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You're correct, it does discount the impact on his life because that impact, however emotionally compelling, is irrelevant to the point of the subthread. Which

You're correct, it does discount the impact on his life because that impact, however emotionally compelling, is irrelevant to the point of the subthread. Which is that, short of literally destroying it, money is never 'pissed away'---it simply moves on to someone else. People often confuse the benefits (and moral implications) for the spender (which are often pretty clear, as in this case) with the broader economic benefit of the transaction to the economy (which is much less clear). Ie, "someone made a bad moral choice in spending their money, so that must be bad for the economy." Not necessarily.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
So, his inability to buy a house for himself and the fact that he continued to live with parents for many years has no bearing on our discussion of the economy and the creation of wealth? I don't want to give a lot more details about this person's life. It is a real person and giving too many details amounts to gossiping about them. But I think you are in error. The impact it had on this person's life has other impacts. I don't know why you think this is some appeal to emotion. It isn't. A person who cannot get their life together because of one youthful indiscretion has long term consequences that impact the wider economy. This is likely part of why such stories are emotionally compelling: Because it actually matters. I am not generally not talk about morality in the sense that other people do. I am not too happy to have the concept of morality injected into the discussion in such a way that it slings mud all over me at every step of the way. I am not talking about morality. I am talking about what makes for a healthy system that serves both the commoner and the rich person well. Our current approach doesn't do that. One of the reasons it does not do that is because I have seen a number of statements by wealthy people to the effect that they live with a lot of fear due to their wealth plus the state of the world. I thin this fear is legitimate and I think it tells us that a system that makes the ultra rich richer by bleeding the common person is a fundamentally unhealthy system that serves no one well, not even the rich people soaking up the extra money and wondering if they will need to abscond to Australia in their jet should the crap hit the fan. I think this fear is part of why so many tech giants talk so much about things like creating basic income. They want to be able to stop living in fear that someone is going to want them dead because the world is going to hell for so very many people and this makes them a potential target.
- vannevar 9y ago
  "So, his inability to buy a house for himself and the fact that he continued to live with parents for many years has no bearing on our discussion of the economy and the creation of wealth?" We're only talking about the marginal impact of the money itself---in this case, his six weeks of severance. That he didn't invest it more productively certainly has some small impact, but the point is that he didn't actually destroy its value, he simply transferred it to someone else. Had he gone off to live happily alone in the mountains as a Buddhist monk, he would've been similarly unproductive. I assume you would've found that more admirable, but the economy doesn't care what we find admirable. It only cares about how fast money moves, and whether or not it leaves productive assets in its wake. He obviously didn't use his severance directly on productive assets, but a lot of people don't. It doesn't mean that they can't be a vector for efficiently getting it to people who do. That's the harder question to analyze. Given the choice between a spendthrift living a dissolute life of debauchery, and a monk who ceremoniously burns all his worldly possessions and lives in solitude, I suspect the economy prefers the spendthrift.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Had he gone off to live happily alone in the mountains as a Buddhist monk, he would've been similarly unproductive. I assume you would've found that more admirable Yeah, I am done with this. In spite of me stating that this is not about moralizing, you keep projecting moral nonsense onto me. The only thing I am talking about is this guy blew through a lot of money in a single weekend and this had long term negative repercussions for his entire life. He went back home to his parents and then never really cut the umbilical cord again. It interfered with his ability to live as he saw fit for many years afterwards and to this day. He threw away his one shot at ever getting to be an adult and live on his own terms. To be perfectly clear, if he had blown through all that money for cocaine and sex workers, come back revitalized, stood up to his parents and said "Yeah, I don't care about your opinions about my life" and sold his second car to make it possible to keep his independence, I might well feel that was money well spent. But that isn't how it went down. Instead, he tucked tail, moved back home and then never lived down what an untrustworthy "loser" he was in the eyes of a lot of people whose opinions mattered to him. Edit: Trying to stop using the F word like a substitute for very.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

So, his inability to buy a house for himself and the fact that he continued to live with parents for many years has no bearing on our discussion of the economy and the creation of wealth? I don't want to give a lot more details about this person's life. It is a real person and giving too many details amounts to gossiping about them. But I think you are in error. The impact it had on this person's life has other impacts. I don't know why you think this is some appeal to emotion. It isn't. A person who cannot get their life together because of one youthful indiscretion has long term consequences that impact the wider economy. This is likely part of why such stories are emotionally compelling: Because it actually matters. I am not generally not talk about morality in the sense that other people do. I am not too happy to have the concept of morality injected into the discussion in such a way that it slings mud all over me at every step of the way. I am not talking about morality. I am talking about what makes for a healthy system that serves both the commoner and the rich person well. Our current approach doesn't do that. One of the reasons it does not do that is because I have seen a number of statements by wealthy people to the effect that they live with a lot of fear due to their wealth plus the state of the world. I thin this fear is legitimate and I think it tells us that a system that makes the ultra rich richer by bleeding the common person is a fundamentally unhealthy system that serves no one well, not even the rich people soaking up the extra money and wondering if they will need to abscond to Australia in their jet should the crap hit the fan. I think this fear is part of why so many tech giants talk so much about things like creating basic income. They want to be able to stop living in fear that someone is going to want them dead because the world is going to hell for so very many people and this makes them a potential target.

vannevar 9y ago
"So, his inability to buy a house for himself and the fact that he continued to live with parents for many years has no bearing on our discussion of the economy and the creation of wealth?" We're only talking about the marginal impact of the money itself---in this case, his six weeks of severance. That he didn't invest it more productively certainly has some small impact, but the point is that he didn't actually destroy its value, he simply transferred it to someone else. Had he gone off to live happily alone in the mountains as a Buddhist monk, he would've been similarly unproductive. I assume you would've found that more admirable, but the economy doesn't care what we find admirable. It only cares about how fast money moves, and whether or not it leaves productive assets in its wake. He obviously didn't use his severance directly on productive assets, but a lot of people don't. It doesn't mean that they can't be a vector for efficiently getting it to people who do. That's the harder question to analyze. Given the choice between a spendthrift living a dissolute life of debauchery, and a monk who ceremoniously burns all his worldly possessions and lives in solitude, I suspect the economy prefers the spendthrift.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Had he gone off to live happily alone in the mountains as a Buddhist monk, he would've been similarly unproductive. I assume you would've found that more admirable Yeah, I am done with this. In spite of me stating that this is not about moralizing, you keep projecting moral nonsense onto me. The only thing I am talking about is this guy blew through a lot of money in a single weekend and this had long term negative repercussions for his entire life. He went back home to his parents and then never really cut the umbilical cord again. It interfered with his ability to live as he saw fit for many years afterwards and to this day. He threw away his one shot at ever getting to be an adult and live on his own terms. To be perfectly clear, if he had blown through all that money for cocaine and sex workers, come back revitalized, stood up to his parents and said "Yeah, I don't care about your opinions about my life" and sold his second car to make it possible to keep his independence, I might well feel that was money well spent. But that isn't how it went down. Instead, he tucked tail, moved back home and then never lived down what an untrustworthy "loser" he was in the eyes of a lot of people whose opinions mattered to him. Edit: Trying to stop using the F word like a substitute for very.