@secretwealth - More difficult to retire early, and more difficult to retire at all. But as a result of what? Primarily, as a result of poor personal spending choices and inappropriate use of credit. Almost nobody would have difficulty retiring if they had managed their money as good stewards. Is it society's responsibility to fix somebody's lifetime of bad choices?
Same for medical. Some people get sick due to a genetic issue, an accident or just bad luck. However, most diseases are nothing more than the result of lifestyle choices over decades. Why are we all having to pay so much more for medical care, when many people get sick by choice? If we lived healthy lives, and we all know what that looks like, medical expenses would be a non-issue. I have no solution for this, but I do wonder why I, as a person living a healthy life, have to pay for people who don't.
College tuition: yeah that is a problem. Actually, the biggest expense is the opportunity cost. I envision that college online will be in the near future. Traditional colleges will have competition from online colleges here and abroad. I don't doubt for a moment that the cost of college will go down when that happens. You can also almost eliminate the opportunity cost by either working during the day (or go to a trade school) and study online at night.
The social contract has definitely changed forever. You can either adapt or wring your hands and choose to become a helpless victim. Just think of how many of us chose to adapt and are thriving. I did, and I am not a software engineer.
To me this looks like the "middle class squeeze" can easily be remedied by making good choices. This is in the control of each individual.
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secretwealth
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"But as a result of what?"
As a result of inflation on essentials. Housing, transportation, medical care, and education are getting more expensive.
"Primarily, as a result of poor personal spending choices and inappropriate use of credit."
No--C40's data doesn't lead to that conclusion.
"The social contract has definitely changed forever. You can either adapt or wring your hands and choose to become a helpless victim."
That's a false dilemma--I don't think S_W or I are playing the helpless victim. Rather, it seems that we're being a bit more sympathetic to others whom you would dismiss as choosing to become a helpless victim.
"Just think of how many of us chose to adapt and are thriving. ... To me this looks like the "middle class squeeze" can easily be remedied by making good choices."
Yes--we're slowly becoming a society where ERE is not a choice but a necessity for all but the very few at the top who are getting richer and richer. They, of course, don't have to make "good" choices by your standard.
As a result of inflation on essentials. Housing, transportation, medical care, and education are getting more expensive.
"Primarily, as a result of poor personal spending choices and inappropriate use of credit."
No--C40's data doesn't lead to that conclusion.
"The social contract has definitely changed forever. You can either adapt or wring your hands and choose to become a helpless victim."
That's a false dilemma--I don't think S_W or I are playing the helpless victim. Rather, it seems that we're being a bit more sympathetic to others whom you would dismiss as choosing to become a helpless victim.
"Just think of how many of us chose to adapt and are thriving. ... To me this looks like the "middle class squeeze" can easily be remedied by making good choices."
Yes--we're slowly becoming a society where ERE is not a choice but a necessity for all but the very few at the top who are getting richer and richer. They, of course, don't have to make "good" choices by your standard.
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RealPerson
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@SW - It looks like we both see similar things, but there is a more libertarian view (personal responsibility) or a more empathetic view (let's help someone out who is in trouble). I think we need some of both in reality. When assessing the explosion in entitlements of all kinds, I just wonder when enough is enough? I am concerned that the "never enough" mentality will drive up taxes so much, that it becomes a demotivator for risk-taking entrepreneurs. Just look at what happened in Europe. They have entrepreneurs, just less than we do here. They also have less employment opportunities. That scenario presents an even bigger squeeze for the middle class.
There will always be unmet needs that one can try to fix with a new or expanded program. The needs will always be higher than available resources. Where do you draw a line, if ever? My comments are driven by concern, not a mentality of superiority or lack of empathy for the less fortunate.
There will always be unmet needs that one can try to fix with a new or expanded program. The needs will always be higher than available resources. Where do you draw a line, if ever? My comments are driven by concern, not a mentality of superiority or lack of empathy for the less fortunate.
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secretwealth
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I'd have no problem with the libertarian view of personal responsibility if the burden were equally shared--but income disparity and class mobility have gone down dramatically in the past 30 years. These are demonstrated, oft-repeated truisms at this point.
