Comment by jncfhnb
2 years ago
I mean… yes. That is how this works. The problem with its implied understanding is that the economists don’t appear to have gained anything from the work they paid the other to do. GDP is generally a pretty decent stat because people tend to pay things to do things that provide them with some sort of value.
With notable exceptions for things like war.
Right. Presumably in that scenario both economists thought it to be at least $100 worth of entertainment to watch the other eat shit, while both also thought $100 was enough compensation to eat it. Everyone is better off.
Just because you think you're better off doesn't mean you're better off though.
Why not? What we think is pretty much all that matters
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> GDP is generally a pretty decent stat because people tend to pay things to do things that provide them with some sort of value.
Only if the net value is positive-sum.
Setting a city on fire, or giving cancer to a million people, or just going down the street, smashing every parked car's window with a tire iron will likely increase national GDP.
Liekwise, people pay a lot of money for net negative-sum industries - the health insurance industry in the US immediately springs to mind. We'd all be better off without that parasite.
We do have to assume that externalities are not so material as to render such stats misleading, yes.
I mean, we have to pay someone to guarantee coverage in the event of catastrophic losses. You might even call them insurance companies.
If only there was a way to have just one of those insurance companies, maybe run as a government agency of sorts... Wait, I got one of those where I live, it's called the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. It is not amazing but it easily clears the extremely low bar of being better than the US health insurance setup.
Over in Manitoba they've got one of those for car insurance too. Amazingly, people continue driving there just the same, the government insurance plan never needs subsidies and Manitobans pay way less for insurance. Almost as if the concept of the free market being the best solution for market X needs to be tested once in a while just to be sure, and results may be surprising.
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The risk pooling isn't the problem, its not why the industry is an unproductive leech on our society. The insane amounts of waste and bureaucracy it produces, and the price inflation it facilitates is.
(Not to mention suboptimal health outcomes arising from the perverse incentives it creates.)
Net negative sum would by definition lower GDP.
GDP is a proxy for 'amount of work done that people were paid for'.
If I pay Fat Tony to break your legs, and then you pay a doctor to put them back together, this whole adventure increased GDP, but is a net-negative-sum activity.
"People have to do more work to accomplish the same amount of results" isn't a worthy goal in itself.
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But wouldn’t that be true of any kind of performance art? What value is created by me paying to watch a musician/movie/baseball? Fundamentally seems the same as watching someone eat shit for my amusement.
Your enjoying of it. The economists in the story don’t acknowledge enjoying making the other eat shit.
It is valuable to society to do things that create joy.
Shit eating may not hold up specifically.
One of the advantages of money is that the enjoyment is implicit in the exchange, with no explicit acknowledgment necessary.
The enjoyment derived by the watcher must exceed that of having $100 and using that money in the future, or he wouldn’t have paid out. The disgust of the eater is more than compensated by the $100, or he wouldn’t accept that payment and do the job.
Both coprophages have thus derived utility from the exchange. From an economic standpoint, eating shit is just a form of working.
Is that not the implicit agreement of capitalism? If I trade X dollars for a thing, I got something I value for it. Joy, revenge, boredom, or just a lighter load in the wallet. Something must have been gained. By definition, it seems that both economists gained the experience they wanted of watching the other debase themselves.
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A at-home dad get paid nothing to take care of his children.
He takes a 50k job, pays à baby-sitter 20k (said babysitter couldn't find a service job that could pay him 50k, weirdly), and voilà, 70k GDP.
I’m not going to argue that GDP is a perfect metric, because it clearly is not. But I feel obliged to point out that 5/7 of the GDP created in your own scenario is a guy doing presumably valuable work, and 2/7 is the baby sitter doing previously unaccounted for work; which is also based on wages, perhaps more fit to their skills.
It would be great if we could measure work done without exchange of goods however that is generally not so large as to totally distort the general numbers. To no discredit of the work parents do.
> He takes a 50k job
so, he produces 50k value somewhere
Healthier gut biome, people pay for this stuff.
It’s supposed to go in the other end though. Stomach acid is unforgiving.
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https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr.... """ The administration of fecal microbiota is thought to facilitate restoration of the gut flora to prevent further episodes of CDI.
The dosing regimen of Vowst is four capsules taken once a day, orally, for three consecutive days. """
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