Quote:
Originally Posted by sailaway21
Osmund dissembles...Speaking of spurious. Your entire argument regarding relative world costs is itself spurious.
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Sailaway, so much sarcasm... I'll hopefully get to your other points, but first:
Now, let me see… Running cars that consume more fuel is good for the economy?
It means building more fuel depots, freighting more fuel across the country, more gas stations, more work time lost refueling, greater volumes arriving by ship, more dependence on foreign sources, less investment in alternatives: cycle paths (not my own hobby horse, but I mention it), and public transport. At the same time, encouraged car use leads to more land used for car parks, roads, traffic systems and in the final analysis, traffic police. There is more, when you begin to add it up. I shouldn’t be so bold as to hint that excessive car use facilitates obesity, but… isn’t that a giant boost to productivity?
This enormous infrastructure, then, is more efficient economics? It reminds me of a famous quote from economics: GNP is measured as the sum total of “invoices” in an economy. There is no evaluation of “benefit” or what was produced – charge a dollar extra for a haircut and GNP goes up by that amount. Thus, in a year when India suffered its worst hunger crisis and grain was shipped in from overseas, and then trucked to the starving across the country, Indian GNP rose. All those trucks, fuel and truckies’ wages grew the money figure and pointed to great strides. Is that how we want USA to count its progress?