"When assessing the explosion in entitlements of all kinds, I just wonder when enough is enough? I am concerned that the "never enough" mentality will drive up taxes so much, that it becomes a demotivator for risk-taking entrepreneurs."
I did see Nate Silver demonstrate how Medicare and SSI costs are squeezing the U.S. budget, so there is some validity to this perspective. However, you could easily make the argument that this is a result of political mismanagement and not of the distributing wealth more evenly. This is pretty much demonstrated by the fact that the countries with the most generous social welfare benefits (Germany, Scandinavia) are in fact running budget surpluses and have sustained their economies very well.
"Just look at what happened in Europe. They have entrepreneurs, just less than we do here."
Europe isn't a homogenous whole, and a lot of entrepreneurial energy comes from so-called high tax regimes. Angry Birds, Nokia, and Linux come from Finland, for instance. Siemens, Lidl, Deutschebank from Germany. I could go on.
Also, the middle class in northern Europe is in a much stronger position than in America. Having lived in both places, I'm quite confident of this, but data is easy to come by to prove that point too--if we just define what we mean by "strong" first.
"When assessing the explosion in entitlements of all kinds, I just wonder when enough is enough? I am concerned that the "never enough" mentality will drive up taxes so much, that it becomes a demotivator for risk-taking entrepreneurs."
I did see Nate Silver demonstrate how Medicare and SSI costs are squeezing the U.S. budget, so there is some validity to this perspective. However, you could easily make the argument that this is a result of political mismanagement and not of the distributing wealth more evenly. This is pretty much demonstrated by the fact that the countries with the most generous social welfare benefits (Germany, Scandinavia) are in fact running budget surpluses and have sustained their economies very well.
"Just look at what happened in Europe. They have entrepreneurs, just less than we do here."
Europe isn't a homogenous whole, and a lot of entrepreneurial energy comes from so-called high tax regimes. Angry Birds, Nokia, and Linux come from Finland, for instance. Siemens, Lidl, Deutschebank from Germany. I could go on.
Also, the middle class in northern Europe is in a much stronger position than in America. Having lived in both places, I'm quite confident of this, but data is easy to come by to prove that point too--if we just define what we mean by "strong" first.
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jacob
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I think looking at the "middle-class" is the wrong perspective. Instead look at the paycheck-consumer-with-a-high-paying-job-in-mass-production (of widgets or paper forms)-that-require-no-skills, at least no skills that can't be acquired within a few months... we're not talking years of apprenticing. E.g. pushing a button on an assembly line for $20/hour. That species did really well between 1920 and 1970 but it is dying and in a few decades it will be gone. But it will be gone.
Go back a hundred years. Back then buying groceries would have been very unusual. People were craftsmen. That species is almost completely dead now. You can't make much money hand-building fine things and if you do, you're handily outcompeted by commoditized goods that come out of an assembly line.
The next transition is to replace assembly line and office worker labor with robots and computers. This has been going on for about 50 years no. This is why the professional class is the currently thriwing one and the "middle class" which comprise mostly the old guard of "show up, push a button for 8 hours, get paid $20/hour, and then spend that on stuff" is dying.
Sure there's been some financial interventions involving cheap credit (which is a politically correct form of redistribution from savers to spenders which is hidden for those who do not understand economic reality, e.g. Keynesians), but those are not sustainable. This is why we have all those booms and crashes (you read it first here ... and will be reading it last from official academic channels) are happening. It's central banks trying to get something for nothing by manipulating the information flow to make certain numbers look good.
The current paradigm is information. If you don't work with knowledge in a useful fashion---and by this I mean generating it, not moving it around which any computer can do by now---then you're falling behind.
This is a HUGE problem because we partially have an international community of production and trade where button-pushing jobs are outsourced to the lowest bidder and yet people aren't allowed free travel and work opportunities due to the holdouts of the nation states.
There are a couple of scenarios...
If you allow free trade but no free movement of people and no redistribution, you'll see a situation like in the US: The rich get richer, the poor are "struggling", and everybody buys they cheap massproduced junk from people who are even poorer.
