#economic dynamism

[alwaysbewoke]

[serial-port]

I believe there are often very significant costs associated with being honest and open in the present moment.

[welcometoteyvat]

as a chinese person yall need to stop blaming the ccp for everything (read: hoyo is capable of making colorist design decisions and not everything is a result of censorship pls)

[eaglesnick]

“You know you’re priced right when your customers complain—but buy anyway.” — John Harrison

Dynamic pricing is not new but it has not been widespread up until recently.

We all know about train fares being more expensive during peak times and parents know that holidays cost more during school breaks than at any other time of the year. Airline tickets are subject to dynamic pricing and there was a trend towards off-peak electricity tariffs at one time. This summer we saw tickets for Oasis concerts subject to dynamic pricing, resulting in massive spikes in the cost of a ticket.

Dynamic pricing is when a company changes their pricing to match demand and supply. Hence train journeys are more expensive during the rush hour than in the middle of the day when demand is lower. Holidays are more expensive during school breaks because demand is higher from families with children.

Few of us like this traditional method of dynamic pricing but we have accepted it as part of our way of life. The old fashioned dynamic pricing model was fairly unsophisticated and based on the time of day in the case of rail and airline tickets and specific weeks and months of the year in the case of holidays.

This is no longer the case. Artificial Intelligence allows companies to literally change prices in line with changes in demand every second if they so want. Some of the companies using AI to set prices are Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Tesco, Ocado and Sky. Amazon is said to reset prices every ten minutes.

The days of “fixed pricing" are fast disappearing. Long gone are the days when a company added up all of its production costs to work out the cost per unit and then added a little bit more in order to make a profit. This was basically what is known as the objective or labour theory of value. This has been supplanted by the "subjective theory of value" (STV).

According to the subjective theory of value a products worth (price) is not determined by how much it costs to produce but by how much people are willing to pay for that good at any given moment. At its worst this means that ALL goods and services should be sold for maximum monetary return regardless of the cost of production. No wonder supporters of neo-liberal economics favour STV.

At one level this doesn’t really matter. Oasis concert tickets may have doubled in original price due to dynamic pricing but not being able to afford a concert ticket is not a matter of life or death. It is however, symptomatic of a growing social problem.

The assumption of neo-liberal economists and their support of STV pricing is that individual choice is paramount in all economic transactions. For the neo-liberal societal values do not exist, there is only individual choice. Mrs Thatcher, the woman who championed neo-liberal economics in the UK, famously said: “There’s no such thing as society”. Many Tory's still believe this to be true but they are demonstratively mistaken.

During Covid we all stood at our doors every Thursday night clapping and banging pots to applaud the bravery of our dedicated health professionals. Yes, we did this as individuals but also as a society. When the England football team were progressing through the stages of the European cup we watched each game as individuals but also as a nation. The same is true of the recent Olympic and Paralympic games.

Ironically, some of our most ardent neo-liberal Tory MP’s have been recently admonishing us for not being proud of our English identity. Robert Jenrick, a contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party said yesterday that English identity had “started to fray” due to mass immigration and public institutions “dismissing our history”.

Sorry, the neo-liberals cannot have it both ways. Either there is an entity called English society, with its own history and set of values, or we are just individuals all acting according to our own individual needs. The fact that latter view is obviously mistaken does not deter the advocates of dynamic pricing. For them the goal is maximisation of profit regardless of social cost.

A thousand reasons why dynamic pricing is good for the consumer will be rolled out as more and more companies adopt this system of pricing, but the bottom line will always be making more profit. And in a system where pricing is determined by what price the individual is willing to pay rather than the actual cost of production, in the end it is only the rich who benefit.

South West Water has recently introduced the cruder form of dynamic pricing to their customers. They will be charging more for water use in summer than in winter. Consumers were given no choice about this and they have yet to be told what the charges will be. This “trial" will last for 2 years.

