Howdy

Re: Howdy

Postby keithd21 » Wed Aug 12, 2015 10:00 pm

germanforestgump wrote:Dear Keith!
Many thanks for Your detailed answer!

Indeed, i was brought up in the 1970ths with the feeling that economy is something "unmoral" and this was a welcome "reason" for me with my massive mathematics dysphoria to take the most farest way possible around it.

It takes my whole life (i´m 51 now) to realise that this is a wrong strategy and that economy is not only life-necessary, but also quite interesting even for someone who is not able to calculate.

I agree with You that it is necessary to have a realistic view on the human beeing in the sence of "evolutionary humanism".
The fault of the ideologies You mention above is the intention to breed a "New Human".

But we have to deal with the human beeings as they are - and the art is to create political and economical institutions and proceedings, which lead to optimal results.

I read Smiths "Wealth of Nations", but why the "unvisible hand of market" often has terrible results, i learned just last days in the book "Why Nations failed".

Kapitalism as it is constructed now is not able to manage the commons for the benefit of whole mankind and planet.

So have we to reconstruct politics and economy considering the findings of Elinor Ostrom about "The Constitution of the Commons"?
I am very interested on the strategies You will offer!

with Kind greetings,
Your Hans


Hans!

To dovetail this all back into the purpose of the forum:

Smith's later writings made it clear he was aware of the limitations of markets. That is he saw it was a little bit silly to presume the worst of men will always do the right thing for the worst of reasons (capitalism is a little absurd in that regard.) He saw an important role for government. That is, he felt regulation was an emergent property of free and fair exchange. [I'll note that government can be quite a lot like Capitalism, feral and cannibalistic when it runs unchecked but let's try to vilify but one 'ism' at a time.]

The takeaway is that part of "THE KNOWLEDGE" that lets us rebuild a society includes some economic and governance knowledge. If we hope to avoid a period like the Dark Ages where technological and cultural progress stalls for 10 centuries, we need to know how 'play nicely together'. In fact, we might need to relearn to play nicely together to prevent the current system from destroying itself and sending us into a civilization rebuilding effort prematurely!

Somewhat off topic is the "invisible hand of the market". In my old Economics classes we put together elaborate and elegant mathematical proofs of various economic concepts. What was the underlying assumption of the math though? The Invisible Hand - no seriously, the 'science' of economics is based on *magic*. And also on the concept that people are rational actors (its a lot of fun watching economists trying to explain the Kardashians as a result - hopefully that doesn't translate across the pond [celebrities who are famous primarily for already being famous].) People are sort of crazy and don't always respond well to mathematical models. There is a whole new field called "Behavioral Economics" that tries to get at the root of these problems but it is a new can worms and not something a rebuilding society could conceivably need to advance for centuries.

-keith-
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Re: Howdy

Postby Maurice Goldsmith » Thu Aug 13, 2015 10:25 am

Can I propose we start a new topic for money? It's an important subject and deserves a thread of it's own.

Personally I don't see the apocalypse as something that's going to come in the future, I see it as happening now, in slow motion. We're like the frogs in a pan of slowly-warming-up water. To me what's happening to money is part of this. When I see teenage footballer's salaries approaching £1M a week, I wonder why I bother getting out of bed in the morning. One of the chapters in my novel I most enjoyed writing was when the bug got into a bank's computer system - revenge!

Maurice
I am the author of a post-apocalyptic novel - The Lucifer Bug http://www.theluciferbug.com/
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Re: Howdy: Question Crime vs Security

Postby tahanson43206 » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:25 pm

For Keithd21 ...

germanforestgump and I are considering security services over the global Internet as a possible employment opportunity for displaced populations.

By any chance, do you have a feel for the cost of crime around the world vs the cost of security measures?

Crime is a loss to the economy, although perversely, restoring damaged property ADDS to the gross national product of the nation involved.

Security service adds NOTHING to the economy, unlike agriculture or manufacturing or distribution. It DOES have the benefit of distributing goods and services to employees, some of whom pay taxes.

Is is feasible to swap increased security costs for reduced costs of crime?

Military force expenditures fall under the general category of security. They DO have the distinct advantage of driving innovation, AND providing useful training for participants, as long as the forces are not used.

(th)
May every member of The Knowledge forum grow financially, intellectually, socially and beyond.
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Re: Howdy: Question Crime vs Security

Postby keithd21 » Fri Aug 21, 2015 12:47 am

tahanson43206 wrote:For Keithd21 ...

germanforestgump and I are considering security services over the global Internet as a possible employment opportunity for displaced populations.

By any chance, do you have a feel for the cost of crime around the world vs the cost of security measures?

Crime is a loss to the economy, although perversely, restoring damaged property ADDS to the gross national product of the nation involved.

Security service adds NOTHING to the economy, unlike agriculture or manufacturing or distribution. It DOES have the benefit of distributing goods and services to employees, some of whom pay taxes.

Is is feasible to swap increased security costs for reduced costs of crime?

Military force expenditures fall under the general category of security. They DO have the distinct advantage of driving innovation, AND providing useful training for participants, as long as the forces are not used.

(th)


That would be a very difficult number to wrap statistics around. "Security" is largely socialized in most of the world in the form of "police". Your best place to get a handle on what security really costs is probably Honduras (a place that has turned radically Libertarian). Socialized police don't really exist in most places in Honduras and local businesses pay a young man to stand at the storefront with a pistol in his belt. It's like the US Wild West only in the 21 century. The libertarian obsession with privacy might make reliable numbers hard to obtain though.

Military spending is really lopsided with the United States outspending the next 20 something countries combined. Does the rest of the world reap a "Pax Americana" security benefit? Or is it perhaps a Pax Americana penalty from all the American meddling in things that aren't really their business? Which side of the cost/benefit ledger do you put the military in general anyway?

I don't have answers here. Its the sort of thing my and my Economics Undergrad crowd used to argue for hours on end, well into the night while chugging cheap beer. You'd be better off taking a "Micro" economics approach and determining if a given security venture can attract sufficient revenue to justify its capitalization...
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