back to article Feeling poor? WHO took all your money? NOT capitalist bastards?

Lies, damned lies and statistics: we all know the saying, but you'd be surprised just how many of these “facts” manage to enter the national consciousness, emerging as Guardian headlines and stories on Radio 4's Today. Allow me to tiptoe through the process as to how this happens. Let's start with this lovely little chart: A …

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: economics......

      “The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.”

      -The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.

    2. The Axe
      Boffin

      Re: economics is a kind of science

      Economics is a "social" or soft science. That is, it at the same level as psychology and other wishy washy subjects. It is not the same kind of hard science such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. That's why economists don't perform much better than tossing a coin. Studying a subject as the whole population of a country is nigh on impossible and so they come up with models and try to make it fit what's happening. But with such a varied subject being studied as the economy of a country with so many variables (potentially millions) it is not easy to say what is correlation and what is causation.

  1. Armando 123

    Published data

    Very few economists, being funded by government agencies, are going to speak out about government folly. One of the few places that will is the Cato Institute, a libertarian thinktank in the DC area. I don't agree with everything they say there, but it is nice that there is at least honest, intellectual discussion.

    Then again, P.J. O'Rourke put it best: talking about taxes to the government is like talking about garbage to your dog. You can tell the dog to leave the garbage alone, but all the dog hears is "GARBAGE!!!"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: Published data

      Would that be the Cato Institute that is funded by billionaire business people seeking an intellectual framework for their rampant self-interest?

      1. GitMeMyShootinIrons

        Re: Published data

        As opposed to the Union funded so-called think tanks, such as the Fabians or Compass, looking after their own self-interest and trying to justify their own jaded idea of utopia?

      2. Armando 123

        Re: Published data

        If it is funded by billionaires, at least the billionaires choose to fund it or not. Most research is funded by government drones, who take money with a loaded IRS and give it to whomever they choose.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Published data

      I don't know when you last looked at the job ads, but most economists are employed in the finance industry, many university chairs are funded by it, and the Cato Institute is a lobbying company for oil and tobacco.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Published data

        Interesting - three facts and a thumbs down. Somebody doesn't like reality.

        Incidentally, Armando123, P J O'Rourke is not an economist. He is someone who has made a very successful career out of right wing humour and some memorable soundbites. One of his objections to politics seems to be that politicians and their staffs do a lot of research, which he is helping to pay for. In effect, he wants federal and state governments weakened so they cannot oppose the will of corporations. But good luck with finding anywhere in his books where he actually spells that out in print. It's all "enabling people to get rich", without specifying too closely which people.

  2. b166er

    tl:dr, just reacting to the sub heading. That WAS the intention, right?

    If it is really true that teachers, firemen and nurses took all my money, then I'm happy about that.

    In fact let's abolish government and give all that money to teachers, nurses and firemen too.

    We'll be healthy and well educated with no unemployment and consequently, there won't be a requirement for government anyway.

    1. Hollerith 1

      I'll add my mite

      Last time I checked the USA, teachers and firemen paid with their lives to do their jobs. Can't remember the last time a bank CEO sacrificed himself to save the helpless. If my taxes are going to be used to help someone, I know I'd prefer them not to go to executives of financial services, but to the teachers and the guys repairing the roads in sub-zero weather and the food inspectors and the firemen. The ones who make our everyday world better.

  3. dms
    Devil

    25% of all MPs?

    I thought the following was quite poetic:

    "The Royal Statistical Society recently reported that only 25 per cent of MPs could work out the odds of getting two heads with two coin flips"

    So I was a bit saddened to see it wasn't strictly speaking correct if this posting accurately reflects the results of the same survey.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19801666

    So who do I trust El Reg or Auntie?

    1. The Axe
      Boffin

      Re: 25% of all MPs?

      You need to study statistics a bit. It's valid to ask a sample of a population a question and be able extrapolate to the whole population. In this case asking just under 1/6 of all MPs randomly chosen and asking an equal number of Labour and Tory.

      What is really interesting is that Labour MPs are more innumerate than Tory ones. 77% compared to 47%. Possibly something to do with the fact that a majority of Labour MPs come from jobs that don't require much effort in terms of numeracy? A PPE does not help much except in politics.

      So who to trust? I would trust El Reg who have a varied selection of writers on their books compared to the BBC who are very biased towards the left/socialist viewpoint as noted by the preponderance of Guardian reading that goes on.

