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.

Strategies & Market Trends : Currencies and the Global Capital Markets -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frodo Baxter who wrote (1100)	12/5/1998 11:30:00 AM
From: Jerry in Omaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3536

Mr. Kam, <<The strength of evidence should always be proportional to the claim made.>> That's quite a claim, Mr. Kam, where's your evidence? <BG> And would that be direct, inverse or partial proportionality? I might phrase things a little differently and say, "The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained." Discussions about economics seem generally to deteriorate into a prolonged polemic amounting to nothing more than a hopeless stand-off. The hoped for objective, however, is to discover something having a close fit with reality, otherwise known as the truth. I have learned there is often but a meager relationship between purported facts and the actual truth. One may be correct with respect to fact but be totally wrong regarding truth. My evidence to support this contention is supplied by Mr. Douglas when he laments in his posting the use of those "awful numbers" which nevertheless you then touted to support your point of (non-deflationary) view. I personally am willing to stipulate that most facts have counter-facts and the truth is somewhere in-between. For me, and I hope for others, these discussions are informative, even entertaining, and I could never scout up all the great articles posted by contributors. My primary concern does not center on the numbers so much as the tools used to attempt to understand and control events the numbers refer to including, but not limited to; hypotheses and theory; data acquisition and manipulation; mathematics and modeling; politics and mendacity. But, back to the question at hand. You also asked, <<...if P&G makes a roll of TP using thinner paper, does that count as a productivity improvement?>> I believe I pre-responded to that question in my posting #reply-6683953 where I said; <<There are areas where a weight or measure reduction can be interpreted as a productivity increase; in the case of lighter, stronger, thinner containers as an example.>> So let me flash a question or two back; Is it a productivity gain if a U.S. manufacturer buys every last ton of D2 high carbon, high chrome dumped Japanese tool steel he can lay his hands on even if his best customer goes out of business trying to compete with imported steel? Is it being desirously highly competitive, or are you just trying to milk your consumer, when you conduct R&D to learn how to increase the volume of coffee so you can lower the net weight on the same sized "one pound" can? Is this a productivity increase? Thank you, Lawrence and Robert for your thoughtful responses, and Chip for those great links. Jerard P One more question: Do the high percentage of people who admit to lying and cheating in college ever stop when they get into a profession, business, or academia? Or does the same behavior morph to a new form and get re-defined?