| |
Viewing latest 20 tagged ECONOMY. | Monday, March 24th, 2008 (434 Views)  |  |
| http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...032103817.html
Quote:
"You would expect logically that the borrowing and spending of money would be emotionally painful to people because having money is intrinsically a good thing, and having less money would have to be worse," he said. "Going from more money to less would be painful."
If only that were true.
"When people borrow and spend money, it's really the reward centers of the brain that become activated."
|
See, it ain't like that for me. Spending money actually causes emotional pain of an intensity sufficient enough to cause physical symptoms, most notably increased body temperature and agitation. LiQUiD can attest to this.
Putting money into savings and stocks, on the other hand, is relaxing. I actually put over 45% of my after-tax income into investments or savings. I like watching money grow. It's peaceful.
I think my state of mind is more conductive of financial success than feeling rewarded while spending money.
My guess is feeling pain or pleasure at buying things is more or less a learned behavior. Everyone feels good at acquiring a new thing, of course, and on things I really want I'm willing to put up with the pain of spending money to enjoy the pleasure of having something new. But these choices are the exception, not the rule.
For the most part I choose not to buy that mocha because the pleasure it grants ain't worth the pain of parting with $5. I live frugally as it's simply more comfortable overall.
If you're an individual who doesn't experience pain while spending I think I can help. For FREE I'll follow you around with a cattle prod and branding iron to re-enforce the emotional pain of spending money ^_^ | |
|
| Thursday, January 31st, 2008 (294 Views) | |
| http://www.cato.org/pressroom.php?di...omments&id=824
(Emphasis mine)
Quote:
|
Close on the heels of last week's reduction in the Fed Funds interest rate, yesterday's half-point cut only heightens the impression that the Bernanke Fed is in a state of panic. Unless we are on the cusp of a Great Depression, nothing could explain these policy actions. Certainly there are no economic data that justified either the hastened, out-of-cycle reduction last week, nor an additional, rapid-fire rate reduction this week. We now have negative real (inflation-adjusted) rates of interest at the short end of the market, and rising rates at the long end. The market is anticipating higher inflation, not a weaker economy.
|
I fear a Fed more interested in public opinion than fiscal theory. Gah.
I should add I don't think we're on the cusp of a great depression. Light recession, maybe, but in any case I think the current panic is completely overblown. Chicken Little dipshits.
Does anyone really think lower interest rates are going to help more than a tiny slice of home owners who bought more house than they could afford?
Sometimes I think the world has gone stupid overnight. Then I remember I just wasn't paying attention before =/ Bleh. | |
|
| Friday, December 21st, 2007 (800 Views) | |
| Virtual economies tickle me in a very nerdy way. Economic savvy is as second nature to humans as gravity is. Oh, we may not understand it one bit--but almost any adult can lob a football ten yards to his friend. The calculations of such a feat are impressive, plotting a curve with multiple resistances. Yet it's something even the dumbest of us can do.
Economics are very similar. No, not everyone understands the theory. But even chimps seem to understand fairness and the idea of paying for goods or services received. Just because we don't think about it all the time doesn't mean we're not good at it.
I, however, do think about it frequently. Maybe I just have too much time on my hands. Whatever, I find it interesting.
The economy in WoW is vastly different than a real-world economy. In the real world, value adds (middle men) account for a great percentage of wealth generation. In WoW they do not. In the real world, services are king. In WoW it's all about raw materials. That said, the WoW economy is a simplification of one that might exist in the real world.
Gold poofs into existence, changes hands, and is finally removed from the economy via a large number of money sinks. There are only three ways new currency enters the economy:
1) Looting gold from corpses
2) Selling items looted from corpses or obtained via quest rewards to NPC vendors
3) Completing quests
All the billions of gold in the WoW Universe can be individually traced to one of these three sources.
There are many ways gold exits the economy. Repairs. Auction house fees. Flight paths. Mounts. Training. The list goes on.