      1. Trevor Marron

        Re: 25% of all MPs?

        "What is really interesting is that Labour MPs are more innumerate than Tory ones. 77% compared to 47%. Possibly something to do with the fact that a majority of Labour MPs come from jobs that don't require much effort in terms of numeracy? A PPE does not help much except in politics."

        What? They are all career politicians these days, none of them have ever had a proper job that required anything more than fence sitting and being snake-tongued.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    SOrry, NO!

    If you want to blame it on wages for Nurses, Firemen etc, please put up a graph showing THEIR wages over the last 20 years, and do not forget to include MPs wages, and Civil Service top tier wages, including local, district and county councils for comparison.

    1. Lord Voldemortgage

      Re: SOrry, NO!

      Upvoted 'cos you were clearly genuinely angry when typing that.

      Or drunk.

      Either way, well done.

    2. The Axe

      Re: SOrry, NO!

      Check it out yourself. The Office of National Statistics site is at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Labour+Market for labour.

  5. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Windows

    Well this is strange

    First point

    Deprecation: whenever the company I worked for had their annual get together for the years sales figures, the split would be Wages, Material costs, Site costs(power, water, rates etc) , plant deprecation, and finally profit.

    Deprecation was NEVER taken from the profit figure, it was always included in the costs of running the company.

    Second point : The wage differential between the lowest paid and the highest paid has risen dramatically over the past 30 years, from a CEO who earns 40 times the lowest wage to the state today where a CEO can earn 400 times the lowest paid, and yet for all that pay, companies still report a loss sometimes and sometimes go bust.

    But for all that money the CEO earns, can he spend it all and boosting the economy in the way that splitting his $10 million /yr pay among the 5000 employees can?

    Third and last point: the cost of housing, 30 yrs ago a good rule of thumb for lenders was that the morgage payments should equal 1 weeks wages per month, so that a breadwinner could keep the family at least supplied with food with a bit extra for holidays etc, now the price of houses forces both parents out to work and takes 2 weeks combined income to pay the morgage, result more people on the breadline, more taxes are needed to pay income support and a generation in hock to the banks for $10 000 on the credit card.

    In real terms, the wages of the lowest paid have fallen yr on yr, and god help them if they protest because then their jobs are exported abroad with the government saying 'Nothing to do with us' while handing the companies tax breaks for doing it

    Tramp icon.... because we will all look like that soon... barring a revolution

    1. The Axe

      Re: Well this is strange

      1. Depreciation. It might not be taken from the profit figure but it does affect the profit.

      2. Wage differential between top and bottom depends on the company. Some might be only a fractional percentage, others 400%. In my small company I earn 50% of the MD salary - when he does get paid.

      3. Housing costs have gone up because both parents work not the other way round. Prices can only rise when their is a market of people willing and able to pay. If only the man could work (due to legal and social issues) then there is a limit to which prices can rise to. The housing issue was not helped by politicians wanting everyone to own their own home and so creating a housing boom.

      4. Wages in real terms are actually way higher than in the past. Our wages go a lot further than in the past. Even the lowest paid can afford quite a lot stuff like white goods, entertainment, takeaways, etc. In the past you had to be top end of middle class to have the same standard of living as the unskilled do today.

  6. Identity
    FAIL

    Right and wrong at the same time

    DISCLAIMER: I am writing from the US and my specific knowledge of UK finances is sorely lacking.

    From that vantage, this seems like a straw man argument to me. It matters not a whit what the "share" is: what matters is facts on the ground. Here in the US, real wages for workers have not risen since the 70's, yet CEO pay (as of the turn of the century) had risen 535%. At the same time, the S&P 500 had risen 297%, corporate profits 116%, and worker pay 32.3% less inflation of 27.5%. While the minimum wage did rise in 2007, the disparity has only increased, and been exacerbated by offshoring and the economic debacle of recent years. Since many were tempted to use their homes as bank accounts (with the concomitant bubble) a huge number are now actually behind.

    For comparison, from 1949—79, family income by quintile rose 116% for the bottom 20%, 100%, 111%, 114% and 99% for the top 20%, with the top 5% rising a 'mere' 86%. But from 1979—2001, the same figures are 3% for the bottom 20%, 11%, 17%, 26% and 53% for the top 20%, with the top 5% gaining 81%. (The source for this is the US Census Bureau).

