What a depressing read. I wonder if we'll be able to collectively shift away from these models and move back to localism. Sometimes I hope that the "America First" rhetoric ends up pushing people...
What a depressing read. I wonder if we'll be able to collectively shift away from these models and move back to localism. Sometimes I hope that the "America First" rhetoric ends up pushing people this way. I know that isn't what that slogan is all about, and I abhor it, but to me it signifies that people are looking to have their dollars stay in their community. I recognize there is a chasm between what people say they want and the actual economics of putting their money where their mouth is, but I do wonder if we'll get to the point where there is a flip.
I was talking about this with a few friends yesterday. One had gotten laid off and we were talking about what we would do if we could do anything. Big dreams kind of conversation. One of our friends mentioned the local surf shop she grew up with. It had been a community haven - like many of the skate shops from the article - and all of her friends and siblings had at least a short stint working at the store. She used to go there after school to meet up with friends and watch surf videos. She met many of the folks in her community there and it ended up being the physical hub of the local surf community. It went out of business 8 years ago and the competing shop - which we begrudgingly visit when we need wetsuit repair equipment or a other small requirements - feels about as sterile as a CVS. She said if she could do anything it would be to create another local hub like that. A place for people to congregate, to build the culture, and to feel at home.
That really resonated with me. From 15-22 I really wanted to open a skate shop. I always wanted to call it "the fruit shop" and arrange all the boards, wheels, trucks, etc like the produce section of a grocery store. The whole idea was never to make a bunch of money, but to make a fun place, with a goofy atmosphere to get to hang out with friends, put on fun events for the community, and jam out on what we loved. People used to be able to do things like that. Matty Matheson talks about his early journey and the spaces he was able to create. They sound incredible. And this is where I think capitalism fucks us, or at least the hypercapitalism we live under.
The product, the space, the service is no longer the goal. Money is. It doesn't matter if you want it to be the goal because we live in a society that requires it. The rents are unbelievably expensive, so right off the back you need to turn the screws on your customers to survive. Corporate versions will undercut local stores with their deep pockets and diversified assets. There are no more $2 beers. There are no more lunches on credit. Everything is too expensive to become a "local". I'm being hyperbolic, but it feels like the drive for maximum profitability has absolutely fucked community building.
That really resonated with me. From 15-22 I really wanted to open a skate shop. I always wanted to call it "the fruit shop" and arrange all the boards, wheels, trucks, etc like the produce section of a grocery store.
I've recently started to question why things like this are so prevalent during my lifetime. Which is hard in the same way it's hard for a fish to see the water it's swimming in. My best theory:...
I've recently started to question why things like this are so prevalent during my lifetime. Which is hard in the same way it's hard for a fish to see the water it's swimming in.
My best theory:
For whatever reason, CEOs and investors have become the same person. And before the mid 80s they typically weren't.
So CEOs were not directly incentivised to raise the stock price, and tended to be more emotionally connected to the actual good/service they sold.
In the book: The Utopia of Rules, David Graeber traces this back to leaving the gold standard. But I couldn't follow the reasoning. If anyone has any ideas why I'd love to hear.
I think there are several reasons beyond what you have stated. Market saturation and the need for infinite growth. It is getting harder to expand for some of these larger companies to continue...
I think there are several reasons beyond what you have stated.
Market saturation and the need for infinite growth. It is getting harder to expand for some of these larger companies to continue growing, so instead they have to raise prices/cut costs to have an increase in growth.
CEOs are not responsible for living conditions of employees, and in fact are more removed than in the past. I heard once that in the feudal era, amongst lords it was viewed poorly if the serfs were doing poorly in your area, and reflected poorly on you as a lord. However, with CEOs (which could be argued are the modern lords) it does not reflect on you poorly amongst your peers if your employees are on social security.
Trickle down economics has lead to an increase in hoarding rather than reinvesting. When the US was booming with high investment in projects like infrastructure and there was a strong middle class, there was higher tax rates for upper class. However, with trickle down economics the elite are not incentivized to reinvest, and instead can just keep it for themselves
Was the market not always saturated? Has society (and hence CEOs) become more immoral? I feel like arguments like this hinge on history being a simpler time with nicer people in it. Which...
Was the market not always saturated?
Has society (and hence CEOs) become more immoral?
I feel like arguments like this hinge on history being a simpler time with nicer people in it. Which personally believe is wrong, and also quite depressing.
