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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (87106)	12/17/2000 8:17:19 PM
From: Mike M2	Respond to of 132070

M, The implementation of hedonic price indexing for computers has created an illusion of strong GDP growth and productivity gains but it created no revenue nor income for anyone. From an economic perspective the only relevant productivity gains are those that boost corporate profits and/or wages. Look at the PC sector you can buy faster PCs for less money but does that boost profits for the sector? No. I reiterate the obvious - all tech companies report their results in real dollars not hedonicly deflated chain weighted GDP. Hedonic indexing is economic nonsense which IMO was created make a debt fueled consumption binge appear to be a sound economic miracle. mike

To: mishedlo who wrote (87106)	12/17/2000 8:36:01 PM
From: Mike M2	Respond to of 132070

M,, good article on hedonics gold-eagle.com mike

To: mishedlo who wrote (87106)	12/17/2000 11:42:56 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Respond to of 132070

mis, zeev has missed the boat. why is the first model, with all the r&d costs included, the "standard" to be hedonically deflated against? the problem with faster computers is PRECISELY that they DO NOT add enough ECONOMIC VALUE (standard of living) as expected. therefore, they have to figure in WHAT ISN'T THERE. zeev'a argument on this issue just isn't a very good one, imho. zeev tends to be a technocentric so anything wrt technology should be treated differently. let computers reflect their added standard of living in REAL dollars, not MAKE BELIEVE, MONOPOLY dollars.

To: mishedlo who wrote (87106)	12/18/2000 10:43:32 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 132070

Mike, On the debt side, that only applies to long term bonds. That is why TNotes were invented in the first place, to skirt the debt limitations. So, with bills and bonds available, there has been no need to panic the public. I don't see any reason why a more powerful desktop or a car with a cd player should count in the economic numbers any more than the price at which it is sold. If it really has economic advantages, it will show up in dollars somewhere. The fact is, the cd player is total fluff, as is the faster pc for the most part. You certainly do not get higher productivity from either and an argument can be made that employees are now playing longer, more sophisticated internet games when they are supposed to be working. As Landauer said in his classic "The Trouble With Computers," the influence of new technology has shown up everywhere except in the productivity numbers. True, productivity, even pre-phonying up of the numbers, has increased. But at the slowest rate in the Post-WWII era. In other words, new tech innovations add to productivity, but probably much less than other innovations in industrial history. Yet, despite the total failure of tech innovations to actually do much of anything materially, we are counting them, with this hedonistic scam, as doing 8-12 times what they actually contribute. Total fantasy.

To: mishedlo who wrote (87106)	12/18/2000 10:44:22 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

Mike, On the debt side, that only applies to long term bonds. That is why TNotes were invented in the first place, to skirt the debt limitations. So, with bills and notes available, there has been no need to panic the public. I don't see any reason why a more powerful desktop or a car with a cd player should count in the economic numbers any more than the price at which it is sold. If it really has economic advantages, it will show up in dollars somewhere. The fact is, the cd player is total fluff, as is the faster pc for the most part. You certainly do not get higher productivity from either and an argument can be made that employees are now playing longer, more sophisticated internet games when they are supposed to be working. As Landauer said in his classic "The Trouble With Computers," the influence of new technology has shown up everywhere except in the productivity numbers. True, productivity, even pre-phonying up of the numbers, has increased. But at the slowest rate in the Post-WWII era. In other words, new tech innovations add to productivity, but probably much less than other innovations in industrial history. Yet, despite the total failure of tech innovations to actually do much of anything materially, we are counting them, with this hedonistic scam, as doing 8-12 times what they actually contribute. Total fantasy.