Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
Folks who only live in big cities have no idea what life is like out in the rural areas. And vice versa. As someone who kind of has a leg in both worlds, it still feels like whiplash when I go home, from an economy that doesn't remember the recession to one that never got out of it. Our political polarization is partially caused by our economic polarization.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
As I said a few pages back, I live in a small city, am quite happy here, and would rather not have to move to the Big City (singular) in my state.
And hopefully you won't have to.
But making sure that small cities (and villages) remain viable over long term as industries change and automation keeps on trucking on, means that there needs to something more than just nostalgia for old days driving economic policy.
Yes, and while we're at it, it would be nice to have a social policy besides "people exist to service capital/the economy in the maximally efficient manner, e.g., by toiling away in arcologies like gigantic termite mounds".
What social policy would that be? "We need to somehow subsidize people who want to live in small towns even though there's jobs there"? I mean, we've seen it's ilk. It's generally not pretty.
On a really basic level economics of one form or another dictates the patterns of human habitation very strongly and always has.
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
It boggles the mind to know the top 1% could live just as fashionably ostentatious as they do now with equitable salaries and pay to their employees.
Like, they wouldn't experience a quality of life change at all, whereas the actual trickle-down would be a net benefit to the entire country.
They have literally nothing to lose except their previous Top Score on the fuckoff rich leaderboard.
jungleroomx on
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
It boggles the mind to know the top 1% could live just as fashionably ostentatious as they do now with equitable salaries and pay to their employees.
Like, they wouldn't experience a quality of life change at all, whereas the actual trickle-down would be a net benefit to the entire country.
They have literally nothing to lose except their previous Top Score on the fuckoff rich leaderboard.
It doesn't feel that way to the 1%, because that encompasses a wide band of people. A person who owns a medium sized business and makes half a million a year feels poor compared to Donald Trump, and wishes to reach that level.
when you take a bunch of metals and plastics and make an iPhone people will pay 100 times more you're making wealth.
the core of that wealth creation in the combination of intellectual property combined with labor.
Don't forget greed.
I never hear entrepreneurs say: "We are making to much profit. It's is unethical to ask this much from our costumers." Case in point farmaceutical companies charging as much as they can on medication.
In our country a hospital has started to make medication because they could do it for 25.000 instead of the 200.000 the farmaceutical was asking.
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
Is there a definable instance where when someone gets paid in some fashion, that it doesn't effect another person in some way? Where money just kind of *poofs* into existence and nobody is on the hook for it eventually?
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
Currency isn't wealth. The Fed creating a billion dollars does not make the US economy a billion dollars more wealthy. Currency is the means of exchange and account for wealth.
Wealth is "the annual produce of the land and labour of the society", as put by Adam Smith. Its the resources, products, and services made usable by and for our society.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
Is there a definable instance where when someone gets paid in some fashion, that it doesn't effect another person in some way? Where money just kind of *poofs* into existence and nobody is on the hook for it eventually?
No. Everything you do with money or resources ultimately will have an effect on interest and exchange rates, and supply/demand for money or goods and services.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
Is there a definable instance where when someone gets paid in some fashion, that it doesn't effect another person in some way? Where money just kind of *poofs* into existence and nobody is on the hook for it eventually?
No. Everything you do with money or resources ultimately will have an effect on interest and exchange rates, and supply/demand for money or goods and services.
Which is my point.
People are treating wealth as an infinite resource when it is very much not an infinite resource.
If someone is infinitely available then its value becomes infinitely less. Wealth is a finite resource.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Money is what I use in place of my goats in trade. Everything else is made up.
Those papers in your pocket are just potential goats.
A goat-based economy can't be failed!
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
Currency isn't wealth. The Fed creating a billion dollars does not make the US economy a billion dollars more wealthy. Currency is the means of exchange and account for wealth.
Wealth is "the annual produce of the land and labour of the society", as put by Adam Smith. Its the resources, products, and services made usable by and for our society.