If you allow free trade, no free movement, and redistribution, you'll see Europe. The 10% of the population who's capable of working with knowledge are carrying the rest. Many people will live on social transfers.
If you don't allow free trade, no free movement, your country will gradually fall behind those that do. The only reason to put up trade barriers is for strategic reasons. (Which might be a good idea.)
If you allow free trade and free movement, inessential nationals will be priced out of the country entirely. You'll see cities and later entire countries where nationals can simply no longer afford to live because they aren't productive. You see this for cities today. Someone born in Manhattan might not have the talent to make enough money to keep living in Manhattan. This could happen for the entire country.
As it is, right now, we have sort of an incomplete solution because some jobs are still sucky enough that we need people to do them. How do we do that without making resources artificially rare? If we made resources too abundant, 80% would be on social transfers while 10% would do the fun jobs and the remaining 10% of jobs (the dirty ones) would remain undone, because why bother, when there's free government money.
A big problem is that the current transitional problem is not something that has an apparent solution like the last time. In the transition for artisans to assembly line workers the problem was to get people doing boring repetitive work for 8 hours per day every day. This was much different than what they were used to. This was solved by the modern education system. (Education uses to be much different than sitting on a chair and solving simple textbook problems for hours on end.) In the transition from "middle class work" to "knowledge control" ... well, I don't know what the solution is. I seriously doubt that more "institutional education" is it.
Anyway, I don't have a solution. I just recognize that there are several of them.
Overall, there's practically no way around. Technology provides massive leverage for those who master it. A person who masters a computer to search for library records is several hundred times more effective than people who are doing it by hand. So imagine an example of a "library universe". Before computing, you had 100 librarians searching and one janitor, say. Now you have 1 librarian with a computer doing all the work of the other 99 and 1 janitor. Now, what is the ideal socio-economic solution. You can transfer the income of the computer guy to the other 99 to share the wealth. However, if you do this, how are you going to keep the janitor position filled? In particular, since only one person has the drive/talents to master the computer-search, the job can't be parted out and have each former librarian do 1/100th of the work. If only ...
I frankly don't know the solution to this problem. Ideally everybody would be doing what they preferred to do. And somehow all jobs would be magically filled, from the most desirable to the least desirable. However, in general most people prefer to do nothing if they can get away with it. We do, however, not have a technological solution for this. Hence we need a cultural solution as secretwealth points out. Unfortunately humankind has a terrible trackrecord when it comes to cultural solutions. I think this is because techsolutions are easily shared as they only require the best inputs from the best minds. Cultural solutions, OTOH, requires the best inputs from ALL minds. Therein lies the trouble.
Go back a hundred years. Back then buying groceries would have been very unusual. People were craftsmen. That species is almost completely dead now. You can't make much money hand-building fine things and if you do, you're handily outcompeted by commoditized goods that come out of an assembly line.
The next transition is to replace assembly line and office worker labor with robots and computers. This has been going on for about 50 years no. This is why the professional class is the currently thriwing one and the "middle class" which comprise mostly the old guard of "show up, push a button for 8 hours, get paid $20/hour, and then spend that on stuff" is dying.
Sure there's been some financial interventions involving cheap credit (which is a politically correct form of redistribution from savers to spenders which is hidden for those who do not understand economic reality, e.g. Keynesians), but those are not sustainable. This is why we have all those booms and crashes (you read it first here ... and will be reading it last from official academic channels) are happening. It's central banks trying to get something for nothing by manipulating the information flow to make certain numbers look good.
The current paradigm is information. If you don't work with knowledge in a useful fashion---and by this I mean generating it, not moving it around which any computer can do by now---then you're falling behind.
This is a HUGE problem because we partially have an international community of production and trade where button-pushing jobs are outsourced to the lowest bidder and yet people aren't allowed free travel and work opportunities due to the holdouts of the nation states.
There are a couple of scenarios...
If you allow free trade but no free movement of people and no redistribution, you'll see a situation like in the US: The rich get richer, the poor are "struggling", and everybody buys they cheap massproduced junk from people who are even poorer.
