Tag Archives: perfluent
Living Standard and Quality of Life
Another indirect adverse effect of environmental degradation on economic well-being arises from the effect of the degradation on people’s perception of their economic condition.
A further illustration of the erroneously perceived conflict between environmental conservation and economic well-being lies in this frequent reaction to some piece of environmental devastation: “Oh, well, at least it creates jobs for some people who wouldn’t have one otherwise.”
Certainly the degradation will keep some people busy for a while, but because of the depletion of the resource on which their jobs depend, there will be a net loss of jobs. … Read more
Borrowing to Invest to Get Rich
Governments in many less perfluent countries have borrowed thousands of millions of dollars in attempting to achieve permanent increases in the level of national economic activity and living standards.
The belief was that by borrowing “wealth” from the “rich” nations, they would be able to use it to generate more “wealth” of their own, enough to pay back the original “wealth” with interest and still leave enough to make their own country permanently wealthier. … Read more
When the Boom comes
During the 1970′s and 1980′s governments and people generally in the more perfluent nations were waiting for an economic “upturn” or “recovery” to reduce what had become chronic high unemployment. The underlying assumption was that the high throughput-increase rates, the so-called “economic growth” rates of the 1950′s and 1960′s, were normal and that the more sluggish throughput-increase (TI) rates of latter years were an abnormal phenomenon that could be expected to speed up in time through this or that brilliant policy initiative or going back to the early economics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; or by eliminating (depending on your point of view) businessmen, unions, migrants, taxes, civil servants, or computers; or just by waiting. … Read more
Digression: Other Comments on Statements in UN Report
This digression makes two further comments on the statement on weapons versus other expenditure in the UN report mentioned above. One may return to this post later and go straight on to the post “Discussion of Costs Resumed”, if desired.
The UN report statement also implies agreement with the conventional idea that economic activity is a process of accumulation of wealth. … Read more
Stabilising the Human Population
People love their children, and children generally are a source of pleasure. Some people even claim to derive deep satisfaction from a houseful of seven or eight youngsters. But it is true to say of most people regardless of ethnicity or location that, if they had a really free choice, they would rather have a manageable number – enough for pleasure and company – but not the heavy load of six to a dozen or more. … Read more
Excessive Wages Can Cost Jobs
In the Great Depression, and in the stagflationary predicament of the 1970′s and 80′s which threatens to recur as a result of the US credit crisis and the run-up in the cost of resources and food, the work could have been available to employ everyone if the money had been available to pay them. … Read more
The Idea of Proportionate Flows Applied to Wages – the Stagflation of the 1970′s and 80′s
Misnamed “Keynesian” deficit financing policies applied in more recent years to “recessions” have contributed more and more to inflation and less and less to alleviating unemployment.
These policies have come to exacerbate the very disease, unemployment, they were meant to remedy. … Read more
Interest Rates and Ratio Distortion
It is necessary for a lender of money to charge interest because the purchasing power of each money unit is generally expected to fall with time. This has been the trend historically and the very operation of the economy tends to make it so. … Read more
Ratio Distortion and Consumption
Before and during the Great Depression there was under-consumption due to chronic under-payment of workers – fewer goods and services were being consumed than available workers and plant could structure. But what of the stagflationary situation, when chronic overpayment of workers was the distortion affecting more perfluent economies? … Read more
Digression – Thrift versus Spendthrift
Merely transferring money into the wages channel, increasing the spending power of consumers without forcing them to borrow, is of course not enough; the spending power must be translated into effective demand, with increased spending and consumption actually taking place – the more the better. … Read more