insatiable Demand... it's dictated by Profit and its maximization and how good they can manipulate people to buy garbage.

I would argue that poor quality Supply is tied to both Greed and insatiable Demand - They are not mutually exclusive relationships and I believe they present themselves in the real world frequently. The morally bankrupt use whatever means they can to satisfy their Greed, but the morally lazy or willfully ignorant (Usually created by the morally bankrupt out of necessity.) will simply cut corners to meet the ever-increasing requests of Production-lines in all Industries. And my main argument is that neither practice/relationship is sustainable, and that both are induced by the mentality - That Supply must meet Demand - When the overall goal should be to reduce Demand to limit consumption of Supply.

Supply isn't equal to demand, though, and a business can't survive if it makes that assumption.  Produce too much, and you end up with excess inventory, and the prices drop, and cut away your profit margin.  Produce too little, and there's a shortage, which leaves money on the table, and can create an opportunity for potential competitors.  Sometimes, supply is even intentionally reduced to attempt to drive up prices (I think this was the case with oil in the 1980s).

We've been ignoring the fact that the equation can be read the other way:

(-1)Demand = (-1)Supply

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean; it doesn't give me any new information.  Being in a position of negative demand means I have stuff I don't want (and want to sell) which means I'm a supplier.  One could just as easily say:

Supply - Demand = 0 (not that I think this is necessarily correct, either).

I never said that universally, Supply = Demand. I said that our Economy was designed based on the concept that Supply should intend to meet/fulfill (A constantly moving/growing) Demand - That the goal of the system is Supply = Demand (Maybe a Calculus Limit Expression would be more fitting?). That doesn't mean that every independently operating component of the Economy (Any given business) meets this criteria. It means that the Net direction of the system is to create Demand so it can Supply at a higher markup while resources begin to dwindle.

In regards to the final equation, I'm not completely certain what it means yet, either. I'm not there yet - hence marking that as the temporary stopping point. Although I'd venture to guess I was leading towards the concept of an efficient equilibrium, as opposed to the self-inciting cycle of Greed we find ourselves in. Apologies for the confusion, there.

The "Supply-side" of the economic equation isn't really the supplier of anything. They provide a service - namely, the magical transformation of consumers' economic potential (as expressed in currency) into tangible commodities (or services, or experiences, or whatever). It's like collapsing a wave function. A dollar might be anything at all, but nobody knows what exactly until they walk out of the store or click Submit Payment. Sellers are betting on the probability that dollars will transform into their products, and doing what they can to push that probability around.

But the "Demand-side" isn't limited to wanting things, either. They, too, provide the valuable service of exporting economic potential. That potential is what the supply side wants out of the transaction. So there's demand on both sides, and supply on both sides.

Most of the unsusatainability arises because sellers don't want to be buyers. When a company like Apple makes ten billion dollars from selling phones, that money is recycled as little as possible - especially when it comes to any sort of recycling that might move that economic potential back to buyers. That's because at some level, restoring the potential to buyers would seem to eliminate the necessity of the seller in the first place except as the service provider they are -- the buyers would end up with both the phones they wanted and the potential to do it again.

So rather than a cycle of collapsing economic wave functions (I'm calling dollars that from now on, you can't stop me) where the potential to buy things remains exactly where it must be for the system to continue -- with buyers -- we have an artificial restraint on that potential. Buyers end up with a poverty of riches (cell phones, cell phones everywhere, but not a drop to drink), and sellers end up with a bunch of buyers who can't buy anything because they've been sapped of all their potential.

I would posit that this kind of unsustainability will disrupt the system before hard limits on resources and the technology to process them will.

Your responses never disappoint. This is precisely why I take my brain sludge to PEEDEE for refinement. I knew I was missing a very important piece of the analogy, and I feel like my brain started to touch on it at one point, but I didn't have enough background knowledge to get it into words.

The missing piece, of course, was currency and its role in keeping the Supply side wealthy and the Demand side content with everything in the world that doesn't matter.

I attempted to start a dialog on this topic in my head on my 0 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, but it started to turn into this  , so I'll try to get back to this when I'm more rested.

[Doktor Howl]

The "Supply-side" of the economic equation isn't really the supplier of anything. They provide a service - namely, the magical transformation of consumers' economic potential (as expressed in currency) into tangible commodities (or services, or experiences, or whatever). It's like collapsing a wave function. A dollar might be anything at all, but nobody knows what exactly until they walk out of the store or click Submit Payment. Sellers are betting on the probability that dollars will transform into their products, and doing what they can to push that probability around.

But the "Demand-side" isn't limited to wanting things, either. They, too, provide the valuable service of exporting economic potential. That potential is what the supply side wants out of the transaction. So there's demand on both sides, and supply on both sides.