If you allow free trade, no free movement, and redistribution, you'll see Europe. The 10% of the population who's capable of working with knowledge are carrying the rest. Many people will live on social transfers.
If you don't allow free trade, no free movement, your country will gradually fall behind those that do. The only reason to put up trade barriers is for strategic reasons. (Which might be a good idea.)
If you allow free trade and free movement, inessential nationals will be priced out of the country entirely. You'll see cities and later entire countries where nationals can simply no longer afford to live because they aren't productive. You see this for cities today. Someone born in Manhattan might not have the talent to make enough money to keep living in Manhattan. This could happen for the entire country.
As it is, right now, we have sort of an incomplete solution because some jobs are still sucky enough that we need people to do them. How do we do that without making resources artificially rare? If we made resources too abundant, 80% would be on social transfers while 10% would do the fun jobs and the remaining 10% of jobs (the dirty ones) would remain undone, because why bother, when there's free government money.
A big problem is that the current transitional problem is not something that has an apparent solution like the last time. In the transition for artisans to assembly line workers the problem was to get people doing boring repetitive work for 8 hours per day every day. This was much different than what they were used to. This was solved by the modern education system. (Education uses to be much different than sitting on a chair and solving simple textbook problems for hours on end.) In the transition from "middle class work" to "knowledge control" ... well, I don't know what the solution is. I seriously doubt that more "institutional education" is it.
Anyway, I don't have a solution. I just recognize that there are several of them.
Overall, there's practically no way around. Technology provides massive leverage for those who master it. A person who masters a computer to search for library records is several hundred times more effective than people who are doing it by hand. So imagine an example of a "library universe". Before computing, you had 100 librarians searching and one janitor, say. Now you have 1 librarian with a computer doing all the work of the other 99 and 1 janitor. Now, what is the ideal socio-economic solution. You can transfer the income of the computer guy to the other 99 to share the wealth. However, if you do this, how are you going to keep the janitor position filled? In particular, since only one person has the drive/talents to master the computer-search, the job can't be parted out and have each former librarian do 1/100th of the work. If only ...
I frankly don't know the solution to this problem. Ideally everybody would be doing what they preferred to do. And somehow all jobs would be magically filled, from the most desirable to the least desirable. However, in general most people prefer to do nothing if they can get away with it. We do, however, not have a technological solution for this. Hence we need a cultural solution as secretwealth points out. Unfortunately humankind has a terrible trackrecord when it comes to cultural solutions. I think this is because techsolutions are easily shared as they only require the best inputs from the best minds. Cultural solutions, OTOH, requires the best inputs from ALL minds. Therein lies the trouble.
@Akratic - I think you're probably right. When I was starting those inflation numbers I was thinking about making a separate version which compared costs as flatly as possible for items or services of the same functional value. I think that version would help paint a better picture of how it's not prices that have changed but rather the quality or amount of things bought.
In the car example, there are some luxury improvements that I think you need to ignore since all cars have them now. Looking at them from a functional perspective, you can't compare one new Miata to one new Corvette. It'd have to be something like two 'Vettes vs the Miata, or a 10-year old used Miata vs the vette. The Corvette might be a bad starting point for this kind of comparison anyways since it was intended as an enthusiast car more than as a car for functional transportation. The example the someone else posted shortly after the first comparison might be better. Car design has had some ups and downs. In the 70's we had the introduction of emissions requirements that caused huge setbacks in engine power. I think the 80's saw cars produced that are quite possibly, still to this day, the best ever made. The 90's saw cost cutting and attempts at balancing the lives of parts which resulted in throwaway cars. I think we're. Things have gotten better again since 2,000 or so. Anyways, long story short, I might still do that attempt at a completely flat analysis to exclude all lifestyle inflation. I think car prices will show as dropping about 50%.
I would also like to see that type of analysis for medical care. The difference in life expectancy is good evidence that the quality and/or amount of care has increased significantly.
