Below is an excerpt without getting into any math. LOL #--------------------------- Excerpt:
Diminishing Marginal Utility Many prominent economists have contributed to the development and use of the concept of diminishing marginal utility. The first was Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Bentham, an Englishman, studied history and Latin at the age of four, entered Queen's College in Oxford when he was 12, and graduated at 15. He then went on to study law, at the behest of his father, but quickly moved on to a more scholarly life. Bentham applied the notion of diminishing marginal utility to happiness derived from wealth. Bentham wrote: "Of two people having unequal fortunes, he who has most wealth must by a legislator be regarded as having most happiness. But the quantity of happiness will not go on increasing in anything near the same proportion as the quantity of wealth:--ten thousand times the quantity of wealth will not bring with it ten thousand times the quantity of happiness. It will even be matter of doubt, whether ten thousand times the wealth will in general bring with it twice the happiness. The effect of wealth in the production of happiness goes on diminishing, as the quantity by which the wealth of one man exceeds that of another goes on increasing: in other words, the quantity of happiness produced by a particle of wealth (each particle being of the same magnitude) will be less at every particle; the second will produce less than the first, the third than the second, and so on." The concept of diminishing marginal utility has a long intellectual history, and is an integral part of modern economic theory. http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072819359/student_view0/chapter21/origin_of_the_idea.html #------------------------------------ Regards, LelandJ Nicholas Geti Said: Those ideas are the basis of good corporate governance. They have the data to make a stab at calculating the equations constants. However, in the case of individuals it is all theoretical and not too useful because each person is different and one cannot collect any meaningful data. _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
