Thinking Things Anew

[duszek]

And what´s the emotion behind the counter ?

The emotional message is predominant here.

We can only grasp it emotionally ourselves.

If the tone of the voice were availabe it would make the correct grasping more precise.

I'm supposing that this is directed at me. I'm further supposing that the first question is asking me what emotion(s) I have while being engaged in this topic, or something like that. Emotion is inextricably entwined with meaning/language use. That said...

I try to be as disinterested as possible. That is only to say that I attempt to understand the same events in as many ways as I can(within reason, of course). When it is the case that there are competing but equally valid explanations, it is helpful to look at explanatory power and the amount of unprovable assumptions.

Intonation may or may not help one grasp how I'm using the words. I mean, there is always the possibility of a listener misattributing meaning as well as a reader. The listener just has more to work with, and intonation is imperative to certain utterances.

Thanks, creative soul.
Actually I meant: what are the emotions behind the counter that you described as "precise".

This was not a precise enough comment to me. My impression of the counter was that the person was full of rage and thus not producing any useful substance.
The counter producer was foaming at the mouth, as far as I am concerned.

So your attribute "precise" was probably meant ironically.

Do you happen to be a chess player, creative soul ?

[creativesoul]

Ah...

Indeed. That particular counter seemed full of disturbance. Sarcasm doesn't come across well in this medium, and I often try to avoid it as a result of that and other reasons...

I know the rules of chess. However, I'm not a knowledgable player.

[FlashDangerpants]

We'll get there, but first a discussion on what counts as "economic progress" is on order...

If you would, spell it out for me, as clearly and concisely as you can, and I'll grant your terms and work from there.

Economic progress is a perfectly standard synonym for economic growth. I don't care which term we use, but to avoid having to splatter a simple descriptive concept with a bunch of normative mumbo jumbo I will henceforth stick to just calling it growth.

Economic growth is the process by which a society grows wealthier. "Wealthier" means that people are able to purchase a wider variety of goods and services. "Goods and services" is the normal term for things that we buy with money. Just as "progress" means forward movement without any normative implications either way, please bear in mind that "goods" should not be confused with any moral concept here. Heroin and nuclear weapons are "goods" in this sense - even though they are "bads" in another.

These goods and services are made out inputs, which may include many things such as plastic or steel, but also the labour or "work" that a person has put into their manufacture.

When a thing is made, or changed from raw stuff into finished stuff, it is sometimes exchanged for more money than was required to purchase the raw stuff. This process is called "adding value". The difference in value between the price of the raw materials and the finished article is known as "added value". I would like you to understand "value" here in that specific sense. Please don't suppose that "value" is a reference to culture. You can think of it as "price" if you need to.

Productivity is a thing that goes up if the ratio of inputs per unit of finished product created goes down. Higher productivity either improves the value added to the resultant product, or else makes it possible to sell more cheaply.

Economic growth can take two forms. Experts refer to these as intensive growth and extensive growth.

Extensive growth is what you get when the number of workers increases through but the average value of the work that the people produce remains the same. So say for instance during the middle ages in Europe. At the start of that era, over 90% of the population worked on farms or else moving stuff between farms, or making tools to use on farms. At the end of the period, the same was true. If you were one of those 90%, you would spend most of your income on food and still be hungry much of the time. The range of goods and services available to consumers in the middle ages did not expand very rapidly, and this is largely because nothing much happened to improve economic productivity.

Intensive growth is what you get when productivity improves. Say for instance the industrial revolution. In this period the proportion of the people whose jobs were depressingly similar to those of the middle ages fell rapidly for a sustained period (because the additional value of the work done by remaining farmers increased exponentially).

Once again, before you kick off, I want you to consider that none of the words I am using here are supposed to convey any particular moral content. I am not saying everyone in the middle ages was unhappy, nor that the industrial revolution brought joy to all hearts. I am pointing out the fact that the economy - which is a loose term for the system by which goods and services are created and consumed - made a wider variety of goods and services available to a greater portion of the populace because of a rapid increase in the productivity of their creation.


So... Trying to retain low value-add work at high pay demonstrates a profound failure to understand the concept of productivity and its role in economic growth.

And ... The phrase "Efficiency has nothing to do with economic growth" is basically equivalent to "It's snowing in March, global warming is a lie!".

[creativesoul]

We'll get there, but first a discussion on what counts as "economic progress" is on order...

If you would, spell it out for me, as clearly and concisely as you can, and I'll grant your terms and work from there.