These types of product and service evolution are basically automatic and will probably continue for many more generations, and because it is in the nature of most people to spend all of their money, products will always evolve and improve right along with any income increases. Then there are also completely new fields of products to create - and I can't think of many examples of product fields that have disappeared or been combined. The ones that do come to mind were often frugality-oriented - the sewing machine is one example.
In the car example, there are some luxury improvements that I think you need to ignore since all cars have them now. Looking at them from a functional perspective, you can't compare one new Miata to one new Corvette. It'd have to be something like two 'Vettes vs the Miata, or a 10-year old used Miata vs the vette. The Corvette might be a bad starting point for this kind of comparison anyways since it was intended as an enthusiast car more than as a car for functional transportation. The example the someone else posted shortly after the first comparison might be better. Car design has had some ups and downs. In the 70's we had the introduction of emissions requirements that caused huge setbacks in engine power. I think the 80's saw cars produced that are quite possibly, still to this day, the best ever made. The 90's saw cost cutting and attempts at balancing the lives of parts which resulted in throwaway cars. I think we're. Things have gotten better again since 2,000 or so. Anyways, long story short, I might still do that attempt at a completely flat analysis to exclude all lifestyle inflation. I think car prices will show as dropping about 50%.
I would also like to see that type of analysis for medical care. The difference in life expectancy is good evidence that the quality and/or amount of care has increased significantly.
These types of product and service evolution are basically automatic and will probably continue for many more generations, and because it is in the nature of most people to spend all of their money, products will always evolve and improve right along with any income increases. Then there are also completely new fields of products to create - and I can't think of many examples of product fields that have disappeared or been combined. The ones that do come to mind were often frugality-oriented - the sewing machine is one example.
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secretwealth
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I fully agree with Jacob's post. I saw in linguistics how the computer made certain types of research antiquated, and new avenues of study which uncovered tremendous information in short order. A child with google today knows more than a Harvard professor in1950.
On the issue of wealth transfers--we needn't have a society in which some work and earn huge wages on info creation and others do nothing and subsist on welfare. We could spread labour and wealth more evenly, like Bertrand Russell's suggestion that double increase in efficiency should mean people work half hours in his pin factory.
I'm ony phone. Longer response forthcoming but, yeah, Jacob is right.
On the issue of wealth transfers--we needn't have a society in which some work and earn huge wages on info creation and others do nothing and subsist on welfare. We could spread labour and wealth more evenly, like Bertrand Russell's suggestion that double increase in efficiency should mean people work half hours in his pin factory.
I'm ony phone. Longer response forthcoming but, yeah, Jacob is right.
One note on healthcare and education: both suffer from Baumol's cost disease ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease ) because the predominant measure of output is proportional to man-hours which makes significant productivity improvements impossible.
Institutional education is measured in units of credit-hours which is proportional to the number of lectures delivered to 30-person classes. As long as 1 unit of output is defined as 1 hour of work, productivity cannot be improved by technology or expertise.
Similarly medical productivity is measured in units of 30 minute consultations with MDs, or procedures that are mandated to involve X minutes and Y individuals. Again output is defined in units of person-hours which makes productivity improvement impossible.
Compare to something like IT, where a unit of output is something like one page of information processed. Or agriculture where a unit of output is 1 bushel of vegetables. There we've seen productivity improve immensely due to technology, division of labor, and professionalism.
AFAICT the only way to fix education or health care is to get everyone to agree on new output metrics that are not tied to man-hours. Like concrete skills learned by students, or medical procedures *prevented*. Or, just accept that the traditional methods will always be getting more and more expensive, as we have for opera and handmade furniture.
Institutional education is measured in units of credit-hours which is proportional to the number of lectures delivered to 30-person classes. As long as 1 unit of output is defined as 1 hour of work, productivity cannot be improved by technology or expertise.
Similarly medical productivity is measured in units of 30 minute consultations with MDs, or procedures that are mandated to involve X minutes and Y individuals. Again output is defined in units of person-hours which makes productivity improvement impossible.
Compare to something like IT, where a unit of output is something like one page of information processed. Or agriculture where a unit of output is 1 bushel of vegetables. There we've seen productivity improve immensely due to technology, division of labor, and professionalism.