Ok, but in that sense wealth is definitely still created because the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts, such as with iPhones, washing machines, etc. We use money as a medium of exchange and as one form for measuring wealth. Money or washing machines, it's still created.
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
Is there a definable instance where when someone gets paid in some fashion, that it doesn't effect another person in some way? Where money just kind of *poofs* into existence and nobody is on the hook for it eventually?
No. Everything you do with money or resources ultimately will have an effect on interest and exchange rates, and supply/demand for money or goods and services.
Which is my point.
People are treating wealth as an infinite resource when it is very much not an infinite resource.
If someone is infinitely available then its value becomes infinitely less. Wealth is a finite resource.
The amount of money increases as does the amount a certain dollar can purchase
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Ok, but in that sense wealth is definitely still created because the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts, such as with iPhones, washing machines, etc. We use money as a medium of exchange and as one form for measuring wealth. Money or washing machines, it's still created.
That's not a creation of wealth.
That money comes from somewhere and goes elsewhere.
There's literally no creation. It's redistribution. Apple redistributes it's money to the process of creating phones, the company that creates them redistributes that money to actually create them, and you redistribute your funds to Apple to pay for the result.
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Redistributed doesn't mean exchange. Redistributed implies a zero sum exchange, whereby giving money to Apple for the iPhone means I lose wealth, which isn't the case
Saying wealth isn't created is saying the world is no wealthier today than it was in 1800, which is patently false whether you're looking at income or at quality of life
The idea that wealth is not being created, just because we are not magicking matter out of vacuum is odd to me.
We create wealth the same way we create anything, we take a something, and turn it into another thing we find more desireable.
And thus we are wealthier, even if the amount of energy/matter contained in our planet remains relatively same.
Saying wealth isn't created is saying the world is no wealthier today than it was in 1800, which is patently false whether you're looking at income or at quality of life
Yes, but it has largely the same number of atoms, so nothing was created.
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
Redistributed doesn't mean exchange. Redistributed implies a zero sum exchange, whereby giving money to Apple for the iPhone means I lose wealth, which isn't the case
This would only be true if the smartphone itself retained said relative value indefinitely, which it does not. You exchanged currency for a good, and one of them is more desirable when it comes to purchasing power than the other.
You cannot exchange the $1000 smartphone for another product worth $1000 after a year or so. You'd be lucky to get $500.
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
So you are saying that there is no difference in value to the purchaser or society between the value of the resources used in the production of the phone, and the phone itself?
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
So you are saying that there is no difference in value to the purchaser or society between the value of the resources used in the production of the phone, and the phone itself?
I'm saying the phone's value is largely not monetary, but the money given to the company has actual value outside of perceived.
Phone's value is entirely social, relative, and drops like a rock once gotten. That's the nature of consumer goods: They are not wealth or very little wealth. They are not equivalent to $1000 in the bank or in a CD or some other investment.
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
So you are saying that there is no difference in value to the purchaser or society between the value of the resources used in the production of the phone, and the phone itself?
I'm saying the phone's value is largely not monetary, but the money given to the company has actual value outside of perceived.
Phone's value is entirely social, relative, and drops like a rock once gotten. That's the nature of consumer goods: They are not wealth or very little wealth. They are not equivalent to $1000 in the bank or in a CD or some other investment.
Money has no value at all in of itself. It is only a means of exchange and account. Let me repeat: currency is not wealth.
The phone has real useful value to a person - it is a device used for communication and information. The entirety of human knowledge and global communication is available at their convenience anywhere they go.
There is an insane amount of wealth for a person in a smart phone.
No wealth is durable in the long run. Valuable farm land may become a desert in a century. A building will become dilapidated and abandoned. A city may be wiped from the face of the earth by a volcano or other disaster.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
Redistributed doesn't mean exchange. Redistributed implies a zero sum exchange, whereby giving money to Apple for the iPhone means I lose wealth, which isn't the case
This would only be true if the smartphone itself retained said relative value indefinitely, which it does not. You exchanged currency for a good, and one of them is more desirable when it comes to purchasing power than the other.
