Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Rants and Stuff => Topic started by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on December 28, 2005, 08:47:59 AM
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(http://www.saintehlers.com/misc/images/guests.png)
So uh.. are just none of you logged in? Or do we really have that many nonregistered visitors on the forum today?
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Been like that since Sunday (I wasn't on the forum all weekend) with useal peaks at 26+.
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Now, as I understand it, that includes people surfing the TWG proper, not just the forums. Am I right?
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That should be the way it works.
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Our average hits for the week of Christmas are, shall we say, way way up. Our visitor count is about 140% of normal.
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Though, looking at the hit count on the articles, I can't help but think that they must be looking at the forums, as originally implied. Are those hit counts accurate? They always seem a bit low to me. (Sorry to those who can't see it--it's an admin thing.)
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I've never checked the code on the hit count, I should one of these days, all I know is it's supposed to add 1 unless your an admin/mod of this site.
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The article hit count goes up anytime a non-admin/mod pulls the article up in a browser. So, if none of those have gone up, it stands to reason that people are just browsing the forum.
Poor things.
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Or their are a bunch of creepy people out there who are trying to find out who visists TWG and destroy them in order to increase the productivity of a capitalist society.
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Much to their dismay, they realized after the 205th assassin that they couldn't kill me.
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Or their are a bunch of creepy people out there who are trying to find out who visists TWG and destroy them in order to increase the productivity of a capitalist society.
I find that unlikely, unless those creepy people are also dumb. Time Wasters contribute quite a bit to the economy, what with their expensive video game and role playing habits.
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All guests are evil noobs. Truth.
Guests can't be attacked for they are ghostlike. Truth.
This causes laziness to set in and the ghosts to be ignored. Truth.
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Good Idea: Lighting a ghost on fire after having found it.
Bad Idea: Lighting a ghost on fire after having possesed your computer.
Good Idea: Guests.
Bad Idea: Posting as a Guest?
MMMmmm, animaniacs.
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Gemm, you just made my day.
And I'm glad you're back.
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It's a partiallity, I'm not really here, nor will I ever really be there. So on an on and on note, we'll just be around from time to time when time presents itself to being well endowed.
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Yeah, exactly!
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Hidden Guest wrote:
Or their are a bunch of creepy people out there who are trying to find out who visists TWG and destroy them in order to increase the productivity of a capitalist society.
New Years e responded:
I find that unlikely, unless those creepy people are also dumb. Time Wasters contribute quite a bit to the economy, what with their expensive video game and role playing habits.
Not to spoil you clever reply e but, buying expensive video game and role playing habits probably doesn't help the economy very much. A common misconception is that consumption fuels to economy because of economic measurements like the GDP and the CPI. However, the true stregth of an economy is not in consumption but in economic productivity. Productivity fuels the economy and if everyone was fiscally responsible then consumption would mirror productivity, thus the use of GDP and CPI (besides, consumption is much easier the measure than productivity). So, without giving an exhaustive macroeconomic lesson, buying expensive video games and role playing habits are probably not a boost to the economy.
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Blah, blah, blah blah.
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I can produce goods and services all day long, but it won't help anyone unless they buy them. You can't overlook consumption any more than you can overlook production--they're useless without each other.
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It's like eating your cake and later realizing that your intestines didn't like it as much as your tongue did.
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You lost me at the word "spoil."
Besides (giving the lie to myself) if you're producing everything, but no one's buying, you're not doing great economically. Consumption isn't measured *just* because it's easier, it's measured because without it, productivity means nothing.
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The key is, things have to be produced before they are consumed. If there is no production there can be no consumption.
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Yes, but if there is no demand, then there is no reason for production of supply. The two are equally important parts of the cycle.
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Economics is the spawn of Satan.
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Hadn't you wondered why I am such an expert?
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Obviously people are confusing their microeconomic and macroeconomics. Supply and demand works a little differently in macroeconomics. In the aggregate, there is no such thing as zero demand because people will always demand something (in macroeconomics, it is irrelevant what it is being demanded because all goods and services are lumped together). Consumption is different than demand and when consumption is less than production, then it means that there are "savings". Note that demand covers both consumption and savings. Production, however, is the real key to economic success because it determines the production possiblility curve/frontier that then determines the maximum amount of possible consumption (and savings). I.e. consumption is dependant on production.