Economic progress is a perfectly standard synonym for economic growth. I don't care which term we use, but to avoid having to splatter a simple descriptive concept with a bunch of normative mumbo jumbo I will henceforth stick to just calling it growth.

Economic growth is the process by which a society grows wealthier. "Wealthier" means that people are able to purchase a wider variety of goods and services. "Goods and services" is the normal term for things that we buy with money. Just as "progress" means forward movement without any normative implications either way, please bear in mind that "goods" should not be confused with any moral concept here. Heroin and nuclear weapons are "goods" in this sense - even though they are "bads" in another.

These goods and services are made out inputs, which may include many things such as plastic or steel, but also the labour or "work" that a person has put into their manufacture.

When a thing is made, or changed from raw stuff into finished stuff, it is sometimes exchanged for more money than was required to purchase the raw stuff. This process is called "adding value". The difference in value between the price of the raw materials and the finished article is known as "added value". I would like you to understand "value" here in that specific sense. Please don't suppose that "value" is a reference to culture. You can think of it as "price" if you need to.

Productivity is a thing that goes up if the ratio of inputs per unit of finished product created goes down. Higher productivity either improves the value added to the resultant product, or else makes it possible to sell more cheaply.

Economic growth can take two forms. Experts refer to these as intensive growth and extensive growth.

Extensive growth is what you get when the number of workers increases through but the average value of the work that the people produce remains the same. So say for instance during the middle ages in Europe. At the start of that era, over 90% of the population worked on farms or else moving stuff between farms, or making tools to use on farms. At the end of the period, the same was true. If you were one of those 90%, you would spend most of your income on food and still be hungry much of the time. The range of goods and services available to consumers in the middle ages did not expand very rapidly, and this is largely because nothing much happened to improve economic productivity.

Intensive growth is what you get when productivity improves. Say for instance the industrial revolution. In this period the proportion of the people whose jobs were depressingly similar to those of the middle ages fell rapidly for a sustained period (because the additional value of the work done by remaining farmers increased exponentially).

Once again, before you kick off, I want you to consider that none of the words I am using here are supposed to convey any particular moral content. I am not saying everyone in the middle ages was unhappy, nor that the industrial revolution brought joy to all hearts. I am pointing out the fact that the economy - which is a loose term for the system by which goods and services are created and consumed - made a wider variety of goods and services available to a greater portion of the populace because of a rapid increase in the productivity of their creation.


So... Trying to retain low value-add work at high pay demonstrates a profound failure to understand the concept of productivity and its role in economic growth.

And ... The phrase "Efficiency has nothing to do with economic growth" is basically equivalent to "It's snowing in March, global warming is a lie!".

I'll grant this terminological framework. Neither of those is the only possible inference given what you know about me and my understanding of the concept of productivity and it's role in your notion of economic growth. A quick review of the facts is on order...

I'm setting out the underlying causes of Trump's rise.

I argued that there were once good paying employment opportunities for a much larger swathe of American citizens(manufacturing and building trades in particular). That is true, irrefutably so. That particular swathe of Americans voted overwhelmingly for Trump. I am in the middle of explaining how we've gotten where we are in today's America(Trump is the president elect).

You then charged me with trying to retain low value-added work at a high pay, and then subsequently inferred from that that there is a profound failure in my understanding the concept of productivity and it's role in economic growth. That charge was both, based on your interpretation of the facts and false. That's the second time I've let you know.

I understand perfectly. I do not agree with your notion of wealth. I do not agree with your notion of economic progress. That is not to say that you're using the term incorrectly. It is to say that if wealth is equivalent to the amount of goods and services that are available in the marketplace, then what do you call the financial quantification of one's property when rendered in monetary terms?

[FlashDangerpants]

if wealth is equivalent to the amount of goods and services that are available in the marketplace, then what do you call the financial quantification of one's property when rendered in monetary terms?

That's the stuff that people can buy more of as a society becomes wealthier.
It's also the result of producing goods (these things being the goods which are neither destroyed nor discarded on consumption).
Incomes are a source of wealth as well - in fact they are what that wealth is made out of.
You can describe that wealth as stored or surplus income if you like.
Not that any of this matters. Your if statement is false because that isn't an accurate paraphrasing of "Wealthier" or "able".

If I build a house for a horse upon shaky foundations, I have created an unstable stable. This does not contradict the law of non-contradiciton because stable and stable and stable are being two different things with one word. You seem to be having difficulty with this idea, wealth is one example, progress another.

I argued that there were once good paying employment opportunities for a much larger swathe of American citizens(manufacturing and building trades in particular). That is true, irrefutably so. That particular swathe of Americans voted overwhelmingly for Trump. I am in the middle of explaining how we've gotten where we are in today's America(Trump is the president elect).

