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Not to argue against the ultimate conclusion, but I think you've oversimplified the situation. To make a stronger argument, I think you would need to factor in
by dataflow 5y ago
Not to argue against the ultimate conclusion, but I think you've oversimplified the situation. To make a stronger argument, I think you would need to factor in the fact that dollars can be exchanged for almost anything, whereas cheeseburgers can only be exchanged for dollars. And perhaps other facts, like the fact that cheeseburgers have a much lower value being left in long-term storage than cash.
- willcipriano 5y agoIf you think about a economy it has some amount of productive capacity. You can sort of use GDP to see it, but that is denominated in dollars so it can hide the effect to a large degree. When people shift to alternative goods, productive capacity can shift to producing those new goods, however if the total capacity remains the same those dollars still purchase less productive effort than they did previously. As dollars are the reward for productive effort in the economy, if your wages remain the same your proportion of the efforts of the economy has gotten smaller, but your contributions remained static. I imagine this has contributed to income inequality to some degree.
- lupire 5y ago"Durable good" is the economic term you are looking for. Also "barter", an imefficient form of exchange that avoids purely social constructs.