mirage

Thanks, that's what I thought but aa3 has such credibility with me that it threw my belief system into turmoil.

Yes, I'm sorry, but my incredulity was aimed at the majority of the rest of the world being paperless rather than the still rather paper dependent NHS. Even hospitals that have fully electronic clinic letters, radiology, pathology results and orders still have the medical and nursing notes in big tatty scrap books.

I know the situation here - I was wondering about the rest of the world. I find it hard to believe that we are one of the "few" countries still moving paper in hospitals.

Will they? What percentage?

Is this true? I have a strong urge to doubt it. Yeah, but that's just people, innit?

Is this true? I am confused about Japan's lost decades. There was an article recently (can't remember where yet) which argued that they weren't really lost at all. It said that standard of living had actually risen, that the strong Yen meant imports were affordable and that deflation had kept a lid on domestic prices. Cental to is argument was the idea that despite supposedly poor GDP growth for years, Japan still ranked roughly where it did in '89 in terms of exchange-weighted GDP per capita relative to other countries. It suggested that GPD figures were mainly measuring inflation and population growth rather than real per capita growth. This seems an important point to me (whether it is true or not) - usually GDP growth figures are looked at but even small systematic errors in inflation adjustment will over time grossly distort the impression of national economic performance. Why don't we look at exchange rate adjusted GDP per capita a bit more?

As the youth are fond of saying: "epic fail".

I don't know - cardiologists aren't exactly renowned for being disinterested in money!

Fewer houses.

Do you think that it will be experienced by many going backward?

Yep. Partly, I agree. Bubbles would still occur in an entirely rational model universe of freely trading individuals with perfect information. However, the state was (inevitably) certainly part of it this time.

Largely, it is the product of state spending filling the gap left by collapse in private demand cause by implosion of the private sector debt bubble. This was compounded by running deficits and increasing public debt in the run-up, but only compounded.

Oh, and btw, the surgeon was a bit of a tosser. The bare below the elbows/no tie policy applies only to health care workers, with physical contact to many patients, not visitors, which the film crew effectively are. Risk to patients was negligible, and in any case he didn't have to throw a hissy fit.

Feeling the separation anxiety again Injin? One of the many things that identifies you as a mid-wit is the total lack of consideration of what your notion of stealing is predicated on - i.e. ownership. What legitimises ownership? What if the ownership is wrong? Who arbitrates on that? You and your say-so as usual, I guess.

Yes! And it's not even seemingly exponential! Moronism of the first water from McRae. And I don't really get a strong sense of what the article is trying to say, either. A housing boom is a long way off but prices won't fall much? Why not? The indolent market won't drag on growth? Why not?

Hopelessly confused as ever. You mean "rationalisations of empirically observed events", I think. Your version makes no sense. Money velocity is not a model, it is a defined variable. The selfish gene is not a model, it is an analogy. Before you airily spout more about what "people" do to abuse models, perhaps you had better look up what a model is.

Sorry, almost missed this Sceppy classic. I totally agree. Science holds absolutely no place for things only measured "after the fact".

Just so long as that's clear. Because the post looked identical to someone who was just using a different definition to everyone else and then criticising it. If you think it was serving to point out the lack of predictive value of the standard definition, then more power to you. Hosing down Christina Hendricks would be hugely revealing, but so what? That doesn't invalidate velocity as a useful concept either. If you say so Sceppy. I was merely pointing out that you appeared not to know what these concepts were. As usual, you confuse that with advocacy for particular schools of thought. I agree that much of mainstream economics is of dubious value. However, I do like to criticise concepts or arguments, you know, as they are actually defined rather than as they appear after they have been pulled out of your ****.

It does happen, even on this forum. That's half the fun, isn't it? You could, if demand doubled, by definition. It might be a small increase in a very price-inelastic market, but an increase nonetheless. Anyway, you said doubled velocity of money, not doubled demand. Two slightly different things. Of dubious relevance to the question of what would happen if money velocity doubled overnight for a month in the same system. What would really happen is that twice the dollars would be competing at each sale and inflation would go through the proverbial. I think you are confused about the definition of productivity. If you could double it at will then you could double profit for the same work, halve work for the same profit, or a combination of the two. Clearly if you could, you would.

Models are by definition simplifications of the modelled system, and usually massive simplifications. That's what makes them useful (e.g. weather) and also imperfect predictors (e.g. weather).

Sorry, you're not making any sense.

Since the owners wanted to throw the stuff away, wealth is actually massively increasedby filling the landfill with fossil fuel-rich tat. So sayeth the Injin. I think we may be getting away from a strict definition of that much misused thermodynamic concept.

Anyway, sorry for the derail. It was a great OP link and one that usefully summarises the problem of the economy in a way that isn't touched upon by the political debate conducted in the broadsheets. The argument there seems to be entirely about government deficit and debt and ignore the fact that previous economic performance was largely debt bubble-based. I will be passing this around, thanks.

Wrong on two small points: 1. Entropy is not "the default state of stuff" 2. Wealth destruction must not be referring to something beyond increasing entropy. You would need to justify that . (J U S T I F Y - look it up). Now, since you clearly have only superficial understanding of thermodynamics, do you want to drop that analogy and just respond to the original points? Great, so I destroy all life on earth and so long as I owned it, then wealth has greatly increased. Bill Gates buys up all the great art he can, burns it and wealth has greatly increased. So in Injinworld, wealth tends to increase automatically as all owners do what they want with their resources, independently of each other. Glad we are all using senses of words in touching distance of each other. We can look forward to a great debate.

Wealth transforms to a different form with increasing entropy of a system? You will have to point out to me what form the wealth is taking at the heat death of the universe. Or even just when our sun winds down.