You then charged me with trying to retain low value-added work at a high pay, and then subsequently inferred from that that there is a profound failure in my understanding the concept of productivity and it's role in economic growth. That charge was both, based on your interpretation of the facts and false. That's the second time I've let you know.

You argued other things other than the supposedly "irrefutably true" claim that there used to be a golden age for white people of low education (those are I understand the people whose swathes of votes carried the election). You claimed for instance that Mexican immigrants have caused "quantifiable harm to American workers and their families. American workers would have those jobs." As I have mentioned, there are a shit ton of academic studies out there looking for this quantitiy - it is nowhere to be seen.

You also argued that "American workers would have more spendable income and the economy would be more robust as a result of more money being in the hands of more Americans.". The work you describe is low value-add work. One way to know this is so is to look at whether it can be done by low skilled workers cheaply. If so, then little of the value of the end product results from the guy on the production line with the spanner, more comes from the designers of whatever product this may be, or for that matter the designer of the manufacturing process used.

In that same quote you made a claim that "the economy would be more robust as a result of more money being in the hands of more Americans". That 's a fairly straight forward claim I think.

So let's consider an opposite idea that has been widely sold. The claim of some rabid right wingers was in the 80s (and in your country I understand still actually is!) that reducing taxes give entrepreneurs so much extra vigour that they create millions of jobs and boost the economy to such an extent that the state takes in more taxes than it has forgone through the cut. Technically, in some extreme cases that has been known work in a sense, but we all know it's Magical Money Tree bollocks on the whole - and this has been borne out by many studies, some are bold enough to argue that the Laffer Curve is entirely fictive.

The same is true of your claim. The boost to purchasing power for a portion of consumers is outweighed by the rising costs imposed on consumers and the redundancies through cost cutting pushed further down the supply chain. This is known.

Trump fans don't like experts telling them stuff they don't want to know, every expert who tells them they will have to learn new skills because the old ones aren't valuable enough is deemed to be dishonest. The true believers who remain convinced that tax cuts pay for themselves are similarly discriminating. Neither is better or worse than the other, you are all just picking something that agrees with your prejudice because that's the ultimate meaning of "common sense".

Now I'm not a credentialed economist, I'm just a guy who, well, reads The Economist and things like that. But they use experts to write that stuff. And experts have this thing they do where they don't rely too much on common sense - they like to look for actual evidence. I admit, prior to actually taking an interest in such stuff, I also assumed that if we protect our companies from low cost foreign competition it would make us collectively richer, and that immigration to the rich world from the poor is a sort of charity that we are morally obliged to provide in spite of it driving down wages. It came as quite a surprise to learn these things which seemed so commonly sensible are myths.

I suppose therefore it's true that "Identifying and removing falsehood from one's thought/belief system is always great for those who are capable of doing so." It's just a shame that you started a big old thread about "being able to set aside one's own thought/belief on matters" when you have no intention of doing any such thing.

[creativesoul]

if wealth is equivalent to the amount of goods and services that are available in the marketplace, then what do you call the financial quantification of one's property when rendered in monetary terms?

That's the stuff that people can buy more of as a society becomes wealthier.

The stuff that can be bought are goods and services. While one's property and assets may consist in part and/or entirely of goods and services that were previously purchased and/or somehow otherwise acquired, when talking about the totality of one's property in monetary terms, that is commonly called one's personal wealth.

I'm simply asking how you draw and maintain a meaningful distinction between one's financial worth(personal wealth) and economic wealth without suffering the fallacy of equivocation...

[creativesoul]

If I build a house for a horse upon shaky foundations, I have created an unstable stable. This does not contradict the law of non-contradiciton because stable and stable and stable are being two different things with one word. You seem to be having difficulty with this idea, wealth is one example, progress another.

The last half of the second sentence is gibberish. Aside from that point, which may be irrelevant...

I have no problem understanding that words can have several different meanings/uses. I have no problem accepting another's definitions. That is necessary for understanding, and is exactly why I further clarified by stating that I'm not saying that you're using the terms incorrectly. I'm saying that they're found sorely lacking in explanatory power. I'm saying that if economic wealth is determined by the sheer amount of goods and services available in the marketplace, then "wealth" is a measure of goods and services available. If more goods and services equates to being wealthier, then it is clear.

So, applying that definition of the term "wealth" to the notion of "personal wealth" would render personal wealth as the amount of goods and services available to that person as compared/contrasted to others with access to the same marketplace. Personal wealth, in that framework, is not a quantity of the means required to purchase such goods and services, it is not a measure of one's property, but rather personal wealth would be a measure of the sheer amount of goods and services that that particular person could purchase if s/he wanted to.

