Brexit process

[Little John]

Repeating bald, unsubstantiated assertions does not make them anything other than bald, unsubstantiated assertions by virtue of their repetition.

[vtsnowedin]

Can an obvious fact be an unsubstantiated assertion? I think not.
Just what wealth has some rich lord stolen from you personally?

[stumuz1]

I think you two chaps have reignited a four hundred year old philosophical economic debate.

This Frenchy https://www.britannica.com/biography/Je ... te-Colbert thought wealth was a fixed pie which couldn't be expanded or contracted, also referred to as mercantilism.

Whilst good ol' Jock https://www.adamsmith.org/the-wealth-of-nations thought wealth could be created out of thin air (QE?)

Good to see the debate alive and kicking.

[fuzzy]

Except it's both, which is why it sinks into a religious circular debate. Obviously wealth can be created by:

Exploiting natural resources, someone's hard work, and the luck of being able to accumulate wealth, either because you hide it or because the gov allows you.

It can also be redistributed at a completely unrelated flow rate.

It is also constantly being lost in consumption.

[Little John]

Except it's both, which is why it sinks into a religious circular debate. Obviously wealth can be created by:

Exploiting natural resources, someone's hard work, and the luck of being able to accumulate wealth, either because you hide it or because the gov allows you.

It can also be redistributed at a completely unrelated flow rate.

It is also constantly being lost in consumption.

The limits to physical economic growth on a finite planet is putting paid to the first part of that equation. But, strictly speaking, even prior to the limits to growth, the earth itself might have been said to have incurred the "loss" in geological terms. But, that, indeed, is a somewhat philosophical point. In terms of the losses incurred by the rest of life on earth, those losses have always been far from philosophical in nature.

But, notwithstanding any of the above, as stated, we are now pushing up against the limits to growth. From now on in, for someone to make a profit someone or