This is the spin:

“These pioneering trials are designed to make sure that water bills are fairer and more reflective of individual consumption patterns and are part of our wider commitment to making customer-first decisions in everything we do.” (CornwallLive:19/09/24)

Note the emphasis on “individual consumption". To my mind water is a public good, a societal necessity. As such I want to see pricing evened out over the whole community. Under dynamic pricing  the rich can consume as much water as they like because they can afford to pay, while the poorer members of society will have to suddenly become use conscious. While the rich fill their swimming pools and have the lawn sprinklers on day and night, the poor will have to think twice about how often the toilet is flushed, how often the washing machine is used and can they afford to shower everyday. The poor pensioner will be calculating whether or not they have enough money to water their beloved garden.

Ok, my pensioner being unable to afford to water the garden is a hypothetical scenario. The cost of music venue tickets isn’t, neither are the prices you pay for an Uber, a holiday let from Airbnb, the food you buy from Tesco or Ocado. Even the price of a pint is now affected by dynamic pricing.

“A campaign group representing pubgoers has criticised the move by Stonegate, Britain’s largest pub company, to raise the price of pints during its busiest trading hours in some of its venues by 20p..."  Financial Times: 12/09/24)

If the price of a British pint of beer is now subject to dynamic pricing then nothing is sacred!

More seriously, when the market economy becomes the market society, when those in power promote the value of maximising profit for the few at the expense of the happiness and well being of the many, then, as a society, we lose all sense of humanity, morality and common decency.

There has been much theoretical discussion of late about the threat of Artificial Intelligence to humanity. I would argue that maybe we should be more concerned about those  humans using AI to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us.

[ahli-stuff]

*Sweating throwing up nauseous dizzy*

What if vox is Asian American

[economicsresearch]

page 564 panel a - oh dear, a deer. Two deer.

You know that feeling of starting awake in a dungeon, cold wet stone stabbing into your back, your neck so stiff you wonder if you'll ever lift your head again, the space so dark you wonder if you've lifted your head even now, and blasting through your brain like a spear thrust of fire -- I AM NOT TRYING TO EAT THE ASS OF ALL HUMAN HISTORY.

I must have been thinking about AI again, like all the entombed dungeon dwellers of old; the Duke of Rothesay, the Count of Monte Cristo, Anne Boleyn.

[glasscandywitch]

gankutsuou + incest as the meaning of the gothic novel - ruth perry

[girderednerve]

okay i read a fanfiction which i liked a great deal that is set in an alternate version of the age of sail/napoleonic wars which for fanfiction reasons has black people & women hold office in the british military; this is a nonsense contrivance, but it's a fanfiction, so one can sort of take it as it is & not think about it too hard, EXCEPT, unfortunately for me, there is a brief aside in an author's note that's like 'this character refers to saint domingue because the news was slow, but haiti had been renamed about two months before.' okay king! why was haiti renamed, huh? if we're living in this fun timeline where we've done away with racism? did france just like, in a show of revolutionary spirit, hand over the island to jan-jak dessalines? huh? if they're doing that, does that make our heroes the baddies in this war? and obviously we are not supposed to be thinking about that, because we are supposed to think 'i love love and read the aubreyad at an impressionable age, yay gay sex on a boat,' but they brought it up so it's not my fault! it's not my fault :(

[theroundbartable]

Me: positive responses to my school work? The hell?

Teacher: well, yeah, you did good-

Me: but this- I! Did this!

Teacher: yes. Well done

Me: holy shite! I did good? What if I do another task?

Teacher: awesome!!!!

Me:

I present to you: the mind boggling concept of getting praised for your accomplishments rather than punished for your mistakes.

I've been living off this experience for over 6 months.

[witchofthesouls]

Ayoooooo, Primeval Anon here, to respond to your response (don't worry too much about how long you took to answer, it was worth the wait)!

Omfg, you had me hooked in when you mentioned Bloodborne-influenced lore. I love the hell out of Bloodborne, and just in general From Software's Dark Fantasy settings. And I love that premise. It definitely fits in with the Quintessons clearly aquatically-influenced nature.