    Taxes, however, are currently at their lowest level since the Eisenhower administration. Despite the scapegoating of many on the right (with particular attention to Governors like Scott Walker of Wisconsin and their funders, like the Koch brothers) even the "generous" salaries and benefits of public sector workers pale — they can lead a decent lifestyle (and we can't have that, can we? If you are suffering, the right thing to do is pull down the person on the rung right above you. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.)

    There is a group here (probably little known in the UK) callled ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council), though which the Koch brothers and their ilk write 'model laws' which have been passed word for word (excepting 'insert state name here') by many state legislatures. These are the source of the anti-union movement in this country — unions which had been declining for years anyway, not least because of their own shenanigans and abuse (I'm looking at you Teamsters).

    I could go on for pages. (In fact, I have. I've written a book about these and other related matters, which you can find at http://www.lulu.com/product/hardcover/the-root-of-all-evil/6525037, should you be so inclined).

    1. Tim Worstal

      Re: Right and wrong at the same time

      "For comparison, from 1949—79, family income by quintile rose 116% for the bottom 20%, 100%, 111%, 114% and 99% for the top 20%, with the top 5% rising a 'mere' 86%. But from 1979—2001, the same figures are 3% for the bottom 20%, 11%, 17%, 26% and 53% for the top 20%, with the top 5% gaining 81%. (The source for this is the US Census Bureau)."

      Erm, hello?

      Family size has changed over recent decades. Fallen quite considerably. And the US Census figures for family incomes have not been changed to show this.

      Further, the US figures usually don't include the things that are done to try to alleviate poverty: food stamps, housing vouchers, the EITC etc. So sorry, but not greatly impressed by those numbers. Never have been in fact.

      1. Identity
        FAIL

        Re: Right and wrong at the same time

        Sorry, I don't buy it. Family sizes have not changed so drastically from the fifties on, and even if I accept your caveat, the disparity in the numbers is too great to be accounted for by them.

        I just heard today (from Howard Friedman, statistician for the UN — though I'm sure that's the kiss of death for you) that the combined wealth of the TWO richest PEOPLE in the US (Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40% of the population. Among his findings: income inequality is one of America's greatest challenges.

        1. The Axe
          Facepalm

          Re: Right and wrong at the same time

          "TWO richest PEOPLE in the US (Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40% of the population. " Yep, that's true. But even the reasonable well off American exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40%. How does that work you ask. That's because wealth is measured in terms of possessions. When the bottom 40% have few possessions and a lot of debt, eg. mortgage, then anyone who has no debt and $1 in the bank is better off.

          And family sizes have changed drastically - when you consider a family as a unit living in a house. Actually numbers of children of parents hasn't changed, but the number of people living alone has changed. That means family sized have dropped considerably compared to the time when families consisted of three generations living under the same roof.

          1. snarf
            Thumb Down

            Re: Right and wrong at the same time

            Having a mortgage does not equate to being indebted. Only if you are in negative equity. Suggesting a reasonably well off American exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40% is either facetious or merely ludicrous.

        2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: Re: Right and wrong at the same time

          ".....the TWO richest PEOPLE in the US (Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40% of the population....." It's probably fair to say that Bill G alone probably put more thought and work into making his money than the bottom 40% of the US population.

        3. Tim Worstal

          Re: Right and wrong at the same time

          "I just heard today (from Howard Friedman, statistician for the UN — though I'm sure that's the kiss of death for you) that the combined wealth of the TWO richest PEOPLE in the US (Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40% of the population."

          This is obviously and clearly true. I've even written about it myself elsewhere.

          But it's not really all that remarkable. For some 25% of the population have no net wealth at all.

          Think about a student just out of college. They've got student debt and no monetary assets. They have negative wealth therefore. Or even someone who lives paycheque to paycheque and has $2,000 in credit card debt. Even if they're earning $50k a year, they've still no net wealth.

          In fact, as I've said elsewhere:

          "If you’ve no debts and have $10 in your pocket you have more wealth than 25% of Americans. More than that 25% of Americans have collectively that is."

          I'm sorry, but it's simply not an odd or shocking statistic.

    2. chris lively
      Mushroom

      Re: Right and wrong at the same time

      For CEO pay, there are other factors at work.