Now, the real interesting question is if economics is the spawn of satan and I have an economics degree and I'm a lawyer (which is an inherently evil profession according to some) does that mean that I'm the devil or do the two negatives cancel each other out? I'm claiming the latter because I refuse to believe that either ignorance of economics or the law is a virtuous thing.
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an evil person would refuse to agree to something.
Maybe your voodoo economics says that demand doesn't mean anything. But if there's no demand for something, people don't produce it. That's just a fact. I fail to see how producing something that never gets used is a virtue. If no one buys games, then the industries reaping money from those buyers dies. How does that have no effect on economic health?
I think what I'm hearing, and maybe it's because you're not saying it right, is that economists don't care if no one is buying, it's all about production, and thus, because they said so, production is the only important factor. Frankly, that sounds like a load of monkey crap. I can't think of why an economy would be healthy because it produces things that never get used. So, humor. Pretend that I (and so many other people on the board) are at least half as intelligent as we claim to be, and stop just telling us that production is good and consumption doesn't matter.
The closest you've come to that is saying that the level of production determines the maximum possible consumption. That's kind of an obvious statement though, and doesn't mean much. If we grow 10billion bushels of wheat, and manage to sell 1 billion of that, and the rest spoils, I'll wager we made very little profit out of it after considering all the labor and materials that go into planting, caring, harvesting, and storing 10 times as much material as got used. In liklihood, we've lost money, which means we can't plant as much next time (if at all) thus reducing our production.
So, maybe you've got a degree. hooray for you. But what you're saying is counter-intuitive and doesn't make sense. I'm not saying your wrong, but I'm saying that you haven't said anything to support your point that does more than say "I got a degree, and this is how it is. So there."
Hardly convincing, when I can point out that by spending a lot of money in an industry, I help keep the companies in that industry viable, which translates to industry viability and their ability to employ more people (who can then afford to support businesses) and produce more, which means, even if production is the only useful index, that consumption is a factor in determining what the production will be in the future.
In the short term, yeah, a company failing doesn't affect the country as a whole. But when companies failing becomes a trend because they aren't making any money off what they produce (it's not consumed), then you lose production too.
I can't see how consumption can possibly be completely unrelated to economic health. Can you give me reasons why consumption is a nonfactor when it appears to have several influences on employment and production?
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Now, the real interesting question is if economics is the spawn of satan and I have an economics degree and I'm a lawyer (which is an inherently evil profession according to some) does that mean that I'm the devil or do the two negatives cancel each other out? I'm claiming the latter because I refuse to believe that either ignorance of economics or the law is a virtuous thing.
No, the "real interesting question" is, why would anyone in their right mind want to discuss Econ for fun?
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The way I see it, and correct me when you figure out that I am wrong, internal consumption is MORE important to stimulating an economy than internal production on the grounds that a country can import from other economic systems. Even though the nation is giving money to the other nation, they are recieving, supposively, an equal amount of goods and services in return that they sell for a profit to their population, which causes the money in the economy to circulate, which is good for it...right?
And because you are getting an equal amount of goods/services imported as the money you are exporting, that will, in turn, cause production because there is currency being circulated instead of being saved, which causes people to be able to get the money they need to be able to produce things themselves, cutting off the need for importing final products... So, shouldn't consumption be even more important than production inside a nation?
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Neither is more important than the other, Gorgon, because in any case where one factor outweighs the other (you are producing more than is consumed or consuming more than is produced) the difference is a problem. They are ideally balanced and, therefore, ideally equal. Bringing in outside elements via imports or exports is cheating, because then you're only looking at portions of the equation--i.e., the fact that we consume another country's goods without the fact that the other country produced them in the first place.
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Who said I wasn't allowed to cheat?
;D
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e eats everything wrote:
Maybe your voodoo economics says that demand doesn't mean anything. But if there's no demand for something, people don't produce it. That's just a fact. I fail to see how producing something that never gets used is a virtue. If no one buys games, then the industries reaping money from those buyers dies. How does that have no effect on economic health?
