On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:09 PM, Steve Richfield <[email protected]> wrote: > Have you been following the situation in Cyprus, where they are taxing bank > accounts at 40%!!!
No, it was 10% of accounts over 100,000 euros and 6.69% of smaller accounts in exchange for (probably worthless) stock in the banks. The plan was cancelled to prevent a run on the banks. >> No it wouldn't. People specialize. Cutting hours 25% would just cut >> economic output by 25%. > > No, it would just put everyone back to work. We would have MORE economic > output, because our workforce wouldn't be dead tired for the last 25% of > their workday. So if the idea is so great, why haven't more companies done this on their own? >> > Things have been on a long gradual downhill slide for the last half >> > century. >> > I see no changing this trend. >> >> I observe no such trend. >> >> https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world%20gdp#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_kd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false > > That is ~5%/year in dollars that are inflating at a rate of ~14%, for a net > loss of ~9%/year. I don't know how you calculate 14%. It is hard to compare the cost of internet service or an MRI to the same product 50 years ago. But if you look at the cost of products whose demand is stable, like food, then there is clearly economic growth. Agriculture accounts for 6% of the world economy, and 1.5% in the U.S. Before 1800, it was nearly all of the economy. You might recall that since the evolution of Homo Sapiens until about 1800 that population growth was limited by the availability of food, as it still is today in all other species in the absence of predators. We are now in a temporary period when the exponential growth rate of technology (as measured by the cost of food production) is faster than the exponential growth of human population. >> Other indicators are up too, like life expectancy. > > Nearly all of which comes from improving infant mortality. It is about half. The worldwide mortality rate under 5 went from 15% in 1968 to 5% today. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world%20gdp#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=sh_dyn_mort&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false A 10% difference would account for 6 years. During the same period, life expectancy increased from 58 to 70. -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