      The average company size today is far larger, employing far more people than they did 20 or 30 years ago. I find it completely reasonable that someone leading 50,000 workers is paid far more than someone leading 1000. Looking at the CEO pay breakdown, this appears to be the case.

      Getting back to the main topic: an average workers pay is impacted by a lot of different factors. The biggest factor being the availability of workers for that given skill. In today's world a lot of labor is essentially unskilled or of a type that can be easily trained for. This means wages for those jobs won't rise as long as a large number of people can do that job. Government can enforce minimum wage standards, however that is a double edged sword as prices rice primarily due to a given markets ability to pay. This is why the cost of basics like food and shelter go up shortly after a minimum wage increase; negating the reason for doing the increase in the first place.

      If you want prices to fall, then the availability of credit to the average worker needs to be heavily restricted. In the US, our housing market exploded simply because loans were being made regardless of a persons ability to repay them. If those loans weren't made, then housing costs wouldn't have skyrocketed like they did.

      The answer isn't to blame CEOs, the answer is for governments to stop screwing with the money system by flooding the banking market with low or zero interest loans. Also, banks that make bad decisions should let the market pick over their dead carcass instead of saving them. Next, banks should never be allowed to operate as an investment company. Those money matters have entirely different customer relationships and goals.

      I'll stop here, other than to say the current financial mess is going to be with us for a long time and it's a much more complicated thing than simply a "war" between the workers and the "capitalist pigs"

      1. Goat Jam
        Pint

        Re: Right and wrong at the same time

        chris lively said

        " In today's world a lot of labor is essentially unskilled or of a type that can be easily trained for. This means wages for those jobs won't rise as long as a large number of people can do that job"

        While I agree with the main thrust of your argument Chris, I would like to add that another corrupting factor in play is the inequalities created by certain influential unions, at least here in Australia.

        In Aus, one of the two main political parties is essentially the political wing of our biggest union, the incredibly corrupt Australian Workers Union (AWU).

        The effect of this is that during the part of the political cycle that the union affiliated ALP is in power large Keynesian style infrastructure projects that include backroom deals to guarantee exorbidant pay rates for unionised workers are embarked upon.

        When they are not signing off on incredibly expensive white elephants they are busy propping up commercial companies that coincidentally just happen to be held hostage by their heavily unionised workforce by channelling taxpayers funds to those unionised workers.

        This has had the inevitable effect of artificially inflating the salaries of union affiliated blue collar workers to insane levels while workers who are not affiliated with those unions are left behind.

        This has reached the point where uneducated blue collar workers now earn more than educated white collar workers in this country.

        It truly is the Age of the Bogans downunder, which probably explains why hardly anybody seems overly concerned by the rampant cronyism and corruption at play.

        Chuck us another beer Shazza.

        Go the 'pies!

        Hey, watch the bloody ute ya dickhead

        * bogan mating calls

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Identity

        Re: Right and wrong at the same time

        @ Chris Lively

        I agree, but the rise in CEO pay exceeds any reasonable factor, such as company size, and far exceeds historical norms. More to be said, but I'll leave it at that...

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: Re: Right and wrong at the same time

          ".....the rise in CEO pay exceeds any reasonable factor....." Hmmmmmm, I find this fixation with CEO pay illuminating in that it seems to be guided by envy rather than simple economic reality. I'm sure there are plenty of top CEOs that have seen above average payrises, but I'm also certain there are plenty of CEOs that have actually seen a paydrop or lost their jobs. If you look at the market, it is easy to understand the rise in "top" CEO pay simply as a factor of demand, whether you agree with it as "fair" or not. It's simple supply and demand - there are a limited number of "top" CEOs, and companies will pay more to secure one. When the economy is in the duldrums, having that "top" CEO becomes even more important to guarantee survival, and companies will pay even more to secure one. Sometimes their desperation leads to idiotic choices (Leo Apotheker springs to mind), but other times those pay packets are justified by results (did anyone question Steve Jobs' paypacket?).

