The Trucker wrote:
> On Thu, 15 May 2008 19:23:44 -0400, Les Cargill wrote:
>
>> The Trucker wrote:
>>> On Thu, 15 May 2008 23:23:30 +0530, John Galt wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> You are looking at individual wealth as opposed to societal wealth.
>> One is simply the sum of the other.
>
> That actually seems irrelevant and incorrect and it indicates a
> probable failure to communicate.
>
What I have seen it refer to is like microbanking and the like. Well,
if you inventory its results, the laws of addition still apply. it's
just being clever about adapting services to customers you are not used
to serving.
It has a vaguely colonial feel to it.
If they are using it to describe accreted "public goods" service from
antitrust and rot like *that*, it's a lie. Rockefeller was
much richer after they broke up Standard. I suppose the money just
appeared out of nowhere?
>>> And
>>> in a populated society individual wealth is anywhere and everywhere
the
>>> labor you can save yourself or the freedom you gain by commanding the
>>> labor of others.
>> For sufficiently interesting values of "command".
>>
>>> Societal wealth, on the other hand, is the freedom from harm,
>>> discomfort, and toil and the liberty that is shared among all. There
>>> are two ways to achieve this societal wealth in a populated society
>>> (there may be more but I do not know of them):
>>>
>>> 1. Technological advance and capital development 2. The division and
>>> specialization of land and labor
>>>
>>>
>> Yup.
>>
>>> But the measurement of success is not the measurement of these things
>>> directly. For the measurement of success we must turn to more direct
>>> indicators of societal well being.
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_life
>>>
>>>
>> It becomes subjective, therefore "spinnable". Try this:
>
> Mean, and median longevity is not subjective or spinnable.
Short of longevity being bounded by some economically
interesting quantity, it's totally irrelevant. We spend
horrifying amounts on Medicare.
I certainly enjoy freedom *from* the tender embrace of modern
retail medicine. When I can get away from it.
> Infant mortality is not.
The US has an artificially high incidence of infant mortality
as an artifact of premature births, because we have
a more-sophisticated health system and because of societal
constraints on having children.
The number of hours employed outside the home is
> not. There are quit a few metrics that simply are not in and of
themselves
> subjective. The subjectiveness is in the weights of the different non
> subjective measures.
>
>> 1) Television advertising modulates people's comfort level to
>> improve the impact of commercials.
>> 2) Therefore, turning off the TV can measurably make people happier
>
> I do not have a TV.
>
>> 3) But creating demand helps keep the real cost of material goods
>> relatively low.
>
> That is simply wrong -- the broken window fallacy.
>
Rot. It's bloody well fact. Price a VCR in 1980. Again in 1990.
Again in 2000. Why is that? Price an automobile in 1900, 1940, 1980,
2000 ( you have to subtract out the cost of regulatory toys ) and
it's a slower curve, but quite similar, waving hands at equivalences.
Absent rent payments, everything is like that.
>> 4) Therefore, there is a trade space of uncertain warp and weave
>> between TV or no TV.
>
> All of that may even be of interest to you.
This is called an example, a thought-experiment.
> It sure as hell is of no
> interest to me at all. But the op****tunity to spend time watching TV
> or not _is_ of interest to just about everyone. Its called freedom.
> Assuming all other metrics equal we would measure the time spent not
> working outside the home and see that as a measure of freedom.
>
>> I tend to turn off the TV, but I might be creating negative
>> externalities for other people by doing it. Indeed, I have been
>> on here for years talking about consumer fatigue. I think we are
>> in it up to our eyeballs.
>
> That is part of why focusing on consumption is a mistake. There are a
> great many of us who do not need any more consuming. What we want is to
> have MORE FREEDOM, MORE LEISURE, and be healthier.
You should be able to do that, then. Move someplace cheap,
live on less. Ada Oklahoma (I just happen to be familiar with it )
is cheap, has great water, clean air and not much else. Fi****n'.
It is a nice place.
> So you can escape
> by weighting the different non spinnable metrics. But you really can't
> do that either. If you have the freedom to move about then you can
select
> the economy that scores best on YOUR selected weights. The measurement
of
> the economy is not the province of Milton or of the Republicans or the
> Democrats or the Nazis. It can be individualized. Based on the weights
> selected by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist_Intelligence_Unit
> the US economy ranks significantly below Scandinavia.
>
And a camel is a horse designed by a committee.
That index measures infantilism, not livability. I know Scandinavians.
They're just as grumpy as we are, just about different things. They
don't particularly *like* their little socialist paradises. Which are,
after all, overwhelmingly based on rents.
Scandinavian societies are really hard on ambitious people. But
that's the point, isn't it?
This being said, the pragmatic Swiss really do a good job of dealing
a lot of issues - health care, the like.
>>> There is and will be much disagreement over the weight assigned to the
>>> various measurements of "infant mortality", "longevity", "happiness",
and
>>> the like. But these are the things that actually represent the
quality of
>>> life; the success or failure of economic policy.
>>>
>> And each of those will mire you in details forever. Improved
>> prenatal care actually inflates infant mortality figures - what
>> would have been a miscarriage is now an infant death. Yadda
>> yadda.
>
> Another seemingly ridiculous diversion.
>
Uh huh. Fertility drugs, delayed pregnancy, other factors lead to
increased numbers of low birth weight babies, who overwhelmingly
bias upwards infant mortality rates.
You can't metrify happinefs. Jefferson shoulda stuck with
"property".
--
Les Cargill
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