Sandy's laws of economics

[paigetheoracle]

It costs more to start up something new (because of research and development) and preserve something old, than it does to keep that in the middle running (cheap and cheerful - plentiful/ already set up for production/ teething problems overcome).

 

Not really mine but a good observation - the value of something is dependent upon demand, not cost of production and that is driven by emotion (When the public gets bored with some product i.e. the novelty wears off, demand falls). I've included this because of how it dovetails in with the above idea.

 

Next, rarity and extinction go hand in hand - the more you kill off production of something, the higher the price you can charge for it, for less effort to produce it. This is why poaching will wipe out most wild animals in the future as it is doing now (The Golden Goose rule/ Horn of Plenty?).

 

Money is neutral. Currency has no value at all. Debt is artificially created through pushing down income of those at the bottom, be it an individual or a country, by those at the top, to increase profit. When it is pushed the other way round, so that labour costs are heavier, then you have inflation but that is only really another word for 'growth' but like a lot of jargon is a verbal conjuring trick, aimed at misleading people into thinking it is something else (separate/ different).

 

Companies need profit to renew stock, invest in new equipment, hire staff - just as workers need enough money for food, clothing, housing, and sometimes tools. It is the imbalance that causes problems, not the maintenance and set up costs themselves.

 

The question is do we spend money to save lives or save money at a cost to lives? (Quality of mercy over quantity of money).

 

I personally believe that tax should be an equal percentage of everyone's wages - not aimed at hammering the poor or the rich, to create an unfair advantage of one over the other.

 

'The Law of Unknown Providence' states that something we don't know about, will create an 'unconscious' solution to a conscious problem we already have and know we have. Conscious action is based upon what we know, which leads us to react in a specific way to try to solve a difficulty ('It's worked before, why not now?'). In the case of the population explosion, it is the natural drop of the birth rate on The Indian subcontinent at present as opposed to the artificial attempts to suppress growth, through birth control methods, through fear of seemingly infinite growth's effects upon finite resources (James Bond and the ticking bomb in 'Goldfinger'): Every ingenious solution to population pressure, actually increases survival and growth, until a plateau stage is reached, where humanity is too starved of resources to breed anyway (Concentration camp infertility): 'We can't solve problems by using the same thinking that created them' Einstein/ 'He who cuts corners, ends up going round in circles' Tony Sandy.

[maikeru]

Money is neutral. Currency has no value at all. Debt is artificially created through pushing down income of those at the bottom, be it an individual or a country, by those at the top, to increase profit. When it is pushed the other way round, so that labour costs are heavier, then you have inflation but that is only really another word for 'growth' but like a lot of jargon is a verbal conjuring trick, aimed at misleading people into thinking it is something else (separate/ different).

 

Mmm, yes and no, it's an interesting paradox, IMO. Money is not neutral, but money has value as a medium of exchange to facilitate trade, so long as it's agreed upon and trusted as a medium of exchange and store or representation of wealth or labor. Note that I say "agreed upon" and "trusted," both of which indicate that faith and trust are crucial to its perceived value. I also take issue with your notion of debt. More or less, as Wiki puts it, is simply what is owed, and usually refers to future assets being used in the present (with the expectation what is owed is repaid, though this seems a superfluous notion in this day and age).

 

What I do think is a neat "verbal conjuring trick" is the present notion of equating and conflating credit with real earnings, money, or capital. Credit is money and capital with strings. Individuals and businesses both have made this mistake. People have become accustomed to the idea that they need and deserve credit to live as they will and do. Many businesses have come to rely on credit solely to maintain operations, pay and expand workers and management, and to acquire new operations and holdings, and the thought of needing to actually make a "profit," that arcane and abstract notion, has receded into a murky and mysterious past of pre-credit days. But if we were to rephrase "credit" as "debt" and "borrowers" as "debtors," credit to where credit is due no longer sounds so innocuous and sweet a term or name. I ask you, what's in a name?

[paigetheoracle]

Mmm, yes and no, it's an interesting paradox, IMO. Money is not neutral, but money has value as a medium of exchange to facilitate trade, so long as it's agreed upon and trusted as a medium of exchange and store or representation of wealth or labor. Note that I say "agreed upon" and "trusted," both of which indicate that faith and trust are crucial to its perceived value. I also take issue with your notion of debt. More or less, as Wiki puts it, is simply what is owed, and usually refers to future assets being used in the present (with the expectation what is owed is repaid, though this seems a superfluous notion in this day and age).

 

What I do think is a neat "verbal conjuring trick" is the present notion of equating and conflating credit with real earnings, money, or capital. Credit is money and capital with strings. Individuals and businesses both have made this mistake. People have become accustomed to the idea that they need and deserve credit to live as they will and do. Many businesses have come to rely on credit solely to maintain operations, pay and expand workers and management, and to acquire new operations and holdings, and the thought of needing to actually make a "profit," that arcane and abstract notion, has receded into a murky and mysterious past of pre-credit days. But if we were to rephrase "credit" as "debt" and "borrowers" as "debtors," credit to where credit is due no longer sounds so innocuous and sweet a term or name. I ask you, what's in a name?

