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by roenxi 5 days ago
So when you say

> Then we'll just remark "wow, we still need to keep working because the cost of living has really gone up!" and somehow not realize that the only thing in our economy where its inputs have not increased in price -- ever -- is the land beneath our feet. There are no input costs! Yet somehow the prices keep rising.

> Suspicious.

What you're actually doing is just adding generic filler that doesn't say anything? Because it seems like a lot of paragraph was ignoring the idea that monetary inflation isn't captured by anyone and is economically neutral in the long run lol.

EDIT And I'm not even convinced you've checked that rents are up compared to monetary inflation if you're using adjusted prices. Assuming we're talking about the US, if I pick out a reasonable-looking series for rent [0] and compare it to the M2 [1] from 1970 the two are close enough to keeping pace. Land rents are actually going up slower. What data are you working with here?

> Like every single productivity improvement before it...

On an aside, this is obviously wrong. It is clear we've all captured some of the benefits of past productivity improvements, life is pretty luxurious today compared to what our ancestors lived with. That couldn't be done without capturing some of the productivity gains.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ASRLRRA027N

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

1 comments

Wait why didn’t you excerpt the next few words in that second citation? Is it because you’d find the phrase “the bulk of,” which is clearly not “all of?”

I get the sense you don’t even know what you’re arguing.

Me: the bulk of the gains are captured by land rents

You: some of the gains are not!

Me: yes… that is why I said “the bulk of” and not “all of”

Lmao