Space rock 'on collision course' with Earth!!!

[KrazyHorse]

Every cent spent is simply recycled into the economy and none is wasted

That's ridiculous. It assumes an infinite labour supply of all types.

[Capt Dizle]

In what way is the labour supply finite?

[KrazyHorse]

In that there are a finite number of people alive on the Earth and there are a finite number of hours in the day.

[KrazyHorse]

jimmy, if the government decided to add a 5000 dollar poll tax to finance the digging and filling-in of holes, are you telling me that this would not negatively impact the standard of living?

[Capt Dizle]

You would be right if there were a finite number of days for the species, which will be true only if we remain Earthbound.

[Capt Dizle]

There are a lot of things the US government funds with tax dollars as useless as digging and refilling holes. In the big scheme of things. Don't you realize that someone would earn their living diggin?

[KrazyHorse]

?

What you just said makes no sense. The supply doesn't include all people who will ever live; it includes only the labour presently available.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
There are a lot of things the US government funds with tax dollars as useless as digging and refilling holes. In the big scheme of things. Don't you realize that someone would earn their living diggin?

You're trying to describe Keynesian economics, but aren't doing a very good job of it. It's not infinitely extensible; hire enough people and you drive up the cost of labour, driving up the cost of goods. The net effect of hiring people to do useless work is that it lowers total value of the economy, but that it also transfers wealth into hands of the class that you're hiring to do the work out of the hands of everybody else. Hire a million ditch diggers and the wealth gap decreases. Hire 10 000 paper-pushers and it increases.

[KrazyHorse]

Deficit spending is good to get you out of a temporary hole, but if you try to continue it ad infinitum you end up with runaway inflation, and the bubble eventually collapses.

In real terms, what you do when you when you make work is increase total number of employed and also decrease total number employed in industries other than your makework project. This reduces the output of your economy if you ignore the makework (which we're assuming is useless, and thus has 0 value).

[Ethelred]

Well that was offtopic. However some alleged makework does have value. It is possible to hire people to do things that need to be done but no one wanted to pay for before. Like improveing national parks for instance. Little of direct economic value but it still has cultural value.

Digging holes and then filling them in again does not fit that kind of value either. It would a be silly thing to have people doing for a living when there are so many usefull things that the private sector can't or won't do because there isn't enough profit in it.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Well that was offtopic. However some alleged makework does have value. It is possible to hire people to do things that need to be done but no one wanted to pay for before. Like improveing national parks for instance. Little of direct economic value but it still has cultural value.

Digging holes and then filling them in again does not fit that kind of value either. It would a be silly thing to have people doing for a living when there are so many usefull things that the private sector can't or won't do because there isn't enough profit in it.

That's the point, though; you can't just claim that you can keep hiring people and this has no deletirious effects since the amount of money remains constant (or some silly remark like this).

Again, hardcore capitalists will claim that the only value anything has is economic value. Then again I'm a socialist...

[Capt Dizle]

I am quite sure I was not trying to explain Keynesian economics.

Isn't it arrogant for you to decide what someone is trying to explain, and then label them inept at doing it?

[Capt Dizle]

You must consider yourself educated as well as socialist.

[Capt Dizle]

Also, Ethelred's comment about cultural value probably should be moved to the Civ3 forum.

[KrazyHorse]

What were you trying to describe then, Jimmy?

How can you possibly claim that pulling people out of the labour pool to do labour of less value than they'd be doing otherwise won't negatively affect the total output of your economy?

And I thought you were leaving for good, sweetheart.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1068954#post1068954