We've had capitalism for a long time now, and also the time I'm comparing against here isn't that long ago. Maybe the 1970s.
I agree that US deregulation likely has a major part to play. Along with the deindustrialisation and financialisation of the economy.
I feel like you could argue in the past, companies could expand to new communities/countries. However, now with a global market and some companies being the de facto choice in places (i.e....
Was the market not always saturated?
I feel like you could argue in the past, companies could expand to new communities/countries. However, now with a global market and some companies being the de facto choice in places (i.e. Walmart), there isn't many more customers they can reach as they are already reaching most. However, in the 70s, Walmart was still getting established and therefore had new communities that they could open stores in.
Has society (and hence CEOs) become more immoral?
I feel like also with the growing global market, there is more distance between CEOs and grunts. With smaller companies, there was less social distance between CEOs and grunts, and also a stronger middle class. I feel like my argument here intuitively makes sense, but I have nothing to back it up.
I feel like arguments like this hinge on history being a simpler time with nicer people in it. Which personally believe is wrong, and also quite depressing.
Yeah, I agree that there are some weak points in my analysis, and this is a fair critique.
The gold standard? I mean.. maybe? Sounds interesting but I don't know the argument well enough to dispute that. I'd argue that Jack Welch is important in the story of raise stock price at all...
The gold standard? I mean.. maybe? Sounds interesting but I don't know the argument well enough to dispute that.
I'd argue that Jack Welch is important in the story of raise stock price at all costs and the enormous bloat of CEO compensation packages.
To his chagrin, he managed to get GE reclassified as a finance company rather than an electrical appliance company because of the amount of diversification shenanigans he pulled.
The title of the following book speaks volumes: The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy by David Gelles.
The vast majority of people who argue for a return to the gold standard are weird crackpots (or fans thereof parroting them), so I'd take it with a pretty big grain of salt.
The vast majority of people who argue for a return to the gold standard are weird crackpots (or fans thereof parroting them), so I'd take it with a pretty big grain of salt.
I think the biggest reason is 'gravity' ("why'd the bridge fall down?"). By that I mean that instead of having a positive cause, it has a cessation of an anti-cause. Or realistically, multiple of...
I think the biggest reason is 'gravity' ("why'd the bridge fall down?"). By that I mean that instead of having a positive cause, it has a cessation of an anti-cause. Or realistically, multiple of them.
I suspect that finance and a change in business norms (and corporate raiding, if that's not included in the category already) has made it easier to buy out a real brand and enshittify it on a large enough scale that the value of brand loyalty itself has reduced, which has triggered a market for lemons on the consumer market.
I think it's become increasingly easy to rip off a brand online and then cannibalise the original market on Amazon, to the point where investing in quality brand is less worthwhile in the first place.
I think the flood of billionaire capital has run out of progress-generating assets to buy and has to sate itself with increasingly skeevy options, which materializes as buying perfectly functioning low-profit stores and forcing them to pretend they're high-profit by killing their gooses that lay their golden eggs.
Wow, can't wait to read this tonight although it will likely be a pretty sad read. However, I recently listened to this interesting talk between Chad Muska and Tony Hawk regarding the current...
Wow, can't wait to read this tonight although it will likely be a pretty sad read.
However, I recently listened to this interesting talk between Chad Muska and Tony Hawk regarding the current state and trends of skateboarding.
FTFY:
Private equity funds like these are a scourge and should be abolished.
What a depressing read. I wonder if we'll be able to collectively shift away from these models and move back to localism. Sometimes I hope that the "America First" rhetoric ends up pushing people this way. I know that isn't what that slogan is all about, and I abhor it, but to me it signifies that people are looking to have their dollars stay in their community. I recognize there is a chasm between what people say they want and the actual economics of putting their money where their mouth is, but I do wonder if we'll get to the point where there is a flip.
I was talking about this with a few friends yesterday. One had gotten laid off and we were talking about what we would do if we could do anything. Big dreams kind of conversation. One of our friends mentioned the local surf shop she grew up with. It had been a community haven - like many of the skate shops from the article - and all of her friends and siblings had at least a short stint working at the store. She used to go there after school to meet up with friends and watch surf videos. She met many of the folks in her community there and it ended up being the physical hub of the local surf community. It went out of business 8 years ago and the competing shop - which we begrudgingly visit when we need wetsuit repair equipment or a other small requirements - feels about as sterile as a CVS. She said if she could do anything it would be to create another local hub like that. A place for people to congregate, to build the culture, and to feel at home.