          In a growing economy, most businesses do better anyway, so there is an expectation that a CEO will return good results and may not be the same pressure to achieve stellar results unless the CEO works for a company very much in the spotlight (such as Microsoft, IBM, etc.). However, in a downturn, the pressure is on and the profit bonuses aren't there to satisfy the top CEOs, but shareholders will want the best CEO possible in an effort to achieve better-than-average results, and hence they offer better renumeration. The average CEO is no longer good enough when company survival is top of the agenda. It's simply supply and demand applied to a limited resource - "top" CEOs. It's a simple but cruel factor of economics, but a CEO is usually a more valued employee than Joe Deskworker, and a downturn can make the CEO even more important to a company worried about survival, so they will screw Joe Deskworker in pursuit of a better CEO. Hence the "top" CEOs will see a payrise above that of the average worker even in bad times.

          You may think that is simplistic, but it holds for all parts of the corporation where supply and demand can be applied. A simple example is coders - when the economy is rising and work is plentiful, there is usually no problem securing average or good coders for a reasonable wage. If you can't secure a top coder you may shrug and employ two or three average coders to do the same job. However, when the economy dips, and the pressure is on to deliver projects faster, to smaller budgets, then suddenly the really good coders are more sought after and will actually see a rise in their contract rates. When the pressure is on the average coder is no longer good enough, everyone wants the best coders and will pay more in the hope that having that limited resource will actually lower their overall costs. The pay for average coders goes down as there is less work, but the top coders earn more because they are even more sought after.

    3. Irony Deficient

      ambiguity

      Identity, when you state that Taxes, however, are currently at their lowest level since the Eisenhower administration, are you referring to taxes as a percentage of nominal GDP? Are you referring to marginal tax rates? What precisely do you refer to by the single word taxes?

      1. Identity

        Re: ambiguity

        Tax rates

        1. Irony Deficient

          [Tax rates] are currently at their lowest level since the Eisenhower administration?

          Identity, this is not the case. Tax rates were at their lowest level since the Eisenhower administration during the first half of the Bush père administration.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the Reg

    feels the need to to run economics pieces like this they need to be much better than these ill-considered, poorly researched lefty-bashing rants from a pseudo-libertarian. Take a quick look at Tim's "blog"....little more stream of insulting invective aimed at the Graunaid and other supposedly left-of-center media outlets.

    Still, at least Tim is proving that socialist arts graduates don't have a monopoly on being innumerate idiots.

  8. WylieCoyoteUK
    Coat

    Scuse me, but

    I am I the only one who noticed that the green and blue lines in the first graph are almost mirroring each other (not identical, but quite closely).

    Which sort of defeats the main argument.

    It would seem that if Wages rise, profits drop, and vice versa.

    Mine's the one with a brown envelope sticking out of the pocket.

    1. The Axe

      Re: Scuse me, but

      Tim doesn't say there is no correlation between wages and profit as he shows in the second (not first) graph. What he says is that the link is not that strong.

      "a decline in the labour share does not necessarily mean a rise in the profit share"

      If you look a bit more closely you'll see that wages have dropped by nearly 10% but profit fluctuates about 5%, if that, either side of a median.

  9. Stevie

    Bah!

    Yes, it's all the public sector's fault, which is why you should have your house burn down when you dial 999 instead of having nice shiny fire engines arrive to put it out. Of course, when your house burns down it will likely take a good portion of the street with it, and if it all gets going nicely large sections of the town could burn until there's nothing flammable left. Never mind, you can build a new house with all the money you saved from not having firemen.

    You'd know what "flammable" meant if you hadn't fired all the teachers. Never mind. Someone rich will tell you, if they feel like it. They can afford private tuition.

    It's very sad that no-one can remember why we made all this stuff a publicly-funded right until they pull it all down in a fit of idiot "fiscal responsibility".

    Look what happened with the Severn-Trent water system: So badly polluted in the late 60s that fish couldn't live in most of it. All the 70s spent cleaning it up (at public expense) until it was shiny again, only to have the whole business undone in a year by the Thatcher privatization of the water companies. Who could've guessed that no-one would want to buy the expensive-to-run water cleaning part of the system, that they'd only want to buy the parts that sold water to people (or dumped sewage into the river system)?

    Or the British Rail sell-off fiasco, when no-one realized that trains and the permanent way require lots of expensive maintenance or the London to Glasgow express goes for a 100 mph stroll across the countryside, scattering passengers across the landscape? Oh how we laughed as the speculators learned that lesson and were bailed out by someone...who was it...oh yes, the public. Makes you wonder where the savings were supposed to be dunnit?

