Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
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Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
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Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#2This went off the rails for me at the end. If earning money is good for other, but spending money is bad, then the "best" thing I could do would be to earn money and hoard it under my mattress.
However, that would be the worst thing I could do for society, because I would be removing that resource (whether it has intrinsic value or not, it is still a resource) from society.
In order for me to earn money, someone else has to spend it. I don't see what labeling one of the sides of that transaction as good and and one as bad accomplishes.
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#3People will go to great lengths to say "greed is good", but it still isn't.
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#4Ok, I read through sections I and II, and no further. Sticking my neck w-a-a-a-y out there, I would loan the francs on my table to Congolese who could convince me they can make a business, provide a product or service, grow the business and employ other Congolese.
Essentially, become a bank that makes only business loans. Perhaps charge interest, perhaps not. I'd recycle loan payments to make new loans to new entrepreneurs. I'd meet periodically with the borrowers to learn what is working for them and what is not so that I can select better candidates over time, hopefully before I run out of francs...
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#5This went off the rails for me at the end. If earning money is good for other, but spending money is bad, then the "best" thing I could do would be to earn money and hoard it under my mattress. However, that would be the worst thing I could do for society, because I would be removing that resource (whether it has intrinsic value or not, it is still a resource) from society. In order for me to earn money, someone else…
Why would you be removing it from society? Presumably you will be using it in the future.
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#6This article is an interesting thought experiment, but I can't help but feel that the statements made are in such opposition to understood economic principle and call into question basic moral precepts. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it just feels alien to read.
As an example of what I mean, the idea of consumption being a net-negative destructive action goes against the economic concept of velocity of money and how that drives economic engines. On the other hand, I can understand because the net value is perhaps negative of a grossly consumptive action like buying a yacht, simply because of the natural resources consumed to produce it. Economics rarely accounts for the externalities.
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#7Ok, I read through sections I and II, and no further. Sticking my neck w-a-a-a-y out there, I would loan the francs on my table to Congolese who could convince me they can make a business, provide a product or service, grow the business and employ other Congolese. Essentially, become a bank that makes only business loans. Perhaps charge interest, perhaps not. I'd recycle loan payments to make new loans to new entrepr…
You can try out kiva.org
My problem with it was that most of the businesses were of the retail type (selling clothes on the streets). I’m not an economist but that seems to me to not have much potential for lifting many out of poverty.
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#8This went off the rails for me at the end. If earning money is good for other, but spending money is bad, then the "best" thing I could do would be to earn money and hoard it under my mattress. However, that would be the worst thing I could do for society, because I would be removing that resource (whether it has intrinsic value or not, it is still a resource) from society. In order for me to earn money, someone else…
It goes on to explain it in the following paragraphs:
> Don't get me wrong — this is far from the full picture. There are a ton of second-order corrections we need to make. We'd want to inquire how the money was earned, for example. If it's earned in free, honest, competitive transactions, it's going to be a better measure of value-added than if it's earned coercively, dishonestly, or in stifled markets. If it's earned in positive-sum games (like farming), it's going to be a better measure of value than if it's earned in zero- or negative-sum games (like spamming).
> On the spending side, we need to account for whether the goods we're consuming are rivalrous or non-rivalrous, as well as all the externalities from consumption, both positive and negative. If no one consumed anything above basic subsistence, we'd have a lot less economic growth, fewer innovations, and inferior technology (including medical technology).
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#9It's interesting to speculate on what would happen if some of these foundational assumptions of economics didn't hold. What if money actually became more valued than what you can buy with money? What if supply didn't create its own demand? What if people didn't try to make money to satisfy their own wants, but to one-up their neighbors in the pissing match of life?
You'd see a lot of strange behavior. Instead of consumption or even investment, excess money would be put towards speculation, trying to raise the dollar value of your holdings regardless of what you can buy (which you don't want anyway). Instead of circulating through the economy, money would pool at the people who already have their earthly wants satisfied and have no need to spend it. Instead of focusing their money on optimizing production, businesses would spend money on services or people that would help them convince others to buy their product. And instead of buying businesses for additional revenue, they would be more motivated to buy businesses that threaten to destroy the revenues they already have.
You might even get really crazy behavior, like people creating their own currencies that they then put lots of real money into, so that they can feel rich in their own little domain.
In short, it wouldn't look all that different from the world of today.
Re: Wealth: The Toxic Byproduct (2013)
#10This went off the rails for me at the end. If earning money is good for other, but spending money is bad, then the "best" thing I could do would be to earn money and hoard it under my mattress. However, that would be the worst thing I could do for society, because I would be removing that resource (whether it has intrinsic value or not, it is still a resource) from society. In order for me to earn money, someone else…
If you were actually hoarding in your mattress yes -- but most of us will never probably have enough money alone, or even as a group to horde under a mattress that the economy or society would actually notice.
Now if you were hoarding the money by putting it in banks and various other investment vehicles -- then you are doing a great deal of good for society -- as the resource is not actually being removed.
I hear this argument lot, but just because you are not using your money does not mean somebody else is not using your money while you are not using it. The only case that might be true is if you were a real life Scrooge McDuck, but then you probably killed yourself the first time you tried to dive into your vault of coins.