Cyprus now looks to take 25 percent from bank accounts of wealthy
137 replies, posted
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40031966]this is absolute insanity I have no idea why this has 5 agrees and a zing
economic transactions are not zero sum please do the slightest bit of research on something before you post about it
I mean what the fuck does that even have to do with thermodynamics you're just saying long sciency words to sound smart
[editline]25th March 2013[/editline]
[url]http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html[/url]
[editline]25th March 2013[/editline]
sure[/QUOTE]
That unnecessarily long quote you lazily posted to disprove sigma is completely meaningless. In the end, the sale of your refurbished car results in you gaining money and someone losing it. You haven't "created wealth" you've done labor to convince someone to give you theirs.
[QUOTE=Kopimi;40036420]That unnecessarily long quote you lazily posted to disprove sigma is completely meaningless. In the end, the sale of your refurbished car results in you gaining money and someone losing it. You haven't "created wealth" you've done labor to convince someone to give you theirs.[/QUOTE]
you completely missed the point?
someone else loses money, but they also gain a car. a car that they clearly wanted more than the money they paid for it, otherwise they wouldn't have paid for it. wealth != money.
I'm not quite sure how I can have a discussion of economics with people who clearly do not understand such basic things as "competition" and "wealth creation".
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40036408]The reason the Chinese are not starving in the million's is because they embraced free market's and abandoned central planning, as well as giving up on strong government controls over the economy.
When the workers are in demand the companies offer higher wages to grab them up.
When workers surplus the workers offer to work for lower wages so that they can be hired.
This is ideally how it works.[/QUOTE]
Pretty much.
India and China are going through what Europe had two centuries prior. Life is shit in the sweatshops, but its better than hoping for a harvest which doesn't fail, whilst you find it increasingly difficult to compete with other farmers as they introduce heavy machinery that you can't afford.
So what they do is move to the cities. There's nothing else they can do, and in absolute financial terms they are better off than before. Land clearances are impossible to stop once they start.
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40036459]you completely missed the point?
someone else loses money, but they also gain a car. a car that they clearly wanted more than the money they paid for it, otherwise they wouldn't have paid for it. wealth != money.
I'm not quite sure how I can have a discussion of economics with people who clearly do not understand such basic things as "competition" and "wealth creation".[/QUOTE]
And if I paid a thousand dollars for a 5c toothpick? Has wealth been created because I personally value that toothpick at a thousand dollars? In the end the transactions are financially uneven despite whatever personal sense of value you assign to the product.
[QUOTE=Kopimi;40036500]And if I paid a thousand dollars for a 5c toothpick? Has wealth been created because I personally value that toothpick at a thousand dollars? In the end the transactions are financially uneven despite whatever personal sense of value you assign to the product.[/QUOTE]
Market value is what matters, not personal value. If that toothpick is valued by the market at $1,000 than it IS worth $1,000.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;40036479]
India and China are going through what Europe had two centuries prior. Life is shit in the sweatshops, but its better than hoping for a harvest which doesn't fail, whilst you find it increasingly difficult to compete with other farmers as they introduce heavy machinery that you can't afford.
[/QUOTE]
Industrialization best happens when the government control's of the economy are ripped apart, when individuals are allowed to become businessmen and such. This happened after the English Civil war, French revolution and when certain countries later decided to step aside and deregulate.
The communist way of industrializing generally kills millions of people...
[QUOTE=Kopimi;40036500]And if I paid a thousand dollars for a 5c toothpick? Has wealth been created because I personally value that toothpick at a thousand dollars? In the end the transactions are financially uneven despite whatever personal sense of value you assign to the product.[/QUOTE]
Yes. If you value the toothpick that much, the transaction is perfectly legit.
Do you think there is some kind of objective value to the toothpick? The [I]only[/I] value the toothpick has is the subjective one held in mind by the buyer and seller. If those values are different then a trade can be made in which both parties benefit.
[url]http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Point_refuted_a_thousand_times[/url] - this time literally since it was destroyed by the very earliest economists in the 18th century that realized that limiting gold exports would cripple rather than save an economy.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40036598]Industrialization best happens when the government control's of the economy are ripped apart, when individuals are allowed to become businessmen and such.[/quote]
It slowly started with physiocracy and the end of mercantilism in the 18th century, generally when modern economics began to develop.
[quote]This happened after the English Civil war[/quote]
This never happened. Britain was still heavily mercantile for another 150 years, in fact it even increased regulations when the Republic was founded, as part of navigation acts passed then to annoy Dutch merchants. When it began to loosen control, the American colonies revolted after being unable to compete with Indian traders, even then the export of machinery did not happen on a large scale till the 19th century.