You missed my point. In macroeconomics, there is always demand so stop saying that I don't think that demand doesn't mean anything, it just doesn't affect economic health as much as production does because it is a constant when aggregated.
e also wrote:
Hardly convincing, when I can point out that by spending a lot of money in an industry, I help keep the companies in that industry viable, which translates to industry viability and their ability to employ more people (who can then afford to support businesses) and produce more, which means, even if production is the only useful index, that consumption is a factor in determining what the production will be in the future.
I can't see how consumption can possibly be completely unrelated to economic health. Can you give me reasons why consumption is a nonfactor when it appears to have several influences on employment and production
I'm not taking about an industry, I'm taking about the economy. The economy doesn't care whether one industry is successful or not, it can still grow even if an industry completely collapse because productivity can be increased in other sectors of the economy. For example, the US economy didn't collapse when people decided to buy computers instead of typewriters (devistating the typewriter industry). Rather, the US economy boomed because computers increased productivity in just about every sector of the economy.
Companies and whole industries rise and fall (based on individual demand) but the economy will keep on going as long as it keeps producing.
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MsFish wrote:
No, the "real interesting question" is, why would anyone in their right mind want to discuss Econ for fun?
Because some people have more multi-facited interest so Econ is a fun subject to discuss. I personally think that it is much more fun to talk about Econ than many of the subjects posted on TWG. To each their own. If you think I'm stange or not in my right mind for liking Econ and talking about it, I'm okay with that. :D
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so you're saying that the economy isn't affected at all by the collapse of an entire industry? I'm not talking about typewriters, the majority of manufacturers of which were certainly manufacturing other items (for example, computers). You say there's always demand for "something" but what if there's very little demand for much? You're saying that not unhealthy?
Are you also saying that when people aren't buying as much, that producing a lot is still healthy?
You also seem to be saying that it's irrelevant whether the production is diversified or not.
See, my point is that my choice is between buying games or buying *nothing*. If I don't spend that money, it sits in a bank account. That reduces over all demand. it's not about just one industry.
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If your money sits in a bank account it doesn't reduce demand because the bank will loan the money or otherwise invest the money which will then be spent by someone else (probably as a capital expenditure which can increase long-term productivity). This is why demand is constant.
The only way that you not spending money will hurt the economy is if you hoard your money under a mattress (which I personally don't think would work for you because your wife or kids will find the money and then spend it) or you burn your money.
As for the collapse of an industry, the economy with adjust for this. The resources that taht industry used will be shifted to another industry and the economy will continue to grow. It might have some local and/or temporary distortions but the overall economy can remain healthy and grow.
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Didn't the economy of Ireland collapse because the potato farming industry collapsed?
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It wasn't the fact that the potatoes stopped growing alone that ruined their economy, it was that mixed with the fact that there was famine and disease at the time, too. This was also caused by the potatoe famine, but it wasn't because the potatoe industry failed that the economy failed, it was because the nation as a whole started to collapse.
It wasn't the fact that the potato industry collapsed alone that ruined the economy (Mod: fixed a typo...) , it was the fact that the entire country's wellfare relied almost independantly on the potatos, this wouldn't happen in a nation that has many sectors of industry today, and if it wasn't for the disease and famine that the potatos caused it wouldn't have been the case in Ireland, I would assume.
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GorgontheWonderCow stomps on e.
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Yet an economy collapsed because of the loss of an industry. That industry had other ramifications, true, but it's still there. Most industries depend on many others. The loss of an industry impacts other industries, which in turn affects the economy.
All i'm saying is it seems silly to say that demand means nothing. If no one's buying, then no one sells. If no one sells, no one produces.
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He's not saying that demand means nothing, he's saying that demand is so ubiquitous as to be a non-factor: it will always be there, and there will always be plenty of it to go around.
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Point is that on industry is not the entire economy and that the economy will adjust to a downfall in one industry. Recessions in the economy is usually because of multiple factors and not simply because one industry is hurting.
And with the Irish potato famine, it was a decrease in potato production that caused the problem, not because people in Ireland weren't buying/demanding potatoes. Thus, this example supports my position that it is production that drives economic growth.
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Oh snap!