You cannot exchange the $1000 smartphone for another product worth $1000 after a year or so. You'd be lucky to get $500.
The phone is a resource, which is why I pay $1000 for it even though it is made out of $100 worth of metal, glass and silicon. I can use it to help drive for uber, or run a small business, and make a lot more than $1000 for myself.
And it has those capabilities because a bunch of educated peopled worked together to make $100 worth of raw materials capable of doing all that. And the amount of money that Apple is making off iPhones, plus the amount of money every using an iPhone is making for themselves, is much greater than the cost of the raw materials and the education and living costs of every working in Apple's supply chain. Wealth is being created.
If we're all digging for grubs with our hands, and someone invents a shovel, and we all suddenly spend 70% less time digging for the same amount of grubs, then we have created wealth.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
So you are saying that there is no difference in value to the purchaser or society between the value of the resources used in the production of the phone, and the phone itself?
I'm saying the phone's value is largely not monetary, but the money given to the company has actual value outside of perceived.
Phone's value is entirely social, relative, and drops like a rock once gotten. That's the nature of consumer goods: They are not wealth or very little wealth. They are not equivalent to $1000 in the bank or in a CD or some other investment.
Money has no value at all in of itself. It is only a means of exchange and account. Let me repeat: currency is not wealth.
The phone has real useful value to a person - it is a device used for communication and information. The entirety of human knowledge and global communication is available at their convenience anywhere they go.
There is an insane amount of wealth for a person in a smart phone.
No wealth is durable in the long run. Valuable farm land may become a desert in a century. A building will become dilapidated and abandoned. A city may be wiped from the face of the earth by a volcano or other disaster.
None of those things you listed at the bottom are comparable to a phone. None of them inherently lose half of their value the minute it's purchased, and all of those at the bottom can be leveraged and used as wealth whereas an iPhone cannot. You say currency is not wealth, but the biggest draw to wealth is its valuation, which only matters because it can be transformed into currency.
And I find it kind of funny that as the world has transitioned to a largely capitalistic economy from largely mercantile and barter systems from the 1800's, people point to the increase of wealth as evidence that we've added any value to anything and not just shuffled the deck.
The money and means to allow people to live where they like exist(s) now, but the 1% are sucking it all up and piling it in their money bins.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
If the concensus is that wealth is generated from finance it is wrong. Or you’re massively misreading the literature.
You’re all way too far into the weeds and have lost sight of what goes on at the basic level of an economy. Let’s ignore currency for a second
1) there is stuff. It is “wealth”
2) we can build different stuff with that stuff. If it’s better then it’s more wealth.
3) transactions after here do not increase wealth because it’s the creation, not the transaction, that modifies the wealth.
Then make things more complicated
Complexity: some things make it easier to make other things. Things like factories and tools make it faster to take dirt and turn it into cotton and take cotton and turn it into shirts.
Complexity: not everyone has enough stuff to purchase the “making stuff better” things they need in order to make things better. Thus some of the “making stuff better stuff” goes unused.
Debt allows those without stuff to acquire making stuff better stuff and so the net on wealth creation can increase as debt goes up...
Buut finance still doesn’t create wealth. And thinking it does, or that money itself is wealth, is a recipe for poor economic policy. If there is no misallocated capital then more debt does not produce more wealth. If debt is not used to acquire capital then more debt does not produce more wealth.
The majority of the finance industry is more an byproduct than a driver of the proceess that lets debt create wealth. Since debt exists some people will want that debt in different forms and so trading can occur. This trading may make people better off(less worry) but it’s not actually wealth. The more complex the financial situation the more likely that it’s chicanery rather than mathemagic.