If more gold enters the economy than exits a surplus develops. Over time, this would likely lead to inflation (the price of goods on the auction house increasing.)
It's important to note that money spent on the auction house or for player-provided services has no effect on the overall economy. Other than the auction house fees, this is simply gold changing hands. When you spend gold in this way it is not actually leaving the system--it's merely changing hands.
With the basics out of the way, more interesting problems can be tackled. For example, in the next patch the number of daily quests one can complete will be increased from 10 to 25. What affect will this have on the economy?
First we must determine if this will cause people to start completing more daily quests or not. I have no data on this--it could be that few people actually do all ten dailies currently. If people don't start doing more dailies nothing changes. If they do, however, more gold will be entering the economy than before.
Will the owners of this newfound gold be primarily hoarders, sinkers or spenders? Hoarders simply like having as much gold as they can and are unlikely to spend it on money sinks or the auction house. This gold is both meaningless and dangerous at the same time. Meaningless because until it actually enters the player economy it has no weight. Dangerous because the sudden infusion of a ton of gold could cause significant short-term fluctuation.
Sinkers save their gold until they can afford the money sink of their choice. For most people this is probably their epic mount. This gold has no weight on the economy.
Spenders spend their gold on the auction house or services (enchanting, jewel cutting, etc). This is where changes in the economy can happen. Assuming people want to spend their gold we must enter a more difficult area of analysis--supply and demand.
Let's take a simple commodity such as adamantite ore. If people suddenly have more gold than they did before, will the price of this ore inflate? Not necessarily.
Is there currently enough ore on the market to satiate demand? If not prices will be rising regardless of how much gold is in the economy. If there is just enough ore to satiate demand prices will remain fairly consistent. If there's a surplus of ore prices will probably fall as sellers try to undercut each other to sell their goods.
Given that people have more gold, will they be more willing to spend it on ore? If so, demand will increase, possibly upsetting the equilibrium and causing a rise in prices.
Given that people will be able to make more gold via dailies, will fewer people mine? If so supply of ore will decrease, causing prices to rise.
There really is no answer to these questions, only assumptions. My thoughts are that for commodities like ore supply and demand tend to stay fairly consistent for the most part. As more gold enters into the economy the price of these commodities will likely increase. For miners and herbalists this would be a grand thing--more income for the same effort.
Who knows? In any case, it's fun to think about.
| |
|
| Friday, June 1st, 2007 (608 Views) | |
| As this article points out, although gas prices are at an all-time inflation-adjusted high, they're not as much as a burden as they were in the past. It's worth pointing out that, historically, the 1990s were an era of abnormally low gas prices.
Click the image below for a larger version
| |
|
| Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007 (699 Views) | |
| http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/The-Indexer.aspx
There is no push in the public sector for better margins, growing EPS, or any other motivation to streamline operations and improve efficiency. Worse, like all good pork, inefficiency can be highly desired-- someone gets this wasted money, after all.
Disgusting, really.
Quote:
He slowly turned back to Gustavo, half-expecting to be showered with praise and gratitude. Instead, he saw a completely terrified face. The usually stoic, geriatric hulk just stood there, mouth agape, as if he had just witnessed his own horribly painful death.
And that was when Sergio realized something. He had accomplished in thirty seconds what would take Gustavo a full week to do. That’s not so good for a useless guy in a useless government position, and certainly not so good for a young know-it-all’s health and well being inside of a top secret government facility.
|
| |
|
| Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 (689 Views) | |
| http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/...ing/index.html
WTF. Seriously. What. The. Fuck.
Poor, misguided souls who think raising the minimum wage will actually help the poor. Suckers.
All it will do is cause a surge of inflation. And those already making more than minimum wage are going to get price of living adjustments upward, of couse, right? *Snicker*
You know why large businesses don't complain about minimum wage hikes? Because most people make far more than minimum wage. You raise the minimum wage of low-level service jobs by $3/hour and the cost of your core services and materials will inevitably go up by $3/hour/employee. So your pizza will cost more. Your food will cost more. Your movies will cost more. Everything will cost more.
