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

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (22560)	12/6/2004 3:56:48 PM
From: kodiak_bull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Once again, you are using "time" in ways that do not square with reality. Land is not "worth" something because people can spend time on it, or invest money in it (build a house there) or even expend labor on it (hire agricultural workers to plant cotton or Kiwi fruit). Land is only worth something because there is a market between buyers and sellers who differ in their quality of information about that land. The speculator may buy up Farmer Jones' 40 acres because he foresees a shopping mall, or apartment buildings there. He may be right and profit $10 million, or he may be wrong and lose his ass. It won't depend, I can tell you, on his spending time there; it WILL depend on his ability to gather and utilize information. That is what will make a difference, certainly not the hours the speculator spends (more hours, more profits? no way). Farmer Jones sells the land because his information is that he can't make a living growing potatoes and green vegetables there anymore to compete with Mexico. But his information may be flawed. Specialty organic vegetables might make him rich, or he could develop the property in luxury units. There's no rule that says a farmer is a farmer and a land speculator is a land speculator. Pottery is not worth more than raw dirt because of time spent on it; I know this, my wife is a very good potter, I hang out with potters all the time. Poor pots need to be destroyed and go into the landfills, and it is generally not a result of the amount of time or even the potter. Sometimes the firing goes wrong or the glaze is incorrect, or the wood in a wood fired anagama kiln is too moist or too dry. Time has nothing to do with it, but applied information does. Outside of hourly industries, people don't care too much about time, and time in those industries is simply a proxy for capital. You can buy a ton of iron for X dollars, or Y hours of labor for X dollars. They're fungible to the capitalist. It really is supply and demand which determines pricing, but value and wealth creation depend on applied information. Going back to your potter example. A good potter takes a truckload of pots to a show in Seattle or Denver. He's not finished when he sets out his shelves and displays. A good potter notes carefully how the buyers approach his and other tables. He sees what's selling and what's not, he notes the new displays (faster packing, unpacking) that could make his setup more expeditious and safer. He sees which customers like which size, price, glaze items. He takes all of this back to his studio--and it is the most valuable thing in the entire iterative process--Information. But this information is useless unless he can apply it in the next go around. His time is his time, all potters have the same time, but successful ($$$) potters have something more and it's not generally better technique on the wheel or secret glazes. It's almost always a better information loop. If you're still stuck on time as the ultimate source of wealth, then you have missed the last 400 years of industrial history. Kb