Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu

Salvadoreño 🇸🇻 en Chicago, Industrial Engineering and Economics @NorthwesternU 2024, fan del pensamiento Crítico

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

Ok si. Si todo fuera tan facil está tal vez fuera la mejor idea en la historia de El Salvador pero un par de problemitas. Como metes dinero a la app para empezar? Va a estar conectada con bancos o que? Si se hace cambio automático de BTC a USD me imagino que El Salvador

[Brian Wesbury @wesbury]

So damn good. I’ve listened and watched this 10 times. You should too.

[Niyak Ghorbani (نیاک) @GhorbaniiNiyak]

Persian and Jew celebrating together in London

[John Caple @BigJohn043]

This summary of how China has come to dominate global manufacturing is accurate. They have much lower cost inputs like energy and raw materials. This is actually a bigger source of their cost advantage than low cost labor for assembly. In fact, their labor is reasonably high cost on a global basis.

First, do we really want all that manufacturing back? If you believe at all in Riccardo's theory of Comparative Advantage then it is pretty negative for a country to manipulate their economy in this way. I am also deeply skeptical that there are all of these workers out there that really want these manufacturing jobs.

But if you really want to unleash the power of the US economy I think a lot less government would yield more than this type of intervention. Through all of their policies and regulations government does a ton to drive up the costs of energy and raw materials. Heck, they drive up the costs for all businesses.

In short, I would rather go the way of Argentina than China.

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

One thing I just thought about on the unrealized gains taxation question… most people object to Billionaires using their money to influence things or partake on egregious luxury. However to do these they would have to sell assets and their gains be realized… what am I missing?

[Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling]

People need to stop overreacting about Kamala’s plan to reduce food inflation, as if it would lead to communism, mass starvation, and the end of America.

I worked in M&A in the food industry. Here’s a step-by-step summary of what would actually happen:

1. The government announces that grocery retailers aren’t allowed to raise prices.

2. Grocery stores, which operate on 1-2% net margins, can’t survive if their suppliers raise prices. So the government announces that food producers (Kraft Heinz, ConAgra, Tyson, Hormel, et. al.) also aren’t allowed to raise prices.

3. Not all grocery stores are created equal. Stores in lower-income areas make less money than those in higher-income areas, as the former disproportionately sell lower-margin prepackaged foods (“center of the store”) instead of higher-margin fresh products like meat (“perimeter of the store”). Because stores in lower-income areas aren’t able to cover overhead (remember, even if their wholesale costs are fixed, their labor, utilities, insurance, and other operating expenses aren’t fixed… yet), grocery chains start to shut them down. Food deserts in rural areas and in low-income urban areas alike become worse.

4. Meanwhile, margins for food producers are also quickly eroding. Their primary costs (ingredients, energy, and labor) aren’t fixed, and their shrinking gross profits leave less cash flow available to cover overhead, maintain facilities, and reinvest in additional production capacity.

5. Grocery chains, which have finite shelf space, start to repurpose their stores (those they didn’t have to shut down, I should say) to sell more non-price-controlled items—everything from nutrition supplements to kitchenware to apparel—and less price-controlled food products. Your local Kroger or Safeway starts to look and feel more like a Walmart.

6. Food producers stop making products with lower margins. Grocery chain start competing with each other to secure inventory. Since they can’t compete by offering stronger prices (remember, producers aren’t allowed to raise prices here, and, even if they could, grocery chains no longer have the gross profit to bear price increases), they compete on things like payment terms.

7. Small grocery chains start to shut down entirely, or get sold to larger chains like Kroger. In addition to not being able to cover fixed costs, a major reason for this is because they can no longer reliably secure delivery of products, due to producers prioritizing sales to larger customers, which are able to leverage their stronger balance sheets to offer superior payment terms.

8. Smaller food producers—which typically sell via distributors, rather than directly to grocery chains—start to go out of business. Because these producers have an additional step their value chains, and because they have lower volumes over which to spread their fixed costs, their cost structure is inherently disadvantaged compared to major food producers. When grocery stores aren’t able to raise prices, cutting product costs becomes all the more important, and deprioritizing purchases from smaller producers is an easy way to do so.

9. As supply chains break down, lines start to form outside grocery stores every morning. Cities assign police officers to patrol store parking lots, and food producers draft contingency plans to assign armed escorts to delivery trucks.

10. The federal government announces a program to issue block grants for states to purchase and operate shuttered grocery stores. The USDA also seizes closed-down production facilities.

11. The government announces that prices for all key food costs—corn, wheat, cattle, energy, etc.—are also now fixed, to stop “profiteers” from gouging the now-government-operated food industry.

12. Shockingly, the government struggles to operate one of the most complex industries on the planet. The entire food supply chain starts imploding.

13. Communism, mass starvation, and the end of America quickly ensue.

Hey wait a second

[Daniel Di Martino @DanielDiMartino]

El Salvador's Bukele warns businessmen not to raise prices or there will be consequences against them.

He compares his warning to businesses to the one he made years ago against gangs before arresting them.

He's not a conservative. He's a statist.

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

Un ejemplo perfecto de por que Milei y Bukele no tienen absolutamente nada en comun.

[Oficina del Presidente @OPRArgentina]

Disertación del Presidente Javier Milei en la Institución Hoover de la Universidad de Stanford, en Estados Unidos.

[Whyvert @whyvert]

China paid for a shiny new National Library in El Salvador.

It has very few books.

It does have a Harry Potter section, a LEGO section, a Star Wars section, Pokemon stuff, video game consoles, a VR area, and lots of couches.

You can't fake high human capital.

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

Hoy va a ganar Nayib Bukele y Nuevas Ideas… y a El Salvador le esperan 5 años mas (y realisticamente toda la vida del presi) de estas dinamicas. Pero le pido a Dios… que o cambie su actitud, la mediocridad de sus políticas o que de alguna forma lentamente despertemos…

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

Todo el mundo que me conoce sabe muy bien mi opinión policía y que no importa que yo voy a hablar de mis creencias e ideales sin miedo a nada… todos mis amigos no salvadoreños y algunos salvadoreños quieren entender porque sigo criticando a Bukele y las razones son simples

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

Darse cuenta que un sistema sin “checks and balances” sin instituciones fuertes, sin acceso a información de gasto publico, con un culto de personalidad a personas y no ideas e ideales no es sostenible ni bueno para nadie mas que esas personas y su circulo

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

@Noahpinion How the hell do you call for Austerity and simultaneously a large welfare state with more investment in defense and in infraestructure. It feels incoherent.

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

@JosephPolitano Because their reality does not match their expectations and more sophisticated voters who are more educated and better off that may recognize the dynamics at play here are in general doing worse right now than what they were doing in 2021 so they aren��t balancing the polls

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

Hezbollah getting into the conflict is orders of magnitude more dangerous than a one on one conflict with Hamas. Hezbollah is institutionalized, well equipped and with firm Irani backing. If you are concerned with what is going on keep an eye on what happens in Lebanon next.

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

Lebanon is probably the single most politically and socially fascinating country in the world. Their system of government, pluralist society and alliances are complex and confusing. Given Hezbollah’s attacks here is what you should know about Lebanon.

[Carlos Ernesto Vasquez Arbizu @caloneto2209]

They are more powerful than the Lebanese army and are actually currently part of the governing coalition in Beirut. Iran and Hezbollah are institutionally anti-semitic and call for the extermination of the Jewish people.