No there is definitely wealth being created - a new smart phone is available for purchase and use that did not exist before.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
So you are saying that there is no difference in value to the purchaser or society between the value of the resources used in the production of the phone, and the phone itself?
I'm saying the phone's value is largely not monetary, but the money given to the company has actual value outside of perceived.
Phone's value is entirely social, relative, and drops like a rock once gotten. That's the nature of consumer goods: They are not wealth or very little wealth. They are not equivalent to $1000 in the bank or in a CD or some other investment.
Money has no value at all in of itself. It is only a means of exchange and account. Let me repeat: currency is not wealth.
The phone has real useful value to a person - it is a device used for communication and information. The entirety of human knowledge and global communication is available at their convenience anywhere they go.
There is an insane amount of wealth for a person in a smart phone.
No wealth is durable in the long run. Valuable farm land may become a desert in a century. A building will become dilapidated and abandoned. A city may be wiped from the face of the earth by a volcano or other disaster.
None of those things you listed at the bottom are comparable to a phone. None of them inherently lose half of their value the minute it's purchased, and all of those at the bottom can be leveraged and used as wealth whereas an iPhone cannot. You say currency is not wealth, but the biggest draw to wealth is its valuation, which only matters because it can be transformed into currency.
And I find it kind of funny that as the world has transitioned to a largely capitalistic economy from largely mercantile and barter systems from the 1800's, people point to the increase of wealth as evidence that we've added any value to anything and not just shuffled the deck.
The phone did not lose any value when sold.
You have to disconnect the concept of price (in currency) of a good, from its actual usefulness (value/wealth) to a person and our society.
In fact I would say that the phone had no value at all to our society until it was sold and put to use by someone. When it was sitting in a store it may have been offered for 600$ at point of sale, but it was doing nothing useful.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Ok, so I figured out a better way to deal with the goat situation. I've made statues of goats which will stand in place of the real goats the dollars originally represented. You can keep using your dollars, but now they represent these statues I make.
I've decided to make them out of something very rare because otherwise ~everyone~ will just make their own goat statues and things will just go crazy.
Behold, the new ivory reserve currency! Nothing can possibly go wrong now.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Oh... oh god.... what have we done
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Just because an iPhone loses half its value the second it's sold to a customer means it's not a good store of value. But it's not designed to be a store of value, that is not the iPhone's job. Other assets do that better. That's why you buy one iPhone and leave the rest of your wealth in your bank account, rather than draining your bank account and buying 1000 iPhones.
Stating patent nonsense like that "no wealth is created" is exactly the sort of rhetorical cudgel Republicans can beat Democrats successfully over the head with. It's wrong, zero-sum thinking.
Check out the recent primer on the issue: "The Wealth of Nations" by some upstart Scottish philosopher. It lays out rather nicely that increases in productivity increase wealth, which can be achieved through specialization and technological progress among other factors.
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What social policy would that be? "We need to somehow subsidize people who want to live in small towns even though there's jobs there"? I mean, we've seen it's ilk. It's generally not pretty.
On a really basic level economics of one form or another dictates the patterns of human habitation very strongly and always has.
Let the invisible hand play with the margins, instead of determining how many of us die horribly when the market tanks next summer.
It's a problem of inequity and distribution, not of insufficiency.
We're 100 years past anyone having to experience need, but here we are.
It boggles the mind to know the top 1% could live just as fashionably ostentatious as they do now with equitable salaries and pay to their employees.
Like, they wouldn't experience a quality of life change at all, whereas the actual trickle-down would be a net benefit to the entire country.
They have literally nothing to lose except their previous Top Score on the fuckoff rich leaderboard.
We have a current issue where people think you can "Generate Income."
There's really no such thing as generation of wealth. It is all redistribution. Every time you earn money, it comes from somewhere.
