Sounds complicated; I think I’ll just stick to creating value.
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lol.
They shouldn’t be deductible anyway. It’s 1960’s Good Ol’ Boy thinking that kept it deductible in the first place.
If you want to go that shit for your employees (and I recommend you do) then do it. But you shouldn’t get a deduction for having a good time.
You know how many trips to Vegas I’ve seen for “conferences”? Lmao, as if the gap between a hooker’s thighs is a conference.
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It’s easier selling what people want vs what they need. And it’s easy to make them want it.
Easier, huh?
If they want it how is it not creating value for them?
I’m under the impression Zec is specifically talking about one segment of industry… you know, the ones that create value by offering products for discretionary expenses. The thought that it’s easy is laughable though.
If you make them want it then you create the perception of value. Regardless, if you subtract the value someone puts into something from the cost of actually getting it, it might not be of much value. Plenty of people want to eat Big Macs all day, and do. They value those Big Macs. How much value does something have when it costs you years off your life?
Not easy. Easier.
Why do you assume people ‘value’ a long life such as (presumably) you do?
Define ‘make’ by nudges per Khaneman, Tversky style… or by forcing?
Yes, my mistake ‘easier’. I’m sensing some survivor bias.
Lol, okay man…
Are you a commy? Serious question. If I bring a product/service to the marketplace and sell it at a profit then I have created value for that consumer. Otherwise they wouldn’t have bought it.
It doesn’t matter what the rest of the market, or social activists, or journalists, or armchair economists think. People don’t part with their money unless they see value (excluding fraud and coercion).
If I bring heroin up from Mexico and sell it to an addict I have created value for that consumer.
Or were you just suggesting I commit fraud and “pull a fast one?”
Because people go to the doctor when sick or injured. Because we have retirement homes, not death camps.
No I don’t think he is.
I think he’s speaking on the one of the limitations on the market, and that being it’s amorality.
Sort of this:
And to a degree, he’s correct.
Are you a 70 year old relic from the cold war? What’s next? “Are you a pinko?”
But does that give it value? In other words, do feelings matter or is value an objective quality?
Have you really? If you sell child porn to a pedophile I suppose you created value for him as well. Everything exists in a vacuum so there are no hidden, or not so hidden costs?
Agreed, he’s more on the paternal libertarian side from what I gather in the last few days of having time to read PWI.
Value is subjective.
How is this an actual conversation…?
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Well morality and amorality are kind of hard to judge on any given transaction:
For instance wind turbines take more carbon to produce than they ever save. By the time you build a 300ft tower out of steel (iron mined, transported, refined etc…), put a 30,000 lb gearbox made of steel on the hub and fill it with 55 gallons of oil, attached to a giant generator with miles of copper wire and a steel housing etc… you’ve put more carbon into the air making/maintaining this thing than it will ever save. Wind techs are in such demand you have to FLY them in on jets and rent cars and occaisionally quads to get to these remote places.
Are wind turbines immoral?
@zecarlo this. And externalities have no bearing on whether a consumer finds value in a transaction.
No I will not be delivering heroin or child porn because my value system prohibits it. I was confused about your argument that wealth isn’t accumulated by creating value. I thought you were advocating that I commit fraud.
The commy comment was about your assertion that big Macs are a societal harm. Yes they are. Does that mean the consumers saw no value?
I was initially just making a joke. But yes, you are right, and the reason I brought it up was because of the tax talk. We talk a lot about what’s fair and not what’s right, presumably because we think the two are interchangeable. But more than that we don’t think about happiness. Why is it when I was younger, and it wasn’t that long ago, kids were happier with less? Why were adults happier with less? I don’t mean less money but less things. People paid their taxes, not as if they were thrilled about it then either, but were not miserable because they could still buy the things they needed and wanted to be happy. When I was a kid if someone asked their parents for a Christmas gift that cost 500 dollars or more (even accounting for inflation), like an iPhone, they wouldn’t get it on principle alone, not because of whether or not the family could afford it. Nowadays you see “poor” kids with iPhones. They are walking around with something that costs as much some used cars.
Anyway, what I’m getting at is they can cut taxes as much as they want and people will still be angry, miserable, and broke. Those people who are already lining up for Black Friday, to spend money they don’t have but think they have, will only be happy for the time between spending and getting their credit card bill. I know because it’s the main reason my first wife and I divorced. I refused to work, make money, and be miserable because I didn’t have enough money.
It’s only a conversation if you include the ethics of the players in the market, ie: society as a whole.
Which, on some levels is inseparable from the market itself.
One of Western Civ’s best contributions to mankind is the evolution away from physical conquest (still ongoing, so people can pump the breaks before they freakout) to garner wealth and resources. Within this though are elements of that conquest still intact economically. It’s a long process, and worth each stage of transitional pain, but that doesn’t eliminate the pain.
What I gather his point is: if there is a distinct lack of ethical inputs, to a great enough degree, the overall situation isn’t really valuable.