Shiny stuff and designer societies

Thu Oct 29 10:09:10 PDT 2015

2015-10-29 16:53 GMT+01:00 Razer <Rayzer at riseup.net>:

> On 10/29/2015 08:19 AM, Lodewijk andré de la porte wrote:
> > Truecost being some unrealistic form of cost determination?
>
> True cost economics is "Unrealistic"?
>
> Surely you jest...

I jest you not.

> It's difficult to measure because the variables in
> /"An economic model that seeks to include the cost of negative
> externalities into the pricing of goods and services.//"(1) /can be
> enormous, but the ability to 'do the math' is hardly unrealistic.
>

It definitely is. A selective enumeration (which it will always be) is
merely a political tool. A comprehensive enumeration is impossible to
assure and costly to produce. And who should bear the costs of such an
enumeration? Society as a whole?

It is simply not fair to make law requiring such enumerations. It is much
better to make theft illegal.

> /"Economics, in its current form, is a very limited science."(2)/ and
> true-costing acts to de-limit it.
>

Words without meaning.

>
> 1 http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/truecosteconomics.asp
> 2 http://www.utne.com/community/truecosteconomics.aspx

Link 2, by line analysis:

Economics, in its current form, is a very limited science. Classical
> economists are accustomed to quantifying cost in gain in simple monetary
> terms while ignoring the more sweeping ramifications of a particular
> decision.

Untruth. "Classical economists" are used to not involving terms they
needn't in providing a price quote. I don't pay the costs? I don't charge
the costs. It is logical, simple, practical.

> Air pollution, for example, costs residents of Ontario at least $1 billion
> a year in medical costs and missed work, but these figures do not make
> their way into the analysis of the businesses doing the polluting.

This is the fault of governance, not economics. Simply, the company should
arrange a license to pollute. The license's cost should equal or exceed the
damage to the community - such that individuals in the community are bottom
line not negatively affected by the alteration.

> Neither does the appalling destruction that China is currently wreaking on
> the environment, the cost of which damage more than outweighs the country's
> rapid economic growth.

I need a citation on this. It implies there's "environmental value" being
sacrificed for "value of economic size". Apparently the Chinese do think
their economy is worth the damage to the environment. This is also a
cultural issue. Simply put, the author is being an ignorant presumptuous
prick, pushing his values onto the Chinese government planners. There is
absolutely no evidence of economic miscalculations - merely of a different
subjective valuation of nature (or economy). (And even that is not
substantiated in the article)

> There is no room for such crucial factors in neoclassical economics, the
> predominant school of economic thought that assumes that people's decisions
> are guided by totally rational thought processes.

It merely implies that people that are less rational will lose the economic
game. (it's true, they do generally lose) (it's also untrue, there's no
rational people. Only coincidence of the particular insanity and reality)

> Clearly, the destruction of one's habitat is not an entirely rational
> decision to make, and critics blast the isolated, 'autistic' manner in
> which modern economics employs a narrow scope and and a limited conception
> of cost and value.
>

There's just no God in it, you know? These pointy nosed walking calculators
just ignore all our warm fuzzy feelings! I LIKE THAT TREE! NO I CAN'T
AFFORD BUYING A TREE I OWN NO LAND
etc...

> A number of economists, fed up with the limitations of classical
> economics, have put forth a new paradigm; in which pricing includes a
> number of factors beyond an item's market value. The environmental cost of
> aviation, for example,

(is not beyond an item's market value so long as governance is proper /
people aren't being poisoned without compensation )

adds at least $500 per passenger to airline travel. Recent mad cow scares
> have cost the cattle industry $6 billion dollars,

Disease is definitely a hard to model and price item. There's lots of
factors, like how the disease spreads, population densities,
countermeasures, who should carry risks, etc. It goes for humans too,
infectious and unhygienic as we are. I'll think on it some other time.

> and a World Health Organization study of France, Switzerland, and Austria
> found that 1.7 percent of the GDP was taken up by the costs of traffic
> pollution.

I thought traffic pollution wasn't in the GDP? We do have pollution related
tax in most nations. Uninterpretable (and uncited) statistic.

> By using these figures to paint a more complete picture of the
> transportation and cattle industries, economists will be able to more
> easily create value, not just in terms of raw profitability, but in terms
> of overall health and environmental impact.

Uhh... I really don't know what this is supposed to mean.

> In fact, the new paradigm substitutes the more broad Genuine Progress
> Indicator (GPI) for the limited Gross Domestic Product, factoring leisure
> time, crime, and resource depletion into the measurement of a nation's
> success.

Oh, more leisure time is "Genuine Progress"? Less punished activity (crime)
is Genuine Progress? Having natural resources is good, but using them is
what makes them resources in the first place. GPD doesn't factor it
destroyed potential, but GPD is just what it is and nobody is pretending
it's more or less.

I appreciate the idea of a better "how good is your nation doing"
indicator. It's very political, and it's best to avoid bullshit in
statistics.

> With global warming racking up a yearly bill of $304.2 billion, businesses
> would be forced to take note of their own environmental practices in a way
> that the current model does not encourage. True Cost Economics is currently
> creating a sizable ruckus in the academic world, and its value as a system
> of thought is starting to be recognized by the economic establishment.

"We should make those responsible bear the cost for their actions" != "True
Cost Economics"
True Cost Economics is a way for one nation to tell another it needs to do
something. It's just another way to do politics, not economics.

Oh, and making those responsible bear the cost for their action is
absolutely essential for capitalism. Without it we're only doing the
horrible parts of capitalism, not the magical parts.
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