Our problem right now is the fuckoff rich have decided that a lot of their money comes from speculation and debt, essentially using some sort of financial alchemy where they turn nothing into value, which is why when the bill comes due on our current bubble it's going to be as ugly as the last.
when you take a bunch of metals and plastics and make an iPhone people will pay 100 times more you're making wealth.
the core of that wealth creation in the combination of intellectual property combined with labor.
And don't forget the slave labor
It doesn't feel that way to the 1%, because that encompasses a wide band of people. A person who owns a medium sized business and makes half a million a year feels poor compared to Donald Trump, and wishes to reach that level.
As recently as FRIDAY. The Treasury released a semi-annual report that did not label China or Russia as current currency manipulators.
Raising interest rates would make the US dollar stronger relative to the Ruble and Yuan. It's not them, it's us.
Don't forget greed.
I never hear entrepreneurs say: "We are making to much profit. It's is unethical to ask this much from our costumers." Case in point farmaceutical companies charging as much as they can on medication.
In our country a hospital has started to make medication because they could do it for 25.000 instead of the 200.000 the farmaceutical was asking.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/04/dutch-hospital-challenges-big-pharma-by-making-own-version-of-very-pricey-drug/
This isn't actually true. Wealth/income is generated, as shown in the statistics like GDP and etc. Most of the consensus is that wealth is generated when debt is created, i.e. it comes from finance.
That being said, the problem today is not wealth creation, but redistribution, which is a political problem and not an economic one.
Is there a definable instance where when someone gets paid in some fashion, that it doesn't effect another person in some way? Where money just kind of *poofs* into existence and nobody is on the hook for it eventually?
Currency isn't wealth. The Fed creating a billion dollars does not make the US economy a billion dollars more wealthy. Currency is the means of exchange and account for wealth.
Wealth is "the annual produce of the land and labour of the society", as put by Adam Smith. Its the resources, products, and services made usable by and for our society.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
No. Everything you do with money or resources ultimately will have an effect on interest and exchange rates, and supply/demand for money or goods and services.
Which is my point.
People are treating wealth as an infinite resource when it is very much not an infinite resource.
If someone is infinitely available then its value becomes infinitely less. Wealth is a finite resource.
Those papers in your pocket are just potential goats.
A goat-based economy can't be failed!
Maybe we need a difference reserve currency.
Ok, but in that sense wealth is definitely still created because the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts, such as with iPhones, washing machines, etc. We use money as a medium of exchange and as one form for measuring wealth. Money or washing machines, it's still created.
The amount of money increases as does the amount a certain dollar can purchase
That's not a creation of wealth.
That money comes from somewhere and goes elsewhere.
There's literally no creation. It's redistribution. Apple redistributes it's money to the process of creating phones, the company that creates them redistributes that money to actually create them, and you redistribute your funds to Apple to pay for the result.
You're describing the exchange of currency to facilitate the production and sale, but ignoring the end result - a person has a new phone.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
We create wealth the same way we create anything, we take a something, and turn it into another thing we find more desireable.
And thus we are wealthier, even if the amount of energy/matter contained in our planet remains relatively same.
Yes, but it has largely the same number of atoms, so nothing was created.
E.g. loans, stocks, etc.
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There's no ignoring it. That person has a phone that they have placed a value on commensurate with how much society deems it useful.
It still doesn't change the fact that no wealth was "generated" during this process. Redistributed, exchanged, whatever. The end result is no change, just where the wealth/money is located. And this:
This would only be true if the smartphone itself retained said relative value indefinitely, which it does not. You exchanged currency for a good, and one of them is more desirable when it comes to purchasing power than the other.
You cannot exchange the $1000 smartphone for another product worth $1000 after a year or so. You'd be lucky to get $500.
So you are saying that there is no difference in value to the purchaser or society between the value of the resources used in the production of the phone, and the phone itself?
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I'm saying the phone's value is largely not monetary, but the money given to the company has actual value outside of perceived.
