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"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

"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.
- vannevar 9y ago
  I meant no offense. I understand that the guy's story is a sad one, and that he could've spent the money more productively. He could've been a better person. None of that has anything to do with what happened to the money after he spent it, which was the point of my original comment. If the focus is on the guy and his behavior, and the money that comes in and out of his life, it says very little about how much that money is contributing to the economy. Like a lot of things, it's the economic network that matters, and his position in it, and not so much his direct marginal contribution to it (or lack thereof). If he had been terminated without any severance, he might've still moved back home and never lived it down. And the money would've taken some other path through the economy, maybe a more productive one, maybe a less productive one. Either way, it wouldn't be pissed anywhere, it would just travel a different path through the network.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    I meant no offense Thank you. Money can be spent in a manner that is harmful, that actually reduces value in the world. It can also be genuinely lost or destroyed. But I don't imagine you and I will ever bridge whatever communication gap is happening here. So, I don't plan to "throw more good money after bad" in terms of investing more of my time in what feels like an inane discussion.
    - vannevar 9y ago
      Don't give up, you're actually pretty close. Yes, it can be spent in a way that reduces value. And it can literally be destroyed (as I noted several times above). In the latter case, we agree it's been lost. But in the case where it's used to destroy value, the money itself still remains in the system, and might very well be used to create greater value than what was destroyed. For instance, a kid might buy a cherry bomb from another friend and destroy a mailbox. But the kid he gave the money to uses that money to start a business. The net value of the money's path through the cherry bomb to the business could be greater than if the first kid had donated it to a charity instead. My point is that while we can make a value judgment on the kid's spending, we can't say with certainty what the broader economic effect is. Even if he's spending all his money on sex workers, cocaine, and cherry bombs.

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.

vannevar 9y ago
I meant no offense. I understand that the guy's story is a sad one, and that he could've spent the money more productively. He could've been a better person. None of that has anything to do with what happened to the money after he spent it, which was the point of my original comment. If the focus is on the guy and his behavior, and the money that comes in and out of his life, it says very little about how much that money is contributing to the economy. Like a lot of things, it's the economic network that matters, and his position in it, and not so much his direct marginal contribution to it (or lack thereof). If he had been terminated without any severance, he might've still moved back home and never lived it down. And the money would've taken some other path through the economy, maybe a more productive one, maybe a less productive one. Either way, it wouldn't be pissed anywhere, it would just travel a different path through the network.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  I meant no offense Thank you. Money can be spent in a manner that is harmful, that actually reduces value in the world. It can also be genuinely lost or destroyed. But I don't imagine you and I will ever bridge whatever communication gap is happening here. So, I don't plan to "throw more good money after bad" in terms of investing more of my time in what feels like an inane discussion.
  - vannevar 9y ago
    Don't give up, you're actually pretty close. Yes, it can be spent in a way that reduces value. And it can literally be destroyed (as I noted several times above). In the latter case, we agree it's been lost. But in the case where it's used to destroy value, the money itself still remains in the system, and might very well be used to create greater value than what was destroyed. For instance, a kid might buy a cherry bomb from another friend and destroy a mailbox. But the kid he gave the money to uses that money to start a business. The net value of the money's path through the cherry bomb to the business could be greater than if the first kid had donated it to a charity instead. My point is that while we can make a value judgment on the kid's spending, we can't say with certainty what the broader economic effect is. Even if he's spending all his money on sex workers, cocaine, and cherry bombs.