I also enjoy the idea of the Primes balancing each other out with their different natures. As well as the idea that the Quintessons kinda... cannibalized him... fucking gnarly lol.

Just imagine, post-occupation, there's these series skirmishes, perhaps even smaller-scale wars, between the og Prime worshipping groups and the the emerging sects of Quintesson-influenced cultists. Something like

Priest from Kaon: For it is said that in his wisdom, Megatronus- Priest from [SETTLEMENT NAME REDACTED]: You mean Mortilus? Priest from Kaon: :| *The settlement of [NAME REDACTED] was procedurally, systematically decimated in their war with the Kaonites*

Now, I don't know about other continuities they've featured in, like Aligned, but in G1 they definitely had some sort of caste system. Only ranking I can immediately think of are the "Judges", which would be the ones people generally think of when it comes to the Quintessons, there were a few other variants if I'm remembering it right. There was a video that I saw that talked about this, I'll have to go and re-watch it.

Anyways yeah, maybe the castes are made up of different sub-species within the Quintessons genus? And then under them come the Sharkticons and Allicons (Those weird croc-like dudes who nab Kup and Hotrod after they end up on Quintessa). Maybe they were at one point Cybertronian Wilders who were abducted by the Quintessons during the occupation and, through a mix of selective breeding and genetic modification, were able to turn them in their own obedient, self-replenishing army, that whenever the Quintessons aren't enacting some campaign of destruction or conquest, just kinda vibe in the oceans of Quintessa alongside the local fauna of the planet.

Y'know... now that I think about it, since the Quintessons would clearly inherit Quintus' unhinged daydreamer work ethic, do you think they'd also fuck with the wildlife of their homeworld, perhaps even the planet itself??? Gods, I hate how the Quintessons are so underdeveloped because they exist in the same universe as the Transformers.

Yeah, I'm really disappointed how the Quintessons as a whole are really underutilized as characters and background lore.

I mean, the shit is right there!

Me, if given the chance to sit down with a new Transformers team to talk about leveraging the connection between Cybertron, Earth, and Quintessa with supernatural elements:

Personally, I'm more of the "Quintessons fucked with their own planet" camp. Don't get me wrong, the Quintessons had established a massive empire to command resources, including bodies, but the Allicons and Sharkticons seem to be directly from Quintessa. Both fit the aquatic theme going on. Plus, sharks are natural predators of cephalopods and attack injured or sick whales (another predator of squids). While alligators don't usually eat cephalopods, they are an apex predator that does go on land and will eat just about anything. Soooo, easy clean up as well as population control on campaign?

I totally believe it's within character for the highest castes of Quintessons to be cyborgs/techno-organic instead of full mechanoid because of certain kinds of resistances and the way they control their fully mechanical populations. And they would totally be in genetic modification, selective breeding, and terraforming as a whole because 1) absolute control, 2) meshes Quintus' own special interests with the Quintessons' military and economic might, and 3) sustainability, what's that!?

The last point is the kicker because it's what really cements their own origins via Quintus Prime. That particular Prime truly believed that life should flourish at all costs. The problem? Environments can only support so much before nature sets up its own checks and balances, or the entire thing ends up collapsing.

Well, Quintus bypassed nature's complex and fragile systems and would have shown his organic creations how to overcome their own limitations: biological, physical, and environmental. He's like the guy that would successfully crossbreed potato and kudzu because the resulting crop would feed millions upon millions... at the astronomical cost of arable land, soil health, decline of biodiversity, and property management due to accumulated damages.

Quintus doesn't worry about that because it's part of the process! He's collecting data for future reference and starts working on fertilizers to support the crossbreeds immense nutritional demands, animal husbandry so herbivores can chomp down on the remains, and construction materials/architectural designs resistant to plant growth damage.

Quintus, you crazy scientist of a dreamer, that's not the fucking point!

