calabi

I think thats one thing with GDP as well these countries like China, India etc, growths are dependant on the west. The wests growth is dependant on its population and the growths of these other countries. Crash's, unforseen circumstances, speculative bidding, high inflation, effect the peoples ability in the west to afford those things. Differing companies extract more wealth from the bottom. Thats basically what happened with the banks, they tried extracting more wealth than was there at the time. Companies that get larger remove more jobs than they create. These companies will keep attempting to extract more wealth than is there. I think there is a definite limit of GDP. In way its may be good because we wont reach resource limits before there is some kind of collapse.

Thanks for info on that film. The thing with those privatisations as well is that the companies would never have never been created in the first place if they werent public companies. These corporations pay peanuts, get all benefits, and no penalties. They are basically avoiding economic consequences. I think what your talking is specialization theory of economics, I cant remember the exact term. But its about how its more efficient to have one country sell all cheese and the other sell all peanuts as examples. Focusing on a single export, brings benefits to everyone or something like that. Like cheap workers in china benefits everyone because we get cheap products, except it doesnt benefit the chinese workers.

Thats one thing I've thought is surely Economics should involve more of psychology, as people are its fundamental unit. People are unpredictable as individuals but are they so much when they are judged as a group? Only certain actions are available as a group. It shouldnt be hard to extrapolate behaviours that effect economies in certain ways. Like the US attempted certain controls in Iraq, which they thought would work but didnt, that could have been predicted. Perhaps that isnt such a good idea though, it may give those in power more of an ability to control. Another thing why is GDP held up as this great value? It seems to be the only value these people pay attention to. It seems to be becoming this measure of how successful a few companies are. If the only value of a successful country is GDP where does that leave the possibility of a sustainable economy. Even if all these countries are successful now, it doesnt mean they will be so into the future. Surely it shouldnt be too hard to predict some of these economic crash's. I believe some people did predict them beforehand but were not listened to and ignored.

Thanks for the reply Essay. I dont suppose you remember the name of that show I would be interested see it. I guess what theories these people value depends on what outcomes they want. Its like confirmation bias. They only see the world from their angle so they only see the success of their theory. If GDP is the only quantifiable measure your interested in and its going up, all is well. I'm thinking it might be very hard to disprove some of these theories because some peoples response to them borders more on religion than quantifiable criteria. After reading wikipedias page on Neoliberalism that definitely seems the case. I'm not sure we can wait for cultural values to change, it might be too late before then. Its getting annoying seeing the economy crash from seeming obvious preventable things. Even if we survive the current problems it seems likely we will end up with another one in ten, twenty years or so. I thought Economics was supposed to prevent that sort of thing. Surely one of its goals should be to help create a stable society.

Personally I think the whole thing is in conflict with civilization itself. We didnt start out or get to where we are today, just by looking after number one. We grouped together and had seeming unequal exchanges where one gained more than the other, but the group gained more as a whole. Farming was extremely intensive in the beginning but it didnt take so many people. They must have allowed people to do other things. Like study tools and pottery, medicine which benefited the society greatly. I could be wrong but I cant see how it started out as some capitalistic dream whereby one guy made some tool and then exchanged that with another for food. These groups that had greater cooperation that didnt worry about about equal exchanges, had more redundancy. They let other people study new areas without impediment. Then their group had a better community which then dominated all the the other groups. I only say this because some of these people seem to be attempting to rewrite history. I dont believe you should have a totally socialist, or communist envirnonment. But things have their own efficiencies in their own areas. Just making something private because it doesnt seem to be working well is stupid. They dont take into account things like entropy. I've seen it with companies I've worked for. They work great when they start every one is on the ball, but then things start to decline, people dont bother as much, things relax. There are other ways to fix this than just selling something. Another thing there is no way a private company will get us to mars or the stars. Space exploration requires many disciplines a ton load of money, and nowhere near an immediate return on the spent money(if ever). We might get a few little touristy things coming from private companies which will be exclusive to a very few people but nothing more than that. We need to seriously start space exploration now to move forward with methods and theories for what resources are out there and how to get at it. While we have the abundant resources. Its no good waiting till we are starting to run out. The companies wont have any incentive to do something till then and then it will be too late. We need large social programs, science should be put at the top of that agenda(as well as health and welfare). Its funny as well, these people discounted that limitless study, which hasnt actually been disproven, which suggest that we may run out of resources within the next fifty years or so. They said science(they also disproved that though) will sort it out, but then they dont put adequate resources or money into science.

Here's a video which explains it better and exactly why we may never solve it.

So what if people were beholden to this Economic idea like a religion. So they went around the world and pushed this idea upon everyone through either force or guile. The cases where they have implemented this things havent went well for these people, but they believe it is a good idea just because the values and things they care about have gone up, but not because the theory is actually sound. Economic theory doesnt appear to be under the same scrutiny as the rest of science, perhaps that is because it is so hard examine. You cant experiment with a real economy. People quite often dont always behave ideally. But the manner, and way in which people are beholden to it and (economics in general)view things through it seems excessive and what if you value other things. Of course I'm looking at things from a sense of bias, but then so are these people. Could you not discount some theories because people do not behave like it at all. Surely it should involve more theory on human behaviour anyway. Another thought is a computer program, or maths formulas that consistently result in certain outcomes that perhaps disprove certain theories. For instance a program that simulates a free market economy that consistently results in a crash or bad things happening would that suffice? Of course it would have to be open source and open to scrutiny.

There's no chance of corporations getting out of politics as your government has privatised almost everything(nearly even the welfare system). Its kind of unbelievable to me, its blatantly been done in a corrupt manner, no hiding it or anything. Unless some kind of shock happens, that makes it neccesary to do something about it(which is probably likely). A proper democracy would partly solve the problem, mob rule basically, everyone has a say in anything that effects them. Just even rules might work, proper regulation against both government and companys. An intelligent population and a decent media which doesnt suck up to the government by not mentioning the torture word might help.

I think there is a word for what you are talking about, its Qualia. Its the way our brain make sense of the world. Colours. Wavelengths somehow are translated in our minds into the redness of an apple. Two flat 2D images are somehow made into the 3D world that we can see and even guess distances, even though this information isnt exactly transmitted to us. Studying purely the brain in its functional manner the firing of neurons and chemical reactions. Will it somehow give us the answer to qualia I'm doubtfull, other disciplines may be required. Or perhaps they will find the redness neurons and the distance neurons and this chemical reaction results in anger and so on. Thinking about that, they might be able to experiment with monkeys and try changing their perception of colours as a start. I dont see how any questions can be silly some great truths can come from some seeming very silly straightforward questions.