AFAICT the only way to fix education or health care is to get everyone to agree on new output metrics that are not tied to man-hours. Like concrete skills learned by students, or medical procedures *prevented*. Or, just accept that the traditional methods will always be getting more and more expensive, as we have for opera and handmade furniture.
@jacob: Thinking about your post...
So technology has progressed to such a point that continuing to tie income to productive work is going to leave a large segment of the population without resources, assuming the population continues to grow at its current rate.
But if income ISN'T tied to production, and if all resources currently have an owner (a person, firm or nation), then how should resources be distributed? What's fair?
Thinking out loud here...
Do people have a right to subsistence-level resources by virtue of the fact that they exist? Most people don't want other people starving or dying of preventable medical conditions, regardless of their political affiliation.
So, if the answer is yes, and once we are all subsisting, THEN the question becomes, do people have a right to a modern level of comfort because they exist? Many say yes. Do we agree?
If the answer to that question is also yes, and once we are all comfortable, THEN the question becomes, do people have a right to an equal share of all available resources because they exist? Because that's the last gap.
If the answer there is yes, that everyone deserves an equal share of everything simply because they were born, then ownership itself is flawed. This also says nothing about the needs of other living things on this planet. Animals, plants, ocean life, etc... what rights do they have, if any?
Productivity itself becomes meaningless if the right to an equal slice of the pie, and the right to an equal say, is contingent only upon birth and not upon achievement or contribution or education or personal sacrifice.
There's a point somewhere in the above sequence that I part company with it, both intellectually and emotionally. I can't articulate the exact place.
So technology has progressed to such a point that continuing to tie income to productive work is going to leave a large segment of the population without resources, assuming the population continues to grow at its current rate.
But if income ISN'T tied to production, and if all resources currently have an owner (a person, firm or nation), then how should resources be distributed? What's fair?
Thinking out loud here...
Do people have a right to subsistence-level resources by virtue of the fact that they exist? Most people don't want other people starving or dying of preventable medical conditions, regardless of their political affiliation.
So, if the answer is yes, and once we are all subsisting, THEN the question becomes, do people have a right to a modern level of comfort because they exist? Many say yes. Do we agree?
If the answer to that question is also yes, and once we are all comfortable, THEN the question becomes, do people have a right to an equal share of all available resources because they exist? Because that's the last gap.
If the answer there is yes, that everyone deserves an equal share of everything simply because they were born, then ownership itself is flawed. This also says nothing about the needs of other living things on this planet. Animals, plants, ocean life, etc... what rights do they have, if any?
Productivity itself becomes meaningless if the right to an equal slice of the pie, and the right to an equal say, is contingent only upon birth and not upon achievement or contribution or education or personal sacrifice.
There's a point somewhere in the above sequence that I part company with it, both intellectually and emotionally. I can't articulate the exact place.
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jacob
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@GandK - Someone's right is usually someone else's lack thereof. However, what-if a resources were infinitely abundant, like air. Would access to breathing be contingent on productivity and achievement?
A loooong time ago, resources were abundant. Consider the economics of hunter-gather societes where resources really are free for the picking. They run on entirely different economics. Not based on ownership and trade but on gift-giving and status. Those who give the most have the highest status. Personally, I'd be willing to switch to such an economy.
Such a culture partially exists in software (open source). The way to break the rarity-hold is to make it possible for everybody to create their own resources. ERE is such a way but unfortunately it requires people to substitute brain-effort and attitude which 99% are unwilling to do. Another way is open-source DIY technology, where once you have the machine you can use it to fabricate stuff. That's a technological solution---99% of people love that stuff. But we're not quite there and maybe we never will be. Also companies have a way of protecting turf: Consider printers which allow you to print all the papers you want. Well, companies will demand you use propritary ink cartridges... and you still don't make your own paper.
In any case, as it is, the rewards go to those who sell the most and the status go to those who spend the most.
(The needs of things beyond humans is an important problem. I think there's a solution. I believe Ecuador has such rights written into their constitution as the first country to do so. Once it becomes clear to humanity that ignoring nature at your peril really does result in peril, laws will be written and culture will change from the current "human's domain" frame of mind.)