You're putting a conceptual framework to use. Doing so requires defining terms and consistent usage. Obviously the notions of personal wealth are and economic wealth are different... hence the further qualifications of "personal" and "economic". That said, they're also alike... hence the term "wealth". They both consist in part of wealth. They are not both personal. They are not both economic. The difference is there. They are both wealth. If the term "wealth" means something different when talking about personal wealth as compared to economic wealth, then the conceptual framework is incoherent/inconsistent in it's terminological use.

That is not to say that the term "wealth" cannot be used in more than one way by the same person. Rather, it is to say that a conceptual framework is unnecessarily confusing - at best - when consistent usage isn't had, and flat out incoherent at worst. Neither is acceptable. So, with all that in mind...

Are you saying that personal wealth is the amount of goods and services available to an individual?

[creativesoul]

You argued other things other than the supposedly "irrefutably true" claim that there used to be a golden age for white people of low education (those are I understand the people whose swathes of votes carried the election).

Prior to continuing here, something need be said. You're not repeating what I argued. For the exact same reason that I'm intentionally allowing you to make your own argument on your own terms, I expect the same. However, it is necessary at this time to sharpen the focus upon either your thought/belief or mine. Not both simultaneously. One at a time.

It is well worth noting here that I'm not talking about a golden age for white people. Nor is it my understanding that all of Trump's voters were poorly educated white people. Nor does the large swathe of Americans who do not think/believe that there's much hope to live a comfortable life consist of only poorly educated white people.

[FlashDangerpants]

You are wrong. First up, you are relying on a very limited definition of personal wealth whereas I distinctly referred to the wealth of a society. I k now that you will be scandalised by the thought that these aren't the same thing, but to economist they are not. To whit:

BREAKING DOWN 'Wealth'

Wealth is expressed in a variety of ways. For individuals, net worth is the most common expression of wealth, while countries measure by gross domestic product (GDP), or GDP per capita.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wealth.asp

You see, when you talk of wealth in those limited terms excluding income, debt, net present value and discounting, you are basically talking about Net Worth which is a perfectly adequate way of discussing wealth, but not the complete one you wish it was.


And please, if you are going to spend an hour and a half steaming over my comments, trying to find withering responses, you should not write this...

Prior to continuing here, something need be said. You're not repeating what I argued. For the exact same reason that I'm intentionally allowing you to make your own argument on your own terms, I expect the same.

In such blatant contradiction of this...

if economic wealth is determined by the sheer amount of goods and services available in the marketplace

You sanctimonious hypocritical little man.


Anyway, I'm bored of arguing this tiresome little point with you. So where I wrote....

"Wealthier" means that people are able to purchase a wider variety of goods and services.

Let's please assume what I meant to write was

"Wealthier" means that people are becoming increasingly "wealthy", with the byproduct that they are able to afford a wider variety of goods and services.

Please tell me I have now synthesised all the relevant concepts of wealth into one simple sentence that you don't need to mangle.

[creativesoul]

Sigh...

I'm simply asking you to define your terms. You said "wealthier" means that people are able to purchase a wider variety of goods and that economic growth is the process by which a society grows wealthier. You also said that economic growth is equivalent to economic progress. That's the part that I was attempting to have you clarify...

However, due your last few replies, it seems that that isn't likely to happen.

You'll have that...

[creativesoul]

Please tell me I have now synthesised all the relevant concepts of wealth into one simple sentence.

Well, you've certainly tried to justify the formal fallacy of equivocation.

[creativesoul]

Let's please assume what I meant to write was...

No.

I will assume no such thing. I assume that one is stating their own thought/belief on the matter. I assume that one writes what they mean. I presuppose sincerity in speech, unless otherwise warranted...

[FlashDangerpants]

I'm simply asking you to define your terms. You said "wealthier" means that people are able to purchase a wider variety of goods and that economic growth is the process by which a society grows wealthier. You also said that economic growth is equivalent to economic progress. That's the part that I was attempting to have you clarify...

"Economic Progress" is a bit of an antiquated term and we would normally use "Economic Growth" these days.
So take the original expression, replace "progress" with "growth" and absolutely nothing of consequence changes.
I am willing to accept this edit is required on the basis that...
a. I don't give a fuck, it's a distinction without difference.
and b. I notice that a couple of think tanks want to appropriate ED for a new thing that roughly looks like GDP and a happiness index of some sort.