 

I agree with the verbal conjuring trick - it's all become a big con game nowadays, the idea being that if you are indebted to someone they have the right to extract repayment in some form they want, even if morally dubious (The 'I own you' conjuring trick that most people lost in gangsterism fall for - money is the illusion or all these third world debts would mean (like America's) that these countries couldn't live at all: It's subjective (bits of metal and squares of paper based on belief (trust)) and we need to remember this - a promisary note that runs on honour and that the crooked twist, to try to obtain more for less (laziness) or cut out the middleman and steal the goods direct).

 

I agree with your point about the future too as it is like a seed and when it has grown to fruition, can be harvested back with interest.

 

One of the problems I have is when people forget that the real world is the source of everything we have and that it isn't all self-renewable (minerals) and that if we increase our population beyond the point where we outnumber plants and animals, then cannibalism becomes inevitable as in Soylent Green (Love thy neighbour as thyself is one thing but eat him?).

 

By the way I see money as a tool, just like the body and mind, which has no value until it is put to use - hence neutrality (think of a car parked in neutral - as long as it isn't going anywhere it is as meaningless as one of my jokes).

 

By the way liked the Devil's Dictionary quote

[paigetheoracle]

Another rule I've discovered is that of too many chiefs/ Indians law.

 

This is simply where too many managers, leads to them awarding themselves massive pay rises and sacking the 'Indians' below them in droves, creating a culture of self-publicists, who don't deliver service but overcharge for what they are supposed to do (Current situation).

 

The second state is what used to happen where unions ruled the roost and bullied management, striking and going slow/ refusing jobs (Too many Indians not enough chiefs).

 

It is all a question of balance. In this situation we see the pitfalls of capitalism and socialism (top heavy or bottom heavy work conditions). We need to find the ideal number of each but unfortunately the war between the two, ensures greed pulls things down in way or the other and we all suffer as nations (Look what jobs for the boys has done for Zimbabwe and banking greed did for the West).

[maikeru]

Another rule I've discovered is that of too many chiefs/ Indians law.

 

This is simply where too many managers, leads to them awarding themselves massive pay rises and sacking the 'Indians' below them in droves, creating a culture of self-publicists, who don't deliver service but overcharge for what they are supposed to do (Current situation).

 

The second state is what used to happen where unions ruled the roost and bullied management, striking and going slow/ refusing jobs (Too many Indians not enough chiefs).

 

It is all a question of balance. In this situation we see the pitfalls of capitalism and socialism (top heavy or bottom heavy work conditions). We need to find the ideal number of each but unfortunately the war between the two, ensures greed pulls things down in way or the other and we all suffer as nations (Look what jobs for the boys has done for Zimbabwe and banking greed did for the West).

 

Too many "big-headed" chiefs. Right now it's all right for CEOs to run their corporations into the ground, scandal, or through bankruptcy and bailout, and still receive prize-winning compensation or severance packages and stock options.

[HydrogenBond]

Here are some ideas for turning the economy around using a money loop to prime the economic pump. We bail out the banks of some of their bad mortgage debt. The way we do this is by paying down personal mortgages. What this means is the banks get the money, via reducing mortgages. This will then be considered a loan to the bank, since they now have hard capital instead of high risk paper debt that can depreciate 20-70%. The banks pay back the money, and the money is then funneled into the economy as a tax cut. The same money, pays off mortgages, gives money to the banks for hard assets, returns to the government, goes to the tax payer, who then puts the money into the economy. This increases employment and tax revenue allowing the government gets its money back but further in the future.

 

Let me go through an example. The government gives Joe 50K to reduce his defaulting mortgage. Joe never handles the money, rather it goes to the bank. What Joe will see is his loan has been decreased by that amount. The bank is happy, since it has liquid assets instead of high risk debt that continues to depreciate. To make it work, the bank has to look at this windfall as a loan and pays it back; no interest. The government sees the money returning, and uses it to set up a tax rebate program. Joe now also sees a tax cut from the same money that started this. He spends the money creating jobs or we can even return it to the bank, as Joe's saving account, so the bank can further invest. This increases the amount of taxes, since more people are working. The government gradually gets its money back since it was only used to prime the pump.

[kathreeds]

[

Here are some ideas for turning the economy around using a money loop to prime the economic pump. We bail out the banks of some of their bad mortgage debt. The way we do this is by paying down personal mortgages. What this means is the banks get the money, via reducing mortgages. This will then be considered a loan to the bank, since they now have hard capital instead of high risk paper debt that can depreciate 20-70%. The banks pay back the money, and the money is then funneled into the economy as a tax cut. The same money, pays off mortgages, gives money to the banks for hard assets, returns to the government, goes to the tax payer, who then puts the money into the economy. This increases employment and tax revenue allowing the government gets its money back but further in the future.

 

 

what about the Banks own reserve ???