Those making minimum wage will be exactly where they were before. But those already making more than minimum wage aren't going to get an unusually large raise. For the next several years the vast majority of workers will be behind the inflation curve.
If you're currently making more than minimum wage, any increase to federal minimum wage will effectively result in you receiving a pay cut. | |
|
| Monday, April 30th, 2007 (968 Views) | |
| http://www.reuters.com/article/domes...9?feedType=RSS
1) Blame the rich for all he world's problems.
2) Tax the minority of people whose income is above some arbitrary amount.
3) Encourage the majority of people below said arbitrary amount to praise you for "socking it to them."
...
Most. Taxes. Are. Bad.
Bad for you. Bad for me. Bad for everyone.
Yes, you need to fund a military. Beyond that there's precious little worthy of having the state mandate.
Natural monopolies? Check. Education? Er, maybe. Health care? No fucking way.
I've never understood the rationale that the Government can spend money better than we can. They can't. Not even if they were the most intelligent people alive. It just doesn't work that way.
http://moneychimp.com/articles/econ/gdp_diagram.htm
Bleh. I know I'm incoherent. Just frustrated by the stupidity of all.
Whoever thought of the idea of choosing one's leader based on a popularity contest needs to be kicked in the balls. | |
|
| Friday, April 20th, 2007 (742 Views) | |
| They are so fucking retarded it's not even funny. I would kindly ask anyone who honestly believes that those making more money should pay a higher percentage of their earnings as tax needs to re-evaluate their position. Think about the consequences of such a system.
There are better ways to tax. The progressive tax system is why "rich" people are so jaded against poor people (even though truly rich people aren't classified as "rich" since they rarely have an income to speak of).
Yes, I feel dirty for agreeing with Ari Fleischer, but dammit, this pisses me off.
Quote:
The Taxpaying Minority
By ARI FLEISCHER
April 16, 2007; Page A15
If the tax forms you're filing this year show Uncle Sam entitled to any income tax, you increasingly stand alone. The income tax system is so bad, and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40% of the country's households -- more than 44 million adults -- pay no income taxes at all. Not a penny.
Think of it this way. After dropping off your tax forms at the Post Office, you find 100 people standing on the sidewalk. Forty of them will be excused from paying income taxes thanks to Congress. Twenty of them, the middle class, will pay barely a thing. The 40 people who remain, the upper middle class and the wealthy, will pay nearly all of the income taxes.
Look at that crowd again and find the richest person there. That individual will pay 37% of all the income taxes owed by those 100 people. The 10 richest people in the crowd will pay 71% of the income-tax bill. The 40 most successful people will pay 99% of everyone's income taxes. Yet for some lawmakers in Washington, these taxpayers aren't paying enough. Our tax system comes up short in a lot of areas. It doesn't foster economic growth. It isn't very simple. And it certainly isn't fair. The one place where it does excel is at redistributing income.
According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40%) pay 99.1% of all income taxes, the taxes that support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, for example, fund the federal portion of transportation, education, environmental and welfare spending.
Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10%, paid 70.8% of all income taxes, an increase from their share of 48.1% in 1979. Think about it. Ten percent pay seven out of every 10 dollars and their share of the burden is rising.
And those super-rich one percenters? Their share of the nation's income has risen, but their tax burden has risen even faster.
In 1979, the first year of the study, these affluent individuals made 9.3% of the nation's income and they paid 18.3% of the country's income tax. In 2004, these fortunate few made 16.3% of the nation's income but their share of the income tax burden leaped to 36.7%. Think about that. One percent take in less than 17% of the country's income, but pay almost 37% of the country's income tax.
As for the middle class, CBO reports they make 13.9% of the nation's income and their share of the nation's income tax dropped to 4.7%. In 1979, they made 15.8% of the nation's income and paid 10.7% of the nation's income tax.