So yeah, because Quintus didn't have his siblings to kick his ass about sustainable measures (because everything from medicinal to food to construction had to come some somewhere), Quintessa got overharvested or destroyed. Because of the immense deprivation, Quintessons went colonial on their planetary neighbors. Because they succeeded with their neighbors and never thought to change their way of life because of yummy resources, they went on campaign into distant systems where they cut their teeth against mechanical species and subjugated them.

And because the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie pattern would take way too long to get to my point: the Quintessons literally built their way to conquered Cybertron, fuck that planet and its indigenous people and fauna over in the spectacular fashion they did to Quintessa, got kicked off as their empire almost collapsed, but literally had a direct hand to the civil war between Autobots and Decepticons that lead to the final stand off on Earth.

(Funny enough, the civil war was on a scale so massive that it encompassed galaxies and disrupted the current rendition of the Quintesson Pan Galactic Co-Prosperity Sphere. They literally built the greatest threats to their own empires. Who would have thought?!)

Religious tensions after the Quintessons been kicked off would have been an interesting direction to explore. Even life during the occupation as the Thirteen would have been symbols of rebellion versus the Quintessons' rabid methods to obfuscate their own origins as well as tactics to break the cultural roots and ties of new subjugated planets.

Because old names become illegal, new epitaphs or names are given to undermine the regime and eventually become the new cultural practice. Then, there's the cultural blend between the natives and the colonial powers as well as the generations purposely raised in a certain cultural mindset. Since the Quintessons took control of the Well, it's a safe bet that they also took control of the institutional pillars of the society: religion, science, and law.

Primes are still titanic figures on post-occupation Cybertron, so perhaps Quintessons had only limited success in destroying mythic tales and religious traditions. Because the newer generations took on the Quintessons' distaste towards beasts and untouched nature as well as kept Quintessons' way of social hierarchy that they knew.

Quintessons emphasized function as Cybertronians (and other mechanoids) are machines compared to them. All machines have certain functions, no? Some machines are meant for certain roles, no? Machines are only capable as much as programmed, but Quintessons are far more advanced because they overcame their limitations with their own creative endeavors!

Quintessons basically treated Cybertronians as living appliances, gadgets, and animals. To them, a Cybertronian was a more fun and dynamic Siri or Alexa than a real person. Sure, a Quint could bond and form an emotional attachment, but it's still not truly 'alive.' And they codified that into their own laws.

Basically, Quintessons would have been okay with Prima and his Guiding Hand. They would have propped up his specific actions on how civilization should be (cement more tensions between city-states and Wilder tribes and unregulated environmental policies), switch up or change key mythology (Prima and Megatronus being split-spark twins that rule together into Prima being the sole Sun and Megatronus becoming a late brother that became the Great Evil that became jealous of the Sun and destroyed Life.), and straight up destroyed or damaged historic and culturally significant items and practices that deem it otherwise (the Well of Allsparks; removing the golden horns of fully-trained doctors that pay tribute to Liege Maximo's ties to medicine; the removal of various sigils of specific Primes and associated groupings, Onyx's Mask removed from stages as it functioned as Comedy and Tragedy masks).

[carlocarrasco]

Philippines 3rd quarter economic growth settles at 5.2%

Recently it was announced that the economy of the Philippines expanded by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter of 2024, according to a Philippine News Agency (PNA) news article. To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the PNA news article. Some parts in boldface… The Philippines remains one of the fastest growing economies in the region despite the slowdown in the third quarter of the…

[alwaysbewoke]

[divinekangaroo]

falling - pettiot - Peaky Blinders (TV) [Archive of Our Own]

PART ONE - DAY ONE

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9

PART TWO - MONTH ONE (Or Maybe Month Two, Or Three)

Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14 | Ch 15 | Ch 16 | Ch 17 | Ch 18

PART THREE - A YEAR (Or So)

Ch 19 | Ch 20 | Ch 21 | Ch 22 | Ch 23 | Ch 24 | ??

A Modern AU take on Tommy's immediate return from military service, and the period between his demobilisation and the start of S1.

(Tags shall be progressively updated)

.

Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark, Tommy Shelby/Freddie Thorne, Arthur Shelby, Polly Grey, Ada Shelby, John Shelby, Johnny Dogs, Various Lees, John Shelby's Children, Zhang, S1E1 Red Dust Girl, Sergeant Moss | Alternative Universe, Modern AU (ish), No iPhones (yet), Awkwardness, Age Difference, Disassociation, Miscommunication, Banter, Fast Food Vendor of your Choice, Pre-Season, Past Trauma, Flirting, Have I Met You Before, Heckling, Cars, Drug Use, Past Childhood Trauma, Mrs Shelby Lives, Gender Role Dynamics, Small Neighbourhoods, Past Greta Jurossi, Brotherly Dynamics, Sibling Dynamics, Class Issues, Attraction, Casual Sex, Car Sex, Military Transition Program, Wilful Medical Noncompliance, Melodrama, Illegal Bookmaking, 90s Fashion, 2000s Fashion, Slow Reveal, Slow Burn, Coming Home, Dysfunctional Family, Lasting Legacy of Catholicism, Bad SMS Etiquette, Gang Activity, Domesticity, Booty Call, Guilt, Shame, So Much Marijuana, Arms Dealing, Crimes & Criminals, Ill Informed Economic Theorising, Wanking, Ethnicity, Stereotyping

.

[hella1975]

there's a very specific kind of vibe that comes with living with your friends in final year that it just does not have in first year or even second year. like as a fresher it's usually the first time any of you have lived away from home let alone with SO MANY people your age and it's terrifying and exciting and randomised to boot so it's generally carnage for a whole year in the best and worst ways, and then second year you pick who you're living with and it feels like for the first time you're doing this adult thing PROPERLY. you have a place of your own now. these are the people you've chosen to live with. studying gets serious etc. but it's still fresh. it's still new. you still don't know how to navigate it. but final year? final year is when you actually get it right. you know how to manage your time better. you know what works for you and what doesn't. studying is the main focus and you've been out in the world for three years now and it's not loud and boisterous like it was in first year and you're not exciteable and awkward like you were in second year. you're comfortable. every single one of my flatmates has their own friend group and we mainly keep to our own social circles, but we'll still meet each other back at the house after a night out and sit in the kitchen or my room to do the debrief. sometimes i'll go days not seeing either of them despite sharing a house but every now and then someone will softly call up the stairs that 'the heating's on!' or one of us will sneeze and the other two will yell 'bless you!' through the walls. the lack of interaction isn't interpreted as dislike in ways it would have been even last year, because we're all just old enough to be past that now and settled enough in our friendship not to worry about it. idk. uni is very loud and unsettling a lot of the time so it's been really sweet to see how almost boringly comfortable final year is.

[cryingpariah]

Royals dead and fled! The end of the most important Reverie in history! Pt 1

Feathers on metal. It’s a very uncommon sound in the world, a sound any normal person would go their whole life without hearing.

Jackie was not given such a pleasure. At much too early o'clock the sound of feathers on metal hit her ears. She tossed the blanket over her head and scrunched her knees to her chest, ignoring it as best she could. Alas, the sound continued.

“Up and at em Jackie! Big News is happening!”

“Kindly sod off, it’s too early for this!”

“It’s 1:30pm.”

True, it was well past noon at this point but she had gotten back at 5am! And was only able to go to bed at 7am! Is it so wrong to want 8 hours of rest? She certainly didn’t think so!

“Irrelevant, I’m sleeping right now and there’s no news big enough in the world to-.”

“It’s about the Reverie.”

….

The door opened, revealing the Living Log Pose in all her Victorian nightgown glory. She leaned on the doorframe, a petulant frown on her lips but that sly sparkle of interest in her eyes.

“What about the Reverie exactly?”

Morgan grinned. “A inside source seemed to have run into some trouble and has agreed to divulge some insider information in exchange for sanctuary.”