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You misunderstood the purpose of my example. I had already considered that it was a drop in production.
My point is that one industry collapsing led to a collapse of the economy. THUS if the demand for an industry causes it to collapse, it *will* affect the economy. YES it will recover, but it will STILL affect the economy, and people are hurt when the economy is hurt.
So yes, you can use the potato famine as an example of your production bit. However, that was not the end to which I pointed with the example.
By stating "the economy will recover" you've pretty much agreed that the loss of an industry DOES impact the economy. Maybe it's only temporary, but it does impact. Thus, suddenly eliminating demand for an industry, causing it to collapse, will affect economic health.
Thus, I am right to say that I am doing a service by supporting industries.
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I can't deny that you are supporting an industry (under microeconomic theory) but that is not the same as supporting the economy (under macroeconomic theory).
When I say that the economy will recover, I mean that resource will "shift" within the economy. This doesn't mean that there is a recession (in fact the opposite could be occurring). I'm fine is this agrees with what you were saying e.
Also, it is very unlikely that the demand for an industry would suddenly decrease (maybe in some fad/trend industry which would probably not be a significant part of the economy). Again, production has a greater impact of the economy than demand.
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Let me rephrase my position:
By purchasing, I keep an industry alive: and that keeps people employed. Those people then remain active participants in the economy.
Macro- or micro-, however you want to label it, that means my purchasing keeps people in economic health. By definition, that means i support "the" economy. Or "an" economy. Whatever. It doesn't matter whether that, as a whole, affects production, it affects the lives of individuals, and thus is a benefit.
To say this doesn't affect the economy is to be inhumane and look at economics for its own sake, rather than the participants who are supposed to benefit from a healthy economy.
Thus, I re-reiterate myself. Gamers are economically helpful by purchasing large quantities of expensive goods.
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Trying to play the "humanity" card. I'm a lawyer, so I don't care about humanity (okay, that isn't true but it goes along with the popular image of lawyers).
Yes, I was looking at the economy for its own sake. To start to look at the players and the people involved then you are no longer talking about economics, you are talking about politics, i.e. the distribution of resources to advantage particular groups/people. I happen to also have a degree in political science but I have to admit that it is a worthless/meaningless degree because everyone considers themselves to be an expert in politics.
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Having a writing degree is similar--everyone thinks they can write. As years of professional experience has sadly proven, most of them are wrong.
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Yes, I was looking at the economy for its own sake. To start to look at the players and the people involved then you are no longer talking about economics
Then, frankly, I don't care about economics. I care about economic politics.
I don't claim to be an expert in politics. I do claim to believe I know morals.
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I have to agree with e that an economy as a part of a nation and not as a system is driven by the support that is given by people who spend their money. Putting aside the fact that the economy will move on, he is just saying that he will be a productive member of society and of the economy if he buys video games, and in saying such he is, in fact, correct, no matter how much you say there will always be a demand. Just like you can say there will always be a demand, I can say that if everybody didn't support an industry like e is describing, the economy would collapse. Or, rather, the economy would fail to exist.
The economy as a system that is nation or worldwide will always, other than in extreme doomsday situation, have a demand, but you can't use that to say that by providing demand you aren't helping. Because if everybody took that to heart and didn't help, you wouldn't have ANY demand. Just because in theory there will always be demand doesn't mean that the things supplying the demand are worthless or null because you can count on them, they are still providing a service whether or not that seems useful.
If it's raining and I point at a drop and say it isn't helping because I have all the other drops, and then all the other drops stop coming, then I'm pretty screwed (assuming I need the rain). Likewise, just because there are billions of other sources to the economy, that doesn't make his contribution less useful, especially to his local economy.
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Just keep in mind that people do not have to support every industry in the economy to keep the economy health. Many times, one industry will collapse and it is actually good for the economy.
Where politics comes in is determining who will benefit (and not benefit) from economic growth and resources.
To follow up on the rain drop analogy, a drop is an individual, a cluster of drops is a company, rain is an industry, and the weather is the economy. I've seen many students not do well in basic economic courses and politicians/bureacrats make dumb economic policy because they don't get the proper scale for terms correct which in turn causes them to think incorrectly about economic problems.