Also you had to get an act of parliament to get permission to build a canal or railway, and building more than one between two places was heavily restricted.
Plus the British state still kept subsidizing industries vital to the navy (machinery, metal, coal, timber, cloth, etc).
[quote]French revolution and when certain countries later decided to step aside and deregulate.[/quote]
The French government has actually had a tradition of intervention in the market (most French railways had involvement with the state massively). Most states in Europe actually kept a strong hand in the economy. Britain is actually one of the few exceptions, and even then, the "laissez faire" period only lasted a few decades.
[quote]The communist way of industrializing generally kills millions of people...[/QUOTE]
Well it's completely inefficient, and the millions of deaths are due to horrible mismanagement of resources.
I mean really, just fucking think about it for a second.
The world's population right now is 7 billion. A century ago or so, it was about 1 billion. Going by your zero-sum reasoning, the average wealth of the population would have had to be divided by seven, all things being equal. The only way for average wellbeing to increase at all would be for some kind of forceful redistribution of resources, which would only increase it by an order of magnitude [I]at most[/I]. But that isn't what we see. The population has exploded, average material wellbeing has increased by several orders of magnitude, [I]and[/I] inequality has increased (I know this because you keep complaining about it). In the zero sum model, these three things are mutually contradictory; one of them has to go.
[QUOTE=yawmwen;40030543]i am actually.[/QUOTE]
I didn't think it was possible to take you any less seriously.
[editline]25th March 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40036459]you completely missed the point?
someone else loses money, but they also gain a car. a car that they clearly wanted more than the money they paid for it, otherwise they wouldn't have paid for it. wealth != money.
I'm not quite sure how I can have a discussion of economics with people who clearly do not understand such basic things as "competition" and "wealth creation".[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry you're arguing a corporatist state is the epitome of a society and you want to say other people don't understand economics?
I can't imagine finding a person who knows less about economics then you.
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40036709]I mean really, just fucking think about it for a second.
The world's population right now is 7 billion. A century ago or so, it was about 1 billion. Going by your zero-sum reasoning, the average wealth of the population would have had to be divided by seven, all things being equal. The only way for average wellbeing to increase at all would be for some kind of forceful redistribution of resources, which would only increase it by an order of magnitude [I]at most[/I]. But that isn't what we see. The population has exploded, average material wellbeing has increased by several orders of magnitude, [I]and[/I] inequality has increased (I know this because you keep complaining about it). In the zero sum model, these three things are mutually contradictory; one of them has to go.[/QUOTE]
We must find a way to travel faster than the speed of light and colonize planets in other solar systems in order to sustain the human race.
[QUOTE=Governor Goblin;40038809]I'm sorry you're arguing a corporatist state is the epitome of a society and you want to say other people don't understand economics?
I can't imagine finding a person who knows less about economics then you.[/QUOTE]
i'm not seeing an argument here
what about wealth creation have I got wrong, specifically?
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40044565]i'm not seeing an argument here
what about wealth creation have I got wrong, specifically?[/QUOTE]
the restoration came at the expense of labor hours, which are finite. they cannot be created.
[editline]26th March 2013[/editline]
the value of your labor can be modulated, it can be increased or decreased by shifts in the market or through the ways you apply it, but you cannot literally create more time in which to work.
[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;40045083]the restoration came at the expense of labor hours, which are finite. they cannot be created.
[editline]26th March 2013[/editline]
the value of your labor can be modulated, it can be increased or decreased by shifts in the market or through the ways you apply it, but you cannot literally create more time in which to work.[/QUOTE]
Value of labour is dependent on the value other people give it. Some labour that people do has no economic value at all.
[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;40045083]the restoration came at the expense of labor hours, which are finite. they cannot be created.[/QUOTE]
time is only worth what you do with it.
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40047235]time is only worth what you do with it.[/QUOTE]
I'll say it again: even though the value of a labor hour is mutable, labor hours cannot be created from thin air. There are only 24 hours in a day.
[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;40047262]I'll say it again: even though the value of a labor hour is mutable, labor hours cannot be created from thin air. There are only 24 hours in a day.[/QUOTE]
I never even claimed that you can? it's an entirely different argument. I'm talking about wealth creation, not time creation.
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40047641]I never even claimed that you can? it's an entirely different argument. I'm talking about wealth creation, not time creation.[/QUOTE]
Ever heard of the saying [I]"time is money"[/I]?
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