Phone's value is entirely social, relative, and drops like a rock once gotten. That's the nature of consumer goods: They are not wealth or very little wealth. They are not equivalent to $1000 in the bank or in a CD or some other investment.
Money has no value at all in of itself. It is only a means of exchange and account. Let me repeat: currency is not wealth.
The phone has real useful value to a person - it is a device used for communication and information. The entirety of human knowledge and global communication is available at their convenience anywhere they go.
There is an insane amount of wealth for a person in a smart phone.
No wealth is durable in the long run. Valuable farm land may become a desert in a century. A building will become dilapidated and abandoned. A city may be wiped from the face of the earth by a volcano or other disaster.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
The phone is a resource, which is why I pay $1000 for it even though it is made out of $100 worth of metal, glass and silicon. I can use it to help drive for uber, or run a small business, and make a lot more than $1000 for myself.
And it has those capabilities because a bunch of educated peopled worked together to make $100 worth of raw materials capable of doing all that. And the amount of money that Apple is making off iPhones, plus the amount of money every using an iPhone is making for themselves, is much greater than the cost of the raw materials and the education and living costs of every working in Apple's supply chain. Wealth is being created.
If we're all digging for grubs with our hands, and someone invents a shovel, and we all suddenly spend 70% less time digging for the same amount of grubs, then we have created wealth.
None of those things you listed at the bottom are comparable to a phone. None of them inherently lose half of their value the minute it's purchased, and all of those at the bottom can be leveraged and used as wealth whereas an iPhone cannot. You say currency is not wealth, but the biggest draw to wealth is its valuation, which only matters because it can be transformed into currency.
And I find it kind of funny that as the world has transitioned to a largely capitalistic economy from largely mercantile and barter systems from the 1800's, people point to the increase of wealth as evidence that we've added any value to anything and not just shuffled the deck.
If the concensus is that wealth is generated from finance it is wrong. Or you’re massively misreading the literature.
You’re all way too far into the weeds and have lost sight of what goes on at the basic level of an economy. Let’s ignore currency for a second
1) there is stuff. It is “wealth”
2) we can build different stuff with that stuff. If it’s better then it’s more wealth.
3) transactions after here do not increase wealth because it’s the creation, not the transaction, that modifies the wealth.
Then make things more complicated
Complexity: some things make it easier to make other things. Things like factories and tools make it faster to take dirt and turn it into cotton and take cotton and turn it into shirts.
Complexity: not everyone has enough stuff to purchase the “making stuff better” things they need in order to make things better. Thus some of the “making stuff better stuff” goes unused.
Debt allows those without stuff to acquire making stuff better stuff and so the net on wealth creation can increase as debt goes up...
Buut finance still doesn’t create wealth. And thinking it does, or that money itself is wealth, is a recipe for poor economic policy. If there is no misallocated capital then more debt does not produce more wealth. If debt is not used to acquire capital then more debt does not produce more wealth.
The majority of the finance industry is more an byproduct than a driver of the proceess that lets debt create wealth. Since debt exists some people will want that debt in different forms and so trading can occur. This trading may make people better off(less worry) but it’s not actually wealth. The more complex the financial situation the more likely that it’s chicanery rather than mathemagic.
The phone did not lose any value when sold.
You have to disconnect the concept of price (in currency) of a good, from its actual usefulness (value/wealth) to a person and our society.
In fact I would say that the phone had no value at all to our society until it was sold and put to use by someone. When it was sitting in a store it may have been offered for 600$ at point of sale, but it was doing nothing useful.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I've decided to make them out of something very rare because otherwise ~everyone~ will just make their own goat statues and things will just go crazy.
Behold, the new ivory reserve currency! Nothing can possibly go wrong now.
Check out the recent primer on the issue: "The Wealth of Nations" by some upstart Scottish philosopher. It lays out rather nicely that increases in productivity increase wealth, which can be achieved through specialization and technological progress among other factors.