I'm going to step right past the "it makes sense because you're young" bait...But what do I know, I'm just a dumb kid with no real world experience (damnit I fell for the bait).
Ah hell. I'm going deeper into the bait. The idea that you think age is some kind of magic indicator of perspective or good decision making is very much belied by the facts of our current situation. I don't have more of an idea how old you are than you know of me (34 btw), so of this hits too close to home appreciate that my following comments are not meant to paint with a broad brush. There are many it doesn't apply to.
Well, I'm now sorry I wasn't more explicit. The only allusion to "age" I made was, "You've just entered a stage of your life where you're finally coming to grips with these concepts" and while it's easy to assume this correlates directly with age, I absolutely know some people grapple with these concepts in their elder years, while some get into them in their teens.
I wasn't talking about
age. I was talking about understanding, and alluding to the fact that when someone makes this connection it opens up a whole new way of thinking about value, and often changes their perspective on life, work, and society in rather profound ways.
I'm only a few years older than you, btw, I'll be 40 this month. The reality is that I seriously doubt I know much more than you or have thought much more deeply about these concepts than you, but I do know that you can't simplify them as much as you have and still maintain a mental model that approximates reality.
As far as "the greatest generation" rant you went into - well that's a whole 'nother topic and while they left us with some baggage they also went through hard times and left us with some pretty sweet stuff too, so while I won't get into it, I don't think they deserve the rancor so often thrown at them.
I'm sorry to have started the conversation this way, and apologize for the blatantly condescending tone.
I do think that most people can appreciate some concept of an intrinsic value to a product or service, even if there are disagreements other whether you are using a labor theory of value or Von Mises theory (can't remember what it's called but it's based on the agreed upon concept of value that the marketplace arrives at collectively) or whatever. In general terms they still give similar results.
For instance, would you argue that complex financial instruments like synthetic CDOs represent something of value, or incorrectly rated housing bonds? Or, using my other example, all other things aside, would you agree that polluting a river represents a loss of value? Because that's what my argument was based on. We don't need to come to an agreement about which exact definition of value we use, because all theories of value would agree that both of those instance either represent the absence of value or the loss of it (respectively).
As for my argument only pertaining to what "some" republican candidates feel about regulations maybe I'm off point, but I'm pretty most of them only have negative things to say about regulatory bodies.
You know how last presidential election people were comparing the federal budget to a household budget and trying to show others that the way the federal government runs is absolutely insane, if you applied those rules to a household? Then you'd get people arguing essentially that the two require different economic models because of so many outside factors and forces? This is akin to taking a micro view of a situation and a macro view of a situation.
Sure, the federal budget and deficit doesn't make sense applied to a household, but that's because the federal budget is affected by, and affects, so many others things. Until you take into account the entire picture, you can't really begin to understand why the federal budget is run this way, and why typical micro-economic budgeting procedures used for households aren't a model worth considering.
The same thing is true with value vs wealth.
It's easy to see on a small scale that creating a CDO or polluting the environment has no, or negative, value. Drop an oil well in your garden, and see how many people are interested in buying your produce, no matter how many tests and certifications about its safety you might be able to provide. I worry about the several oil wells that are within 5 miles of my house, because I use well water. We're both tapping into a resource we have rights too, but in many ways they are shared resources.
Argh. This is going to take too long. I'm sorry, I just don't have the time. Let's do dominos.
Increased industry regulation --> Increased costs --> More outsourcing --> Increased tarrifs/taxes --> Reduced world trading power --> Increased consumer costs --> Lower standard of living, higher unemployment
Now you might say, "But we're destroying the environment, and the free market isn't choosing to preserve it!" while the "other side" would say, "Actually we aren't damaging the environment, we care about it, but we believe we can preserve the environment and still conduct this business with limited government interference."
Yet the consumers are actually speaking up. Some are choosing to pay the higher price of Apple devices because they know they are
made in environmentally sensitive ways.
By forcing the whole phone industry to adopt these rules, though, you substantially increase costs across the board. No more cheap pay as you go phones.
Who does this hurt the most? The rich?
And this is just one small example of where one person's intrinsic value may agree with yours, but their risk/reward tradeoff isn't necessarily wrong or bad, or environmentally unfriendly - yet you would argue that increased regulation shouldn't be fought. Considering the macro view and all the little factors that go into it, your model may be
insufficient to allow you to claim unequivocal that the republican's platform is wrong in an objective/absolute manner.
Again, I'm sorry for being condescending, I shouldn't do that, but this isn't as simple a problem as you paint, and thus your conclusion (and model used to arrive at it) isn't necessarily conclusive.
Now you can pick apart a lot of what I've said above - but keep in mind that this is an example, and not a story I'm interested in spending time defending. It's simply to illustrate that you can't just limit yourself to a single risk/reward analysis with only two variables and expect to come up with a reasonable statement of truth that should apply to every perspective.