Most of the unsusatainability arises because sellers don't want to be buyers. When a company like Apple makes ten billion dollars from selling phones, that money is recycled as little as possible - especially when it comes to any sort of recycling that might move that economic potential back to buyers. That's because at some level, restoring the potential to buyers would seem to eliminate the necessity of the seller in the first place except as the service provider they are -- the buyers would end up with both the phones they wanted and the potential to do it again.

So rather than a cycle of collapsing economic wave functions (I'm calling dollars that from now on, you can't stop me) where the potential to buy things remains exactly where it must be for the system to continue -- with buyers -- we have an artificial restraint on that potential. Buyers end up with a poverty of riches (cell phones, cell phones everywhere, but not a drop to drink), and sellers end up with a bunch of buyers who can't buy anything because they've been sapped of all their potential.

I would posit that this kind of unsustainability will disrupt the system before hard limits on resources and the technology to process them will.

Capitalism is only 150 years old.  There hasn't yet been time for the average Joe to see the built in failure mode, mostly because the people who doom the system (billionaires, by today's standards) have been remarkable effective in making sure the vast majority of people don't get it.

Liquidity sumps are an immutable part of capitalism.  As you say, money arrives at these sumps and stops moving (ie, Apple).

So Jeff Bezos wins, and all the wannabe tycoons lose, but still screech out their support for mathematically-guaranteed failure.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Capitalism is only 150 years old.  There hasn't yet been time for the average Joe to see the built in failure mode, mostly because the people who doom the system (billionaires, by today's standards) have been remarkable effective in making sure the vast majority of people don't get it.

Liquidity sumps are an immutable part of capitalism.  As you say, money arrives at these sumps and stops moving (ie, Apple).

So Jeff Bezos wins, and all the wannabe tycoons lose, but still screech out their support for mathematically-guaranteed failure.

The only thing I don't really understand is why those sumps are "immutable". Mechanically, anyway, there should be no problem in just draining these currency caches and redistributing that money to consumers where it can be reused. Nothing about having billions of stagnant dollars in a bank account is necessary for Apple to keep doing its business, right?

Of course, if we did eliminate those sumps, we'd just run into the hard limits on resources and technology and the whole thing falls apart anyway, assuming there's no natural mechanism that prevents it.

[Doktor Howl]

The only thing I don't really understand is why those sumps are "immutable".

Because a corporation is a self-tuning instrument that by definition maximizes profits.  Any corporation with different operating parameters fails.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The only thing I don't really understand is why those sumps are "immutable".

Because a corporation is a self-tuning instrument that by definition maximizes profits.  Any corporation with different operating parameters fails.

Sure. We can't change the nature of corporations. But why not change the nature of bank accounts from "a big hole where money goes to die" to "a pipeline from the top back down to where it's useful"?

[Doktor Howl]

The only thing I don't really understand is why those sumps are "immutable".

Because a corporation is a self-tuning instrument that by definition maximizes profits.  Any corporation with different operating parameters fails.

Sure. We can't change the nature of corporations. But why not change the nature of bank accounts from "a big hole where money goes to die" to "a pipeline from the top back down to where it's useful"?

For the same reason that tax cuts lead to stock buy-backs.

Capitalism is the only economic system that successfully (in the short run) rejects the fact that humans are a cooperative species.  Gathering resources that you don't need, simply for the sake of having them, is not a survival trait, but is still rewarded by capitalism.

[chaotic neutral observer]

Dumb question, but what does money mean when it's not moving?  The point of money is to induce people to do things and/or give you some of their stuff.  If it's not being actively used, what effect does it have?  It doesn't seem the same as piling up food while the neighbors starve, since if money leaves circulation, the money that's left in the system just becomes worth more.

If you're just stockpiling it, isn't that morally neutral?  I mean, aside from the possible deflation caused by reducing the money supply.

(I expect my viewpoint is unrealistically simplistic, I'd just like to know why.)

[Doktor Howl]

Dumb question, but what does money mean when it's not moving?  The point of money is to induce people to do things and/or give you some of their stuff.  If it's not being actively used, what effect does it have?  It doesn't seem the same as piling up food while the neighbors starve, since if money leaves circulation, the money that's left in the system just becomes worth more.

If you're just stockpiling it, isn't that morally neutral?  I mean, aside from the possible deflation caused by reducing the money supply.

(I expect my viewpoint is unrealistically simplistic, I'd just like to know why.)

Money that isn't moving is money that was creating wealth and now is not.  If that's a million or so people stashing money away for retirement, the effect is gradual and tiny and gets lost in the background noise.

However, when you have an entire class of people who are gaining money faster than they could spend it even if they chose to, the effect is large, immediate, and dangerous for the economy.  And economic failures start at the bottom and work their way up.

Lastly, the market doesn't react to shortages, but rather *perceived* shortages.  If we learned tomorrow that Mars's moons were solid gold, the value of gold would plummet, even though we can't get to all that other gold. 

Money owned by billionaires is perceived as still existing.   If the reality mattered, the dollar-prices of goods and services would drop every time another billionaire came into existence.  That has not happened.