    I shall watch with interest the dismantling of the publicly-funded civic infrastructure, and weep with everyone else at the number of deaths for those too poor to pay the ambulance to come, and decry the riots of the uneducated masses who have no prospect of ever lifting themselves out of the morass other than crime. Maybe when the only employer is the army, Britain can have an Empire again.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Re: Bah!

      "You'd know what "flammable" meant if you hadn't fired all the teachers."

      <- have a pint on me!

  10. Lloyd
    Facepalm

    Try mapping inflation to the 40% tax bracket

    I went back to the early 80's (I got bored trying to track the stats further back), and if the 40% tax bracket had followed yearly inflation it would now stand at around just under £50k (I can't remember exactly, this was 2 years ago and obviously it'll have increased by now), where on earth could all of that excess money be going?

  11. Tom 35

    capitalist bastards

    Since the multinationals don't make any "profit" at all how would you expect anything to add up to 100%?

  12. Jason Hindle

    If a job needs doing, it needs doing

    And if it needs doing, it's probably worth doing. A job worth doing is probably deserving of reasonable compensation, regardless of which side of the private/public fence it happens to be on. All those nurses, firemen, plods and so on seem pretty necessary to me. We could take the US route and just privatise everything but guess what? We all end up paying anyway, and as we know from the privatisation of our utilities, we end up paying more, and often for worse service.

    So, thanks El Reg for a nice round of neoliberal bellyaching. And yes, by neoliberal I am referring to that school of economic thinking that probably ought to join state planned communism in the dustbin of history. Isn't it amazing how the two extremes of capitalism and communism are both proven, abject failures?

  13. Will Godfrey Silver badge

    And another thing...

    Can someone explain to me how it is that (supposedly) intelligent people believe in the concept of endless growth?

    1. Jason Hindle

      Re: It's worse than that, it's magic!

      They expect unlimited growth with the finite resources of a finite world. How can we expect that to end?

    2. The Axe

      Re: And another thing...

      Because it's not growth based just on product, but also on services. So the growth of the economy, as measured by the GDP, can increase all the time as more value is added to services and products. For instance, the UK used to have a large workforce in manufacturing. Now it has a lot smaller workforce, but the value from the manufacturing has increased (we produce products with more added value by using our knowledge and skills). And all the workers not working in manufacturing are now doing more productive work in other industries. Many of these industries are in new sectors and again, this creates growth.

    3. Tim Worstal

      Re: And another thing...

      "Can someone explain to me how it is that (supposedly) intelligent people believe in the concept of endless growth?"

      Assuming you mean growth in GDP it's because we know what the definition of GDP is. The value of all goods and services at market prices.

      Perfectly willing to agree that we cannot have infinite growth in the volume of goods because of resource constraints. I wouldn't say we're anywhere near them as yet but that's a different matter. Quite happy to agree that there is indeed a limit out there.

      But resource constraints don't mean that we cannot increase the value of what we're producing with those limited resources. Thus infinite GDP growth is constrained by our ability to add value, not by resource constraints.

      Just as a trivial example, there's a limited number of copper atoms on the planet. Imagine, just as a thought experiment, we used them all to make paperweights. Then we decided instead we would use them to make computer motherboards instead. Those motherboards are more valuable to us: we have had economic growth through adding more value, not by using more resources.

  14. Lars Silver badge
    Flame

    Capitalist, communist, leftist, what ever.

    Word like these represent the first sign of a person having absolutely no knowledge about anything.

    Try to work it out with words like, change, expectations, world economy, education, time, history, failure, weather, climate, age structure, voting system, what ever, just try leaving the shit behind you.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Or to put it another way, the rich capitalist bastards aren't paying their fair share of taxes.

    1. Armando 123

      Or to put it more accurately, the rich capitalist bastards are better at hiding their money from the lazy piratical bureaucrats who aren't worth the cost of their constituent atoms.

  16. Mr Mick
    Meh

    Economics is a science nay it more than that.

    I see economics as a balancing act between art and science, predicting trends i see parallels with weather predictions. With all the best talent/tech working to make predictions that tornado still comes in and hits then we have to mop up after. Just my take on this.

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Economics is a science nay it more than that.

      if its a science its a science for the calculation of value and wealth in the same way Stonehenge is an astronomical calculator for the management of the milky way. Hits a couple of points and misses out on billions but gets the gullible to come and make offerings which the managers of the stones then enjoy at their leisure.

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