Bio-Economic Pressure

[7Wannabe5]

In my continuing quest to make a giant mountain out of the tiny molehill of my permaculture project and personal finances, I happened upon an interesting concept or metric that might prove useful for analysis of a variety of ERE scenarios.

The factors are:

1) Worker Day
2) Earnings/Day
3) Household Day
4) Household Expenses/Day

So, in order to economically maintain a household (at a given standard of living), perhaps consisting of 4 humans, only one of whom works full-time outside of the home, the situation must be expressed in this manner:

(Worker Days) * (Earnings/Day) > (Household Days) * (Household Expenses/Day)

with specific example based on week perhaps being:

(5) * (220) > (7) * (100) -> success

Pretty obvious and not very interesting, but if you divide both sides by (Worker Days), you get:

(Earnings/Day) > [(Household Days)/(Worker Days) * (Household Expenses/Day)], or

(Earnings/Day) > Bio-Economic Pressure

The reason I like this perspective of using Bio-Economic Pressure as a core metric is that it is easier to see where all the other pieces and adjustment knobs fit in. For instance, in a situation where the 3 forms of income were Part-time Income, Investment Income, and Rental Income, the left hand side of the relationship could express the earnings/Worker-Day (or fraction of Day) for each activity and assign each activity it's own dependencies in terms of Viability and Feasibility. For instance, investment income would no longer be feasible in a situation where the global economy fell apart, but if hobby-income was derived from the basement manufacture of munitions, that flow would likely remain viable.

On the other end of the relationship, where the end-users are making decisions regarding consumption, the issue of Desirability comes into play. Household Expenses will vary according to Standard of Living Desired, Work/Skills Internal to the Household Applied Towards Standard of Living, and Size of Household. For instance if it is the preference of the household to have an Urban Aspirational Class Standard of Living on a Subsistence Farmer Income then an extremely large set of Work/Skills Internal to the Household will have to exist and be applied. Issues such as the viability and/or likelihood of formation of an independent household by a 22 year old dependent of the household could also be extended and analyzed out of the right hand side of this relationship. You could compare current situation given Aspirational Class Household with Aspirational Class Income vs. a Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch situation in which the 12 year old son is sent out to work in harsh conditions after the death of the alcoholic father. You could also compare and contrast likely results in households where bio-economic pressure is not shared. For instance, how much greater is the likelihood of divorce if a couple does not pool resources and the bio-economic pressure experienced by one spouse varies greatly from that experienced by the other. The relationship expressed above clearly considers a household as a unit that shares incoming resources, so household as defined tax purposes and/or based on count of kitchen sinks in a neighborhood would have to be differentiated.

[ThisDinosaur]

I'm not clear on the point you're trying to make. But on the issue of one person being able to support a household of four, it seems to me that that's only possible under two scenarios:

1)the breadwinner produces more value than the family unit consumes, or
2)the breadwinner's labor is over valued, and is therefore transferring wealth From society To the household.

Extrapolated to the entire population of households, the Economy is either

1)Producing value [Positive Sume game] or
2)Transfering wealth from some individuals to others [Zero Sum game].

This implies a third category [Negative Sum game] where the very act of trading labor for expenses is somehow detrimental to everyone involved.

[7Wannabe5]

@ThisDinosaur:

I confused my point with the specific examples I offered. I was just trying to suggest a metric that could be more useful than SWR for some purpose such as using simulation software to model retirement outcomes. I happened on this metric in an online course I am taking on the food/water/energy nexus. The main takeaway being serious mistakes in modeling outcomes can result if/when you do something like reduce an apple to 100 kcals/$.5 and an orange to 80 kcals/$.6 too soon in the analysis. Too soon in this particular analysis maybe having to do with before ascertaining whether or not the trucks are running and whether your location is Florida or Michigan.