Counterfeit goods are clearly bad and a problem, but knockoffs that aren't counterfeit seem to be a good thing from an economics perspective, right?
A knockoff that isn't counterfeit isn't deceiving customers -- it is just competing and competition drives benefits to consumers.
There are many knockoff goods that reach comparable quality as the original, luxury good. We shouldn't support the idea of brands for their own sake. Today, many luxury brands are actually degrading in quality as the only thing customers are buying them for is the status signal more than the actual quality.
What is critical is a customer is informed about the trade offs between the goods to make an informed decision.
When I recently was buying camera gear, I bought some of the peak design bags and accessories (which are amazing). I then also bought some knockoff gear that is compatible with their system.
Real:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F94FQRB $29.95
Knockoff: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FYCB594Y $5.01
I knew what I was buying in both cases. I wouldn't trust the knockoff clips to hold my $3K Canon, but I am ok with the knockoff clips to hold an old, light film camera I also brought on the trip. I made an informed decision and my choice also helped contribute to competition between vendors, which is good for the market as a whole and consumers broadly.
If everyone used these chrome extensions, economic theory predicts that prices would rise for consumers and quality of the original brands would degrade through reduced competitive pressure.
What could be more informative for consumers that simply eliminating knockoffs from their search results would be to increase information. Maybe adding a visible indicator of which company is the established or originator of the design and which are knockoffs would be better than simply filtering them out.
> "The idea that inflation and the money supply are linked is one of the most dumb one in folk economics"
"folk economics" implies it is by untrained people.
Milton Friedman's famous quote of "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" shows that he deeply believed the relationship between inflation and money supply, and one certainly cannot call Friedman a "folk economist" considering he won the Nobel prize in economics and was a professor at the University of Chicago.
Note: I am not saying he is right or supporting his belief. I am merely stating that such a belief is not a "folk economics" belief. This belief is still very prevalent in the freshwater schools of economics. [1]
As a personal anecdote, at Ronald Coase's 100th birthday party, I personally got Gary Becker and Richard Posner debating a very related topic (whether and by what degree the velocity of money of fluctuates and whether helicopter drops of cash would have been better during the early days of the money supply collapse in 2008/2009 than just giving money to the banks). In a room full of Nobel Prize winning economists in 2010, there was a very rigorous debate on the topic.
No one owns a nonprofit, so your analogy is fundamentally incorrect and based on a misunderstanding of how nonprofits work.
It is actually extremely important that no one “owns” a nonprofit in the way shareholders own a corporation. A nonprofit has no equity owners. It has directors/officers with fiduciary duties, and its assets must be used consistently with its charitable/public-benefit purpose.
But to be clear, that is in no way equivalent, even metaphorically, to it being "owned by the public".
“Public benefit” does not mean “whatever the median taxpayer would vote for” or “whatever the government currently approves of.” It includes many causes supported by small, unpopular, eccentric, religious, ideological, scientific, or advocacy-oriented communities, so long as the organization fits within an exempt purpose and does not operate for impermissible private benefit.
simple examples can easily elucidate this. One can found a nonprofit for a purpose that society generally disagree with. For instance:
- a nonprofit to advocate for the rights of hemorrhagic fevers as living organisms
- nonprofit museum devoted to preserving a deeply unpopular ideology’s historical artifacts
- a nonprofit to educate the public about an eccentric scientific theory
- a nonprofit advocating for legal recognition of some fringe moral concern
All of these could be legitimate nonprofits under the law, even though we may deeply disagree with them. This is by design.
There is a reason standing exists. We don't want a society where anyone can litigate the ill-defined "important questions of society" at will.
I agree with you that this is an important question.
I disagree with you that, "Musk is as good as a vehicle as anyone else because he is bringing to the court a real-life problem that needs to be decided"
Standing is itself a very important and critical concept. If anyone could sue over any “important” public issue without standing, courts would be asked to referee disputes that are normally handled by elections, legislation, agency rulemaking, oversight hearings, and public debate. We don't want the courts to be such arbiters of so many matters and want their purview to be more narrow by design.
To do this properly, no one should know the store is AI run. There is a novelty component of it being an AI run store that will drive consumer demand and increase publicity.
Not even the normal store employees should know (which would be difficult) or maybe the human manager should be held to an NDA to not disclose it (and the manager also defers to the AI in all such real management decisions).
I agree. This involved should be investigated and prosecuted.
Just a pedantic, nit pick: you said "should be removed from civil society" but I think you just mean "removed from society" as in prosecuted and imprisoned.
> There's a reason that "Rods from God" didn't pan out, and it has to do with orbital dynamics. Neither Bezos nor Musk can do it, because it actually doesn't work.
>From my understanding on this issue, spouses of US citizens are handed a green card after paperwork is shuffled, there is no pursuing it.
This is incorrect. You do need to pursue it. Just because your friends did pursue it once they were able to, doesn't mean it is automatic. One needs to decide if they want to get their green card or not once they are married to a US citizen.
Yes, I am 100% certain of what I said. These individuals have had valid visas in the US and been here for 10-20 years and intentionally have never become green card holders.
One was on a student visa for undergrad and then a student visa for masters for 6 years total (4 for undergrad and 2 for masters), then on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the World Bank for 5 years, then back to a student visa for 5 years pursuing a PhD, then back to a G4 Diplomatic visa for 6 years while working at the World Bank. This person married an American about 10 years ago and still never pursued a green card out of choice.
Another was on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the IDB for 3 years, then a student visa for 5 years while pursuing a PhD, then a visa while working at the Federal Reserve for a number of years (not sure of which, but either H1B or J1), and then on a G4 diplomatic visa while working at the IMF.
Of course, these are not your typical situations for the average immigrant. Admittedly, I live in a bit of a bubble surrounded by economists in Washington DC from the World Bank, IMF, IDB, etc who are mostly on G4 diplomatic visas.
My point is it is still possible and one shouldn't presume.
> The article is extremely light on details but fact he doesn't have a Green Card/Lawful Permanent Resident yet would indicate that at some point of his time in United States, he was illegally present, probably for a while.
That is absolutely false. I know many people who have lived legally in the USA for many many years with valid visas and have intentionally never pursued a green card. Two people come to mind including one who has over 20 years the US on valid visas -- she intentionally never pursued the green card despite both (a) being married to an American and (b) being legally able to get the green card.
Some of them are now pursuing green cards only because of federal government's immigration enforcement not only going after illegal immigrants or criminals but clearly and intentionally pursing immigrants in general -- even those who are legal and without any criminal history.
How does it actually work? Can you add an "about" page that goes into the algo? Or can you add more info on the readme on github? I'd love to learn more.
The first identified tools were 3.3 million years ago, which is before the homo genus emerges. Thus, those were either by Australopithecus afarensis or by a yet unidentified hominid species -- they were still very likely our ancestors (but technically TBD).
Then around 2-2.5 million years ago you get the first homo species in the genus homo such as Homo habilis and they created the Oldowan tool culture.
Both Australopithecus afarensis and Homo habilis are our ancestors -- however they are also the ancestors of other homo lines that diverged from us that we are not descendents of (which are now extinct).
People often forget how widespread and varied the Homo genus was before all our cousin species went extinct (likely in part due to us).[1] Homo erectus colonized the entire old world very effectively 1.5 million years ago!
Co-founder and Board Member at the Center for New Data (newdata.org), an institutional donor backed data for democracy non-profit.
Software Engineer, Data Scientist, and former Director of Engineering at Fair Financial
Python lover but general polyglot.
Economist, Nerd, Futurist, Maroon/UChicago Alum.
Washington, DC
ryan.j.naughton [AT] gmail