So you win that point CS. I will henceforth refer to economic progress as economic growth.

If a society becomes wealthier, that does mean that they can afford a wider range of goods and services. What else is it supposed to mean? I'm not objecting to your using net worth to calculate the wealth of an individual. It's the simplest way to reach a measure. But on the scale of a society, aggregate accumulated net worth of all the individuals there is not used as a measure of wealth. It's not a useful number, so it doesn't get used. Incomes are what count there and so GDP growth is the available number which is appropriate to the task.

You can imagine if you want some El Dorado where everybody already owns a metric ton of gold, and all they want in the world is to hoard their gold. So apart from a dollar a day for porridge, nobody spends any money, and the only person in employment is the porridge delivery guy who earns a few dollars a day. By my definitions; they are all rich, but their economy is desperately weak. They don't consume their wealth like real people, they don't require incomes like real people, their only two desires (being alive, being with their gold) are satisfied by a single commodity. So sure, in some weird extremes it is possible that the relationship between the terms of art I am using here and the underlying concepts that give meaning to them breaks down a little. In those circumstances we suspend or qualify the term of art, but those are case by case - the economy of a boat adrift in the Pacific with its occupants as the only source of food is hopefully greatly dissimilar to that of your town.

In this context, the terms I have described above are typically used in the way I have described them. Where I have left scope for honest confusion, I apologise and am willing to clear up any errors. But just so we are clear, these terms are not grand metaphysical claims about what "value" really is in its most ultimate and fundamental sense. These are working concepts that are used because of usefulness. They are useful for making sense of observed phenomena, and human behaviour as well as empirical claims. Here are some empirical claims that they are useful for assessing...
"Immigration and trade policies have decimated their hope by eliminating opportunity."
"Because the immigration laws are not properly enforced, that very situation is a common one, and it has caused quantifiable harm to American workers and their families. American workers would have those jobs."
"Trade policies have cost American workers their jobs."
"American workers would have more spendable income and the economy would be more robust as a result of more money being in the hands of more Americans."
Those are the sorts of claim where you also are relying on these sorts of used-because-useful concept. So this transparent game you are playing where only the purest and most refined form of any concept is good enough for you simply puts yourself in a position where you could not possibly justify your own words which I have directly cut and pasted without molestation.

You only got my attention by making claims of that order.

[creativesoul]

I'm simply asking you to define your terms. You said "wealthier" means that people are able to purchase a wider variety of goods and that economic growth is the process by which a society grows wealthier. You also said that economic growth is equivalent to economic progress. That's the part that I was attempting to have you clarify...

"Economic Progress" is a bit of an antiquated term and we would normally use "Economic Growth" these days.
So take the original expression, replace "progress" with "growth" and absolutely nothing of consequence changes...

...If a society becomes wealthier, that does mean that they can afford a wider range of goods and services. What else is it supposed to mean?

Hmmm. Are you making my argument for me? That doesn't follow from the framework you've provided.

If a wealthier society is determined by virtue of the sheer quantity of goods and services available, then it most certainly does not follow that the people can afford a wider variety of goods and services. In other words, an overwhelming ratio of a nation's population can be on public assistance and/or jobless/homeless with no source of income, and yet using your framework it would still be sensible to say that it is the wealthiest nation on earth, simply because of the sheer number of goods and services available in the marketplace.

Understanding a conceptual scheme(call it conceptual scheme A) doesn't require agreeing with it. Using another conceptual scheme(call it conceptual scheme B) doesn't require a lack of understanding conceptual scheme A.

Do you follow me here?

In this context, the terms I have described above are typically used in the way I have described them. Where I have left scope for honest confusion, I apologise and am willing to clear up any errors. But just so we are clear, these terms are not grand metaphysical claims about what "value" really is in its most ultimate and fundamental sense. These are working concepts that are used because of usefulness. They are useful for making sense of observed phenomena, and human behaviour as well as empirical claims. Here are some empirical claims that they are useful for assessing...

"Immigration and trade policies have decimated their hope by eliminating opportunity."
"Because the immigration laws are not properly enforced, that very situation is a common one, and it has caused quantifiable harm to American workers and their families. American workers would have those jobs."
"Trade policies have cost American workers their jobs."
"American workers would have more spendable income and the economy would be more robust as a result of more money being in the hands of more Americans."

Those are the sorts of claim where you also are relying on these sorts of used-because-useful concept.

Let me get this straight...

Are you claiming that those statements rely on the conceptual scheme that you're putting to use here?(the economic jargon). And if so, are you further asserting that those statements are bound by that scheme?

[creativesoul]

Glitchy site...