I've Solved the Deficit

[Al B. Sure!]

what do women think about your atrophied testicles? And are you only straight because you worry about your herniated disc getting hurt when you get rammed from behind?

[Lorizael]

Lori, my employer cares as much as it does about my job getting done because clients and counterparts are willing to pay us.

The people who benefit from my work are the ones whose demand curve matters, and they are also the ones with the best knowledge of the value my work provides them.

In the end, commentaries on what the value of people's work is from those who aren't directly involved in transactions to which they provide value are meaningless

You're missing the point that said transactions might not have any value at all from certain perspectives. And if that's the case, whatever you provide for those transactions might not be valuable either, regardless of the compensation you receive.

Additionally, you are compensated as much as you are in part because your employers/customers are capable of compensating you to the degree that they do. Other people/companies might be in need of a greater contribution than you give but not have the money to provide greater pay. What this means is that the value of your work is skewed by the wealth of your employers/customers. Now, you could make the argument that wealth equals (or is at least very strongly correlated with) value, but that again ignores the point that there are other methods of measuring value outside of money. Money just happens to be the most widespread and successful method we have of doing so.

Wealth as value, however, doesn't always match up with people's intuitive sense of the way things should be. That's why people get up in arms about sports stars making too much money or why Albert gets up in arms at the prospect of military personnel making less money. We shouldn't blindly follow this intuitive sense, of course, given that in almost all cases it's going to be internally inconsistent, irrational, or just plain non-sense. But it may be useful to think about why this intuitive sense differs from the standard of wealth equating with value, and it may be useful to think of other consistent, rational, and perhaps more productive ways of measuring value.

[DriXnaK]

what do women think about your atrophied testicles? And are you only straight because you worry about your herniated disc getting hurt when you get rammed from behind?

The degeneration of your attacks is duly noted Albi. You couldn't come up with anything useful against the information I provided you, and it was clear that the posts you were regurgitating from bodybuilding.com weren't getting the job done. I'll go ahead and educate you further. Testicular atrophy is only temporary, and it occurs due to the presence of excess testosterone while on cycle. The testicles then shut down the production of testosterone to bring the body back into balance. The use of compounds like clomid, HCG, Nolvadex, and toremifene all reverse atrophy very quickly after being on cycle. Even if you weren't to engage in post-cycle therapy, in most cases your body would begin producing testosterone naturally again thus reversing the atrophy.

As far as your little attempt to call me gay...really? You Albi of all people? Seriously, what skills do you have Albi? You have a degree in Finance which isn't much better than my useless degree in Marketing. What else can you do except work part time jobs and fail to become a Marine?

[KrazyHorse]

Lori, it's obviously you who are missing the point. If you want a fuller answer you will have to wait until I get home.

[Asher]

You're going by one picture from an underneath angle. This is your trump card? This is your only attack you can seem to come up with? My god man. You'd be better off attacking my lack of a career since it has far more grounds for attack. This whole gayface thing is about as weak as it gets. Don't worry Asher, you'll be cured of your inferior genetics someday, just as the millions of others afflicted by homosexuality will be cured.

It's not an attack. There's nothing wrong with gayface. You'd be best to stop denying it.

[Al B. Sure!]

Asher has mis-diagnosed gayface in the past though. Certain pictures he said I had it but then in others, he said I didn't. He needs an adequate sample, apparently.

[DriXnaK]

Al, you should just leave this forum. Seriously. You're to a point now where you just kind of haphazardly throw out an insult or something and then just totally ignore what gets said back. Then you run into the next topic to make the next attack or stupid post. Honestly, what do you do beyond working some odd jobs and some sub-par physical training? Aren't there any skills you're working on? Maybe some more advanced finance stuff beyond your degree? Foreign languages? Something? Even though I'm behind on my career, one thing people can't tell me is that I haven't worked towards goals and adding to my skills. I'm glad I at least did that much while I was dicking around as a tennis instructor.

[Lorizael]

Lori, it's obviously you who are missing the point. If you want a fuller answer you will have to wait until I get home.

*shrug* I think you're looking at this from a very narrow point of view, but I wouldn't mind a fuller answer when you can give it.

Fortunately for me, I'm paid ridiculously well to re-type re-typed typing, a job that leaves me with a good deal of free time.

[Egbert]

Lori, my employer cares as much as it does about my job getting done because clients and counterparts are willing to pay us.

The people who benefit from my work are the ones whose demand curve matters, and they are also the ones with the best knowledge of the value my work provides them.

In the end, commentaries on what the value of people's work is from those who aren't directly involved in transactions to which they provide value are meaningless

I suggest you are looking at the "value" of work rather narrowly. The value top society need not be defined in the monetary reward received by the individual who did a particular piece of work. There have been some very important discoveries and inventions by scientists who recieved little or no reward. For example, I think we could agree that the dynamo was an invention which has very considerable value to society. I will go further and suggest it is far more valuable than a bunch of deals put together by a hedge fund trader or banker because the dynamo lead to real and positive changes and benefiots to society. The inventor certainly didn't make mega-bucks from his invention.

Secondly, there is the issue of defining value. Whether a man works for love of his work or purely for money or for some other reason is his decision.

An aside. Some of the clients have no ****ing idea what they doing. Schmucks gambling with contracts for difference, town councils "investing" in derivitaves with a solid misunderstanding of what they are getting into. Organisations buying securited debts with a bit of toxic stuff snuck into the bundle?

Oh. Don't get too carried away about the value of investment banking. I seem to recall something about a US$trillion thingy called a "Troubled Assets Relief Programme" not mention the countless billions spent all over the world to help out with a thingy called a "Global Financial Crisis". There certainly are highly intelligent people in the banking industry, rather unfortunate that all that collective intelligence had such impact. The rube taxpayers forked out a lot of money to bail out the genii.

I note that you seem find of directing comments at other forumites such as "you have a lot to learn". I suggest that you have a lot to learn yourself. A course in modesty would a good start.

[Asher]

Asher has mis-diagnosed gayface in the past though. Certain pictures he said I had it but then in others, he said I didn't. He needs an adequate sample, apparently.

Quote when I said you have gayface.

You're obviously dreaming about me again...

I've mentioned you look like a terrorist, which is pretty far from gayface.

[Al B. Sure!]

Here's one incident:

http://mail.civilization4.net/forums/showpost.php?p=5834623&postcount=8

Haven't I already told you that you had a gayface? It's how I know you like the ****.

[Asher]

It must depend on your hormone cycle, then.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Yes, that was precisely HC's argument.

There was an intersting article back a few weeks that showed that when the UN started dispersing food in Somalia it drove the local farmers out of business. That coupled with the rampant corruption of the warlord hoarding caused massive famine. I forget which publication had the article. I think it was WSJ.

[DaShi]

Dude, stay on topic. We're talking about Alpert's menstrual cycle now.

[Arrian]

I played with this today. I intentionally ignored the Medicare cap thing b/c it's bull**** (yeah, just wave your magical wand and contain medical cost growth!).

I think I ended up with 45% tax increases/55% spending cuts, and a barely balanced budget. Given a truely free hand, I'd have made more cuts and had a bigger surplus (the better to pay down the debt with, mmm).

-Arrian