Tag Archives: renewal
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
Economic Growth Redefined
A more accurate definition of economic growth would be any change in the relation between the throughput and renewal rates, for a given resource for which throughput exceeds renewal, in which change the ratio of the throughput rate to the renewal rate falls, or conversely the ratio of renewal to throughput increases. … Read more
The Derivatives of Wealth
The terms derivative and differential are used here in their mathematical sense, denoting rates of change.
Gross national product and living standard are treated as measures of quantity of wealth. In fact, they are not the quantity but its first derivative or first differential, the rate of wealth-throughput. … Read more
Production?
Structuring, or realising, wealth into goods and services is currently called production or output, as though wealth were being created. In fact, this structuring or realisation is part of the process of throughput of wealth.
The use of goods and services, now called consumption in the sense of being opposite to “production”, is really a subsequent process in the throughput chain whereby wealth is degraded into waste matter and heat whence it may be renewed. … 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
Global Warming – A Red Herring?
The Australian Government has recently announced revised, reduced targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. There has been some objection to this but it should not really be surprising.
Governments around the world have shown that they just don’t get it. … Read more
Budget Balancing Methods – Cost or Gain?
Measures to reduce expenditure and increase revenue raising by governments will often be seen in current economic terms as “costs” to the nation. But if seen in the light of the ideas put forward in the post about “Costs – What Really Costs Us and What Doesn’t?” they are economic gains. … 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
“Costs” – What Really Costs Us and What Doesn’t?
A new definition of costs is also required. The term at present is muddled and confused in general usage.
Wealth loss versus Throughput Reduction
Any outlay of money in a national economy is regarded as a “cost” to the nation in the sense of some loss of wealth. … Read more
Digression: Renewal and Recycling of Resources; Wages and Jobs
It is possible for some time to consume a resource faster than its renewal rate, just as a business can for some time consume its accumulated money capital faster than it takes money in (this is only an illustration and does not confuse money with wealth). … Read more