That really resonated with me. From 15-22 I really wanted to open a skate shop. I always wanted to call it "the fruit shop" and arrange all the boards, wheels, trucks, etc like the produce section of a grocery store. The whole idea was never to make a bunch of money, but to make a fun place, with a goofy atmosphere to get to hang out with friends, put on fun events for the community, and jam out on what we loved. People used to be able to do things like that. Matty Matheson talks about his early journey and the spaces he was able to create. They sound incredible. And this is where I think capitalism fucks us, or at least the hypercapitalism we live under.
The product, the space, the service is no longer the goal. Money is. It doesn't matter if you want it to be the goal because we live in a society that requires it. The rents are unbelievably expensive, so right off the back you need to turn the screws on your customers to survive. Corporate versions will undercut local stores with their deep pockets and diversified assets. There are no more $2 beers. There are no more lunches on credit. Everything is too expensive to become a "local". I'm being hyperbolic, but it feels like the drive for maximum profitability has absolutely fucked community building.
...are you married?I've recently started to question why things like this are so prevalent during my lifetime. Which is hard in the same way it's hard for a fish to see the water it's swimming in.
My best theory:
For whatever reason, CEOs and investors have become the same person. And before the mid 80s they typically weren't.
So CEOs were not directly incentivised to raise the stock price, and tended to be more emotionally connected to the actual good/service they sold.
source
In the book: The Utopia of Rules, David Graeber traces this back to leaving the gold standard. But I couldn't follow the reasoning. If anyone has any ideas why I'd love to hear.
I think there are several reasons beyond what you have stated.
Was the market not always saturated?
Has society (and hence CEOs) become more immoral?
I feel like arguments like this hinge on history being a simpler time with nicer people in it. Which personally believe is wrong, and also quite depressing.
We've had capitalism for a long time now, and also the time I'm comparing against here isn't that long ago. Maybe the 1970s.
I agree that US deregulation likely has a major part to play. Along with the deindustrialisation and financialisation of the economy.
I feel like you could argue in the past, companies could expand to new communities/countries. However, now with a global market and some companies being the de facto choice in places (i.e. Walmart), there isn't many more customers they can reach as they are already reaching most. However, in the 70s, Walmart was still getting established and therefore had new communities that they could open stores in.
I feel like also with the growing global market, there is more distance between CEOs and grunts. With smaller companies, there was less social distance between CEOs and grunts, and also a stronger middle class. I feel like my argument here intuitively makes sense, but I have nothing to back it up.
Yeah, I agree that there are some weak points in my analysis, and this is a fair critique.
The gold standard? I mean.. maybe? Sounds interesting but I don't know the argument well enough to dispute that.
I'd argue that Jack Welch is important in the story of raise stock price at all costs and the enormous bloat of CEO compensation packages.
To his chagrin, he managed to get GE reclassified as a finance company rather than an electrical appliance company because of the amount of diversification shenanigans he pulled.
The title of the following book speaks volumes: The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America―and How to Undo His Legacy by David Gelles.
The vast majority of people who argue for a return to the gold standard are weird crackpots (or fans thereof parroting them), so I'd take it with a pretty big grain of salt.
I think the biggest reason is 'gravity' ("why'd the bridge fall down?"). By that I mean that instead of having a positive cause, it has a cessation of an anti-cause. Or realistically, multiple of them.
I suspect that finance and a change in business norms (and corporate raiding, if that's not included in the category already) has made it easier to buy out a real brand and enshittify it on a large enough scale that the value of brand loyalty itself has reduced, which has triggered a market for lemons on the consumer market.
I think it's become increasingly easy to rip off a brand online and then cannibalise the original market on Amazon, to the point where investing in quality brand is less worthwhile in the first place.
I think the flood of billionaire capital has run out of progress-generating assets to buy and has to sate itself with increasingly skeevy options, which materializes as buying perfectly functioning low-profit stores and forcing them to pretend they're high-profit by killing their gooses that lay their golden eggs.
Wow, can't wait to read this tonight although it will likely be a pretty sad read.
However, I recently listened to this interesting talk between Chad Muska and Tony Hawk regarding the current state and trends of skateboarding.
https://youtu.be/qc1floDCEsg?si=wt_EYeuLXYop7bA8&t=2764