Comments on: Costs Are Not Benefits; Reducing Costs Is Not Harmful

By: hamilt0n

hamilt0n — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:06:00 +0000

Should read: (at least IF you’re a utilitartian). Important typo.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:58:00 +0000

RE: “at least you’re a utilitarian”

I am? That’s news to me!

It’s a good rule of thumb in a lot of cases, but I’d hardly say it’s my philosophical perspective.

By: hamilt0n

hamilt0n — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:41:00 +0000

I think a basic understanding of comparative advantage might a necessary condition for being a libertarian (at least you’re a utilitarian).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:36:00 +0000

I have a perpetual monopoly for the same reason that I have the transporter device, because that’s the hypothetical. I don’t really have the transporter device either, you know.So I don’t have a monopoly for 20 years. I have a perpetual monopoly.The airline pilots might find other work, but I have most of their former salary, in monetary terms, and I offer it for my castle and pyramid and personal 767 fleet, and monetary authorities don’t want to create inflation (hypothetically), so they don’t monetize the pilots’ labor otherwise, i.e. creditors don’t extend credit to other economic organizations reemploying them.I’m happy to hire the experienced construction workers instead, but then these workers aren’t building something else, so the effect is similar. The airline pilots are still doing something other than airline piloting and presumably earning lower wages. If they could immediately earn higher wages doing something else, why were they airline pilots in the first place?You don’t see the problem, because you deny the hypothesis. I could deny Don’s hypothesis too. I could tell you why this transporter device violates all sorts of physical laws, but that would defeat the purpose of Don’s post.

My point is that Don’s hypothesis presumes what he wants to prove. So does my hypothesis, but I don’t really want to prove the point. I only want to illustrate another extreme.We don’t have an ideally free economy as a matter of fact. A not so free economy can drive common wages down while concentrating consumption among a few. Nominally “egalitarian”, socialist economies actually do this in practice, ironically.

An economy can have this effect, and I don’t really know how much our economy fits my description rather than Don’s. It’s an empirical, not a theoretical, question.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:11:00 +0000

“suddenly stopped working. Perhaps because the genius was an evil genius and built an expiration date into the device”

Economics is not about what is imaginable–I can imagine 32 levitating midget Elvi in polkadot miniskirts successfully directing economic output and solving all economic problems. It is about expectations given the reality of nature and incentives. Fantastic scenarios aren’t a good reason for policy.

If you think the mutual enrichment that Americans and Chinese experience by trading with one another will somehow worsen ill will, then by all means, maintain vigilant intelligence and defense services. But it seems to me the best way to worsen relations and decrease the cost of Chinese antagonism is to close down trade.