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 : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (8644)	11/24/2010 1:43:32 PM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

I think that I put a lot more value into information than you - the main value in conscription lies in information, not in the action or having people being in the army. The right information at the right place at the right time would have prevented the shelling in South Korea, for instance. I don't believe in economic models, that assert that value production has a nonzero unit cost. There is simply too much value that is not covered by those models, and this is not just a modern thing, it also applies to the economy for the early 20th century. In the same way, a typical economical transaction only covers parts of the real value - for instance, if you buy a bottle of shampoo, what is the value of the pollution that it produces? Why do McDonald's fries cost the same, no matter if you throw the garbage away in nature or in a garbage bin? The costs to society are certainly not the same. Many inventions that really help society moving forward are never commercialized or even realized in GDP growth, because of the way we calculate inflation. If you look at real estate financing when interest rates are high (like in the 1970s), there was no difference economically to finance a newly built house a loan of infinite length or a 30 year loan, but there was surely a huge difference to the value that comes out of it after 30 years. People realized that, of course, because the building was very visible. With information, it is much more difficult to comprehend that outcome of an investment, but it definitely is there. I have lived in Germany for many years, and have seen the huge impact that WW2 has had on Germany in many ways - fortunately to the good side. The Germans are very clever and spend a huge amount of time on making sure that they and their children make clever decisions. However, one of the outcomes of WW2 was, that Germany learned that they did not invent the best government system themselves, they need to learn from others. And they do. This information is probably worth more than the total cost of WW2.