Jackie's eyebrows shot up. While the World Economic Journal does get to report on the Reverie, it’s never anything particularly surprising: it’s always playing paparazzi for incoming royals, changing policies she’s never heard of and swearing to crack down on the ever growing pirate population.

This year promised more, with the arrival of the Royal Family from Fishman Island with the first topside appearance of the Mermaid Princess herself and the reinstatement of the Riku family as the proper rulers of Dressrosa, there had been so much to report on that first day. But, as usual, they were “asked to leave” as “the royal families do not feel comfortable with the heavy scrutiny of the press looming over them.”

(Jackie would have argued that people in their positions that hold the power they do should have tougher skin if a little street interview has them shaking in their crowns but at the time she was too busy placing free roaming Den Den mini cameras around the area, yknow, just in case.)

“Ignoring the moral dubiousness of only letting them seek refuge because they have information we want..”

“It’s just good business! Push and pull, we scratch their back and they scratch ours.”

“I’m still ignoring it, who exactly is the mystery contact?”

A brief, almost comedic silence overtop them. Big News Morgan had quite the obvious tell when he was trying to soften whatever blow he was about to deliver to his apprentice. Be it more overtime or a last minute meeting with Germa Princes that she had no choice but to attend, he always found a way to sneak a suspiciously comforting feathered hand on her shoulder. Now was no different.

She shrugged him off. “Sir, who is the contact who's going to be living with us on this ship for the foreseeable future?”

“…King Wapol of the Evil Black Drum Kingdom.”

A quick slam and she was back to relocking her door. “Never come to my door with such nonsense again or I’m putting in my two weeks notice.”

“Save the dramatics for the headlines, he’s not that bad!”

“A man who abandoned his kingdom to flee from pirates, got lost, the kingdom both survived and got better without him, eventually returns only get quite literally kicked out does not fill me with confidence in his honesty.”

“All true but he’s really turned his life around since then! We’ve written all about his climb to success, it was a very popular issue! Plus he’s too much of a blubbering coward to lie to us. Anyway him and his companion need our help.”

“First of all, that issue was only popular at the time and forgive me I don’t want my ear drums constantly bleeding from his “Oh thank you Miss Jackie-chan, oh it’s no problem Miss Jackie-chan.” or whatever fresh hell his fiancé is going to bring-.”

“His fiancé is still at the Reverie.”

Jackie stopped mid rant. She glared at the door, her hand once again hovering over the locks.

“Who’s with him then?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, but I do know a way we can find out.”

Ugh, damn her curious nature. She kept the latch chain but cracked the door just slightly open.

“Fine, how exactly am I getting them on board?”

“We're heading over to them as we speak. They’ve apparently snuck onto the cargo hold of some oblivious aristocrats. I’ll be “conducting an interview” while you put the Arrow Arrow fruit to good use.”

She sighed but couldn’t contain the thrum of excitement coursing through her. Despite the Wapol-ness of their most current harebrained scheme, she wasn’t the kind of person who wouldn’t follow through, especially with the potential scoop of a lifetime on the line.

“Alright you bossy bastard I’m in. I can be ready in 30.”

“Glad to hear it! Oh and take your time, we’ve still got 5 hours before we get there.”

“…..SO WHAT IN THE HELL POSSESSED YOU TO WAKE ME UP NOW?!”

It was too late, he had already began striding off muttering fake interview questions to himself and cooing over their guests arrival. She was left hovering in her own doorway steaming mad and unfortunately very awake.

(She’d let his transgressions slide, but only for now. Later she’d find a chance to have him see her reading “The big book of bird recipes: Albatross edition.” That always freaks him out.)

[trendynewsnow]

The Challenges Facing Europe Amid Trump's Potential Return to Presidency

The Impact of Donald Trump’s Potential Return on Europe Donald J. Trump’s possible return to the presidency of the United States could herald a challenging and precarious period for Europe, a continent already grappling with economic stagnation and the looming shadow of war on its eastern border. This moment, as European leaders concur, requires a revival of decisive and robust leadership from…