Summations Only

Well clearly value and worth are equivalent to money on an accounting ledger containing only values and worths as translated into dollars and cents.But if all you wanted to talk about was accounting with little concern as to how applicable accounting principles are to economics, then saying so from the start would have been helpful.

If you agree that the rich are receiving a disproportionate amount of wealth/income how are they NOT receiving a disproportionate share of the proceeds of productivity?You asked me to explain how publicly funded investment could result in disproportionate gains for the wealthiest and I did. If publicly funded investment results in increased productivity but the benefits of increased productivity almost exclusively benefit the wealthiest then they have received more wealth than they can claim o have created and trickle-up rather than trickle-down has occurred.

Huh?A) The wealthiest few percent of the population receive more wealth from increased productivity than they createdB) The rest of society received less wealth from increased productivity than they are responsible for creating.If A) and B) are true then how can you possibly describe the gains received by the majority as having "trickled down"....?Do you assume that all wealth is created by the top 5/1/0.1% and that any gains anyone else receives have thus trickled-down?This is the only way to make even vague sense of your comments.

Percy and CS are stating something that is a rule of thumb (in the sense that it generally applies as true) whilst proclaiming it in a way that suggests it is some sort of incontrovertible economic fact.If Paris Hilton bugs her dad to give her a cheque in order to produce and market her latest fragrance "Odour de la purse dog" and he gives it to her with no interest or expectation of return then she has received capital that is "free" in any meaningful sense.Likewise (and slightly more seriously) if Bill Gates is so impressed with my new vaccine deployment technology that he builds my factory and pays my startup costs simply because he thinks the world will benefit from mjy endeavour then he too has given "free capital".Rare? Yes.But not to be declared as some sort of universally applicable economic truism in the way that seems to be the case here.

You're again arguing against a position I do not hold. Let's get the positions straight.You claim that the benefits of productivity gains do not belong to the shareholders.I claim that the benefits of productivity gains do belong to the shareholders.You could not run an economy on any other basis. Productivity gains do not come from workers working harder. That's simply not sustainable. Workers today are a couple hundred percent more productive than 30 years ago, but it's not because we're working a couple hundred percent harder. I'm sure the workers 30 years ago worked just as hard as we do today.Productivity measures output per dollar. Improvements in productivity come from improvements in process (e.g., improved efficiency from changing the order in which tasks or performed or by rearranging an assembly line), or in means of production (e.g., taking greater advantage of automation), or by reducing costs (e.g., finding cheaper labor or or by finding ways to do the same amount of work with less labor or by finding a cheaper source of parts or by reducing real estate costs, etc.).The benefits of these improvements accrue to those who implemented them, namely the shareholders by proxy through the company's management. They do not belong to the employees who carried out the nuts and bolts of accomplishing the productivity gains. Employees are compensated for their contributions with their salaries. Employees who are willing to risk capital in order to share in the company's successes (and also failures) should purchase stock.--Percy

How do the proceeds of increased productivity, where that increased productivity is the result of public investment, belong exclusively to shareholders?Explain this to me....

This is, as a matter of fact, true. That is indeed how "the benefits of these improvements accrue". But does it follow that this represents justice? After all, the benefits of a mugging accrue to the mugger, whereas the victim of the mugging loses out. According to your jargon, the mugger has "created value" by getting the money, whereas the victim has destroyed value, by handing it over. So the mugger should be rewarded for creating the value, by getting to keep the money, whereas the victim should be punished for destroying value, by losing it ...

Well, this has been explained to you. The shareholders can be "wiped out" by the failure of their investment, unless they live in the real world, in which case their legal liability is limited by their investment. But now imagine that they live in the world in Percy's head instead.

Government is responsible for maintaining an infrastructure and economic environment in which the country can flourish, and we (both individuals and companies) pay taxes to give government the means to carry out this responsibility. We are not otherwise billed for this service.And free stuff is free. There is no place on a balance sheet for stuff that is free. This website takes advantage of a great deal of free software. CentOS, the operating system, is free. Apache, PHP, Perl and MySQL are free. Both rich and poor, both profitable companies and companies hemorrhaging cash, gain an advantage from this free software. The Internet would be a much less valuable place without it, and so various companies are willing to provide funding for non-profit groups like Apache Software Foundation and so forth.When a company takes advantage of free software or free anything, which is a decision made by company management who is responsible to the shareholders who bear the burden of risk to their capital, that does not magically transfer the benefits of any productivity gains away from the company, certainly not to the employees.--Percy

"Harder" just means "more productive", and the evidence is actually pretty clear that the GDP gains in the past 60 years are, in fact, from worker productivity (not "shareholder" productivity.)I don't see what's unsustainable about it. Workers can always get more productive if the value of what they produce increases.

From the Wikipedia article on productivity: You next say: Workers decades ago were working just as hard as workers today. Productivity gains do not come from workers working harder because that is just not sustainable. Workers today are not working a couple hundred percent harder than 30 years ago. That's not even remotely possible. Productivity gains come from improvements in the way companies manufacture and/or provide services. If you mean this precisely as worded, then yes, this is true by definition. If a worker produces a $100 item in an hour, then if the value of the item somehow rises and it becomes a $110 item then productivity has risen 10%. But the worker is working no harder than before.--Percy

In the accounting ledger of GDP, on which line does this item appear? The answer: nowhereThere are tons of things that have an impact on GDP that don't appear on the ledger. Think you'll ever see lines like these on the Archer Daniels Midland balance sheet: Even worse, including lines like this would screw up the whole balance sheet, since no funds were actually paid out - the numbers are just someone playing around with some equations to arrive at guestimates of the actual benefit.We already have all the ammunition we need to indict the rich. There's no need to make up fantasies about improper appropriation of the benefits of productivity gains.--PercyAbE: Someone noted that the "Favorable legislation" item *does* have balancing items on the accounting ledger (in the form of lobbying costs and campaign donations), also noting that of course it's not a one-to-one correspondence because resulting legislation often isn't passed in the same accounting year as these costs. But what I actually had in mind with that item was the benefit of existing legislation and the resulting competitive and regulatory environment. New and recently passed legislation would only be a small part of that.Edited by Percy, : Change pronoun you => we.Edited by Percy, : AbE.

I think this must be a corollary of Godwin's Law: --Percy

And how do those come about?

Well, if you had actually read Message 125 instead of just "Jeering" it you'd already have the answer. Here it is again: --PercyEdited by Percy, : Formatting.