The combination of across the board marginal income tax rate cuts and repeated expansions of the earned income tax credit (EITC) for lower-income Americans has created this situation in which fewer people are responsible for paying more and more of the income tax. When President Bush in 2001 cut the lowest tax rate to 10% from 15%, several million additional workers were excused from paying any income tax. Raising top rates, as Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton did in 1990 and 1993, also shifted the burden to a smaller group of Americans.
The EITC program redistributes money from those who pay income taxes to 22 million families and individuals with incomes less than $36,348. These workers not only don't have to pay any income tax, they're given a government check as a subsidy to help make ends meet. The EITC is also designed to relieve them of the cost of paying for their share of Social Security and Medicare.
If Republicans, including their presidential candidates, wonder why their calls for tax relief don't resonate like they used to, it's because there aren't that many income taxpayers left. They've been taken off the rolls.
As for the Democrats, they historically have raised taxes and redistributed income as a core philosophy. It doesn't matter to them how much money some people pay -- the argument is that the wealthy can always pay more. According to this point of view, it's immaterial that the tax code is highly progressive; it can always be made more progressive. While raising taxes on the few to benefit the many might be a political winner, it's an increasingly risky policy to pursue.
If, as now happens, 60% of the people in our democracy can force 40% to pay the bills, what's to stop 65% from making 35% pay it all? Since no one wants to pay taxes, what's to stop 90% of people in a democracy from making 10% pay it all? Or why not let 99% of the country off the hook, as long as the remaining 1% picks up the tab?
The problem is that there is a tipping point after which piling taxes onto the rich will leave the government unable to meet its obligations. And perhaps we're already reaching that point, where most people won't have a serious stake in what the government does because they don't pay for it. They want services and benefits, but they don't pay the price. That's a formula for runaway spending and no accountability. In other words, a system that looks a lot like the one we already have.
This can't last forever. When government revenues derive mostly from the wealthy, the fortunes of a few determine the fate of us all. Surpluses and deficits will be driven less by the economic strength of the country, and more by the gains made by the rich in hedge funds, mutual funds, equities and stock options. Like a spinning top that twirls on a narrow point, the top will stay up so long as it continues to go round. Once it slows down it falls, and the government's main source of tax revenue will plunge with it.
What a Catch-22. Members of Congress who want to fund antipoverty programs will have to hope the rich get richer, because the wealthy will need to make more to pay for all the federal programs.
The usual rebuttal made by those who support raising top rates is that lower income Americans pay Social Security and Medicare taxes and therefore need "relief." Of course they pay these taxes. But then, they alone get a good return on their money.
Top earners, on the other hand, pay payroll taxes so their money can be redistributed to others. According to the CBO study, the top 20% of workers, those with incomes over $64,300, pay 44.2% of the payroll tax while the bottom 20%, those who make less than $17,300, pay 4.2%. In return, when it's time to retire, lower-income workers typically receive more in Social Security benefits than they paid in, while the wealthy, who paid the most in taxes, simply can't live long enough to get back what they paid. For much of the middle class and the wealthy, Social Security isn't a retirement program -- it's another program that redistributes their income.
As for Medicare, it doesn't matter that the rich paid far more in taxes; all recipients receive the same benefits. Think of it this way. If Medicare were a car, its price for a low-income worker would be $145 and its price for a millionaire would be $14,500, even though it's the very same car.
Here's why. A taxpayer who makes $1 million a year pays $14,500 in Medicare taxes while a worker who makes $10,000 a year pays $145. But when they retire and visit their doctors or go to the hospital, Medicare reimburses both an equal amount of money. That's a pretty big redistribution of income and a pretty good deal for the low-income worker.
At the end of the day, everyone in this county is in it together. We have an obligation to help the neediest among us and the wealthy should pay more. But a system in which almost half the country pays no income taxes and 40% pay all the income tax has gone too far. Instead of raising taxes and punishing the successful by making them pay even more, it's time to junk the current system and start anew with a code that fosters economic growth for all, not increased redistribution of income for some.
|
| |
|
Older Articles |
|
|
|
|
|
