Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (22558)	12/6/2004 2:35:22 PM
From: kodiak_bull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

ST, You know, you can get very metaphysical about "time" expand it to mean a lot of things, but in reality it is the linear measurement of what each human being is given during a chronological life, divisible into decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes. Time as one's allotment of the this linear measurement is NOT the only true source of wealth for an individual, as I have noted in about 5 posts so far. It is not even the most important source of wealth. If you wish to be reductionist about the whole thing (what does a CEO get paid for if not his time?), then we could use another concept, like breathing. Isn't a CEO being paid these vast amounts for his breathing? After all, if he weren't breathing, they (presumably) wouldn't be cutting him a check. They don't pay certain CEO's twice what they pay others because they work 80 hours instead of 40. You finesse this issue by blithely saying "well, some people's time is worth more than others." That, of course, just begs the question: why? Simple. In this day and age, people are more valuable and create or amass more worth because of a couple of concepts. One is supply and demand for their perceived value (the basketball player, the CEO, Michael Jordan to tout your sneakers or jackets). In the pro sports arena, the marquee athlete is not only selling his ability to put a ball through a hoop, but his ability to attract fans to the seats and the skyboxes, and get a better cable deal from ESPN. When he is touting shoes or beer or fashion, he is selling not his time (it only takes 5 hours to shoot the commercial) but his intangible properties, his own personal software, in pushing the product on weak minded consumers. The other concept, the one we are interested in, is value that is created because of an individual's ability to leverage (yes, time, but only nominally) time, capital, labor & information. It doesn't matter how much time it takes, usually. What matters is how the inputs get together and produce an output (profit). My view is that the single most important factor in creating wealth is not how much time we put into it (no matter how "valuable" our time is), nor even how much capital or labor we control, but the quality of the information we can leverage. Now, if you want to then look at the output (profits, net worth) and say, well, the reason why the master trader is rich is BECAUSE his Time is worth more than the middling trader or the puzzled punter, then that's a statement which says nothing. It's like explaining that the reason WHY George Soros is rich because he has a big bankroll. That doesn't tell you why George is rich, it only repeats, absurdly, that he is rich. Kb