Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.6d agoPluralistic: Three more AI psychoses (12 Mar 2026)
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/12/normal-technology/
Herb Stein (1916-1999) American economist
Stein’s Law (1980s)
More about this quote: wist.info/stein-herb/3711/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #herbstein #steinslaw #economics #intervention #limits #naturalcourse #selflimitation #trends
If something cannot go on forever, it will stop. This was a frequent statement by Stein. He explained it so: "This proposition, arising first in a discussion of the balance-of-payments deficit, is a response to those who think that if something cannot go on forever, steps must be taken to…
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.Jul 1, 2025Pluralistic: How much (little) are the AI companies making? (30 Jun 2025)
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/30/accounting-gaffs/
Now, rich people can still buy their way out of this mess, but you have to be *very* rich indeed to buy your way out of the commercial aviation system. There's a lot of 1%ers who fly commercial, and they're feeling the squeeze - and there's no way they're leasing their own jets.
#SteinsLaw holds that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." America's aviation mergers - in airlines, aircraft and engines - have hollowed out the system.
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Think of everything that makes you miserable as being caught between two opposing, irresistible, irrefutable truths:
* "Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops" (#SteinsLaw)
* "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" (Keynes)
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/30/markets-remaining-irrational/#steins-law
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Like the bedbugs that mutated to thrive in clouds of post-war DDT, capitalism has adapted to each crisis, emerging in a new, more virulent form:
https://boingboing.net/2023/09/30/bedbugs-take-paris.html
But "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop" (#SteinsLaw). Perhaps our mistake was in waiting for capitalism to give way to socialism, rather than serving as a transitional phase between #feudalism and...feudalism.
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If that's piqued your interest and if you can make it to #LosAngeles, come by #ChevaliersBooks this Wednesday, where Brian and I are having a joint book-launch (I've just published #TheInternetCon, my Luddite-adjacent "#BigTech Disassembly Manual"):
https://www.eventbrite.com/o/chevaliers-books-8495362156
Where is all this labor unrest coming from? Well as #SteinsLaw has it, "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."
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But #SteinsLaw says that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop." As lawsuits mounted, the Sacklers found themselves increasingly synonymous with death, not charitable works. But like any canny criminal, the Sacklers had a getaway plan.
First, they extracted vast sums from Purdue and shifted it into offshore financial secrecy havens:
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OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP steered up to $13 billion in profits to the company's controlling Sackler family, according to U.S. states opposing efforts to halt lawsuits alleging the company and its owners helped fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic.
The bezzle is contained by two forces.
* First, #SteinsLaw: "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."
* Second, #Keynes's: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
On the one hand, extremely badly run businesses that strip all the value out of the firm, making things progressively worse for its suppliers, workers and customers will eventually fail (Stein's Law).
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