A loooong time ago, resources were abundant. Consider the economics of hunter-gather societes where resources really are free for the picking. They run on entirely different economics. Not based on ownership and trade but on gift-giving and status. Those who give the most have the highest status. Personally, I'd be willing to switch to such an economy.
Such a culture partially exists in software (open source). The way to break the rarity-hold is to make it possible for everybody to create their own resources. ERE is such a way but unfortunately it requires people to substitute brain-effort and attitude which 99% are unwilling to do. Another way is open-source DIY technology, where once you have the machine you can use it to fabricate stuff. That's a technological solution---99% of people love that stuff. But we're not quite there and maybe we never will be. Also companies have a way of protecting turf: Consider printers which allow you to print all the papers you want. Well, companies will demand you use propritary ink cartridges... and you still don't make your own paper.
In any case, as it is, the rewards go to those who sell the most and the status go to those who spend the most.
(The needs of things beyond humans is an important problem. I think there's a solution. I believe Ecuador has such rights written into their constitution as the first country to do so. Once it becomes clear to humanity that ignoring nature at your peril really does result in peril, laws will be written and culture will change from the current "human's domain" frame of mind.)
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RealPerson
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@KevinW - even in a heavily regulated and distorted market like health care, in medicine as anywhere else, the seller sets the price but the buyer sets the value. I asked a cardiologist once why his profession shows so little interest in preventing heart disease. He responded "they are paid to treat, not to prevent". People (patients) attach little value to prevent disease, and therefore are unwilling to pay for it. As a result, medicine focuses on treatment rather than prevention. Actions dictated by incentive. It also takes more energy and emotional brain power to help someone take action to prevent disease, rather than treat the diagnosed disease. A patient is far more interested in exercise and nutrition in the weeks and months following a heart attack, than the day before the heart attack.
The way people think about their own body is really no different than how they think about depleting natural resources or any other important issue. Best not to think, because things look okay for now so let's ignore this scary stuff. How else do you explain a full aisle in the grocery store dedicated to sodas? Critical thinking is a rare commodity.
The way people think about their own body is really no different than how they think about depleting natural resources or any other important issue. Best not to think, because things look okay for now so let's ignore this scary stuff. How else do you explain a full aisle in the grocery store dedicated to sodas? Critical thinking is a rare commodity.
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secretwealth
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"However, what-if a resources were infinitely abundant, like air. Would access to breathing be contingent on productivity and achievement?"
"Infinite" is misleading and inaccurate, but over-abundant would suffice. Marx actually writes at length about this--the post-scarcity society, in which Communism would thrive.
"Infinite" is misleading and inaccurate, but over-abundant would suffice. Marx actually writes at length about this--the post-scarcity society, in which Communism would thrive.
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secretwealth
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RealPerson
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- Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:33 pm
@C40 - Your effort to figure out how long someone has to work to pay for basic necessities over time was answered in today's WSJ: "According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, spending by households on many of modern life's "basics"—food at home, automobiles, clothing and footwear, household furnishings and equipment, and housing and utilities—fell from 53% of disposable income in 1950 to 44% in 1970 to 32% today."
I am not sure if this link works for non-subscribers: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop
I am not sure if this link works for non-subscribers: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... on_LEADTop
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RealPerson
- Posts: 875
- Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2012 4:33 pm
@C40 - I am impressed with your excel skills and the work you put into this. The problem with writing vs talking in person is that there is no tone of voice or facial expressions. Are you being sarcastic? That's how I read it but I could be wrong.... It was not my intent to diminish your efforts. This article came out today and it was timely in regards to this thread. Hence my post.
@Jacob - I had not heard that, but it is amusing. I was not planning on quoting the WSJ in a peer reviewed scientific paper, but thought it could be a interesting contribution to the discussion on these pages. After all, the start of this thread was an article in the popular press.
@Jacob - I had not heard that, but it is amusing. I was not planning on quoting the WSJ in a peer reviewed scientific paper, but thought it could be a interesting contribution to the discussion on these pages. After all, the start of this thread was an article in the popular press.