Dear Jim,
This is a somewhat belated reply to your email of January 7 (below).
I wanted to pick up on a point you made that:
It seems to me that our economy could benefit from the efficiencies
of working in just one system of measurement, namely the simpler one
of the two we now try to embrace.
I don't think that the situation is as simple as you say.
Firstly, you are not dealing with a simple choice between two
'systems'; you are dealing with a choice between the metric system —
the only 'system' yet devised for international and coherent
measuring — and a hodge-podge of old measures many of which have the
same name but many different definitions and values. Consider the
many different historical and current definitions of acre, foot,
inch, ounce, pound, ton, and yard as examples.
Secondly, you are dealing with something else that I think is far
worse that the simple choice you suggest.
This is the conversion between units of the metric system unit and
all of the the old pre-metric measures that I mentioned above. You
might recall that in the article, 'A word about global warming', I
mentioned 93 different ways to describe the same amount of energy
(and these require 8556 conversion factors to convert from any one of
these units to any other) when only one unit for energy, the joule,
is required. See: http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/
AWordAboutGlobalWarming.pdf for the original article.
By the way, as you know I have tried to put a numerical value on what
it costs the USA to avoid the metric system. See http://
www.metricationmatters.com/docs/CostOfNonMetrication.pdf for my views
on the 'Costs of non-metrication'.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial
and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA.
Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See
http://www.metricationmatters.com/ for more metrication information,
contact Pat at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or subscribe to
the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter at http://
www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter/
On 2008/01/07, at 5:50 AM, James Frysinger wrote:
I won't say that our incomplete metrication is entirely to blame,
but it certainly is not a helpful factor in our declining share of
world trade, the shrinking value of the dollar, and our being
passed by the UK in GDP per rata. Note this news article quoted on
foxnews.com from The Times (London). Hmmm, didn't the UK just
recently finish all but a few items on its to-do list for metrication?
It seems to me that our economy could benefit from the efficiencies
of working in just one system of measurement, namely the simpler
one of the two we now try to embrace.
With our shrinking participation in the world market we seem to be
working ourselves toward becoming and "island" nation and toward a
minor role in world economics.
Jim
Report: U.K. Set to Pass U.S. in Standard of Living
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Living standards in Britain are set to rise above those in America
for the first time since the 19th century, according to a report by
the respected Oxford Economics consultancy, the Times of London
reported on Sunday.
According to the Times of London report, the calculations suggest
that, measured by gross domestic product per capita, Britain can
now hold its head up high in the economic stakes after more than a
century of playing second fiddle to the Americans.
It says that GDP per head in Britain will be £23,500 this year,
compared with £23,250 in America, reflecting not only the strength
of the pound against the dollar but also the U.K. economy’s record
run of growth and rising incomes going back to the early 1990s.
In those days, according to Oxford Economics, Britain’s GDP per
capita was 34 percent below that in America, 33 percent less than
in Germany and 26 percent lower than in France. Now, not only have
average incomes crept above those in America but they are more than
8 percent above France (£21,700) and Germany (£21,665).
“The past 15 years have seen a dramatic change in the UK’s economic
performance and its position in the world economy,” said Adrian
Cooper, managing director of Oxford Economics. “No longer are we
the ‘sick man of Europe’. Indeed, our calculations suggest that UK
living standards are now a match for those of the US.”
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(H) 931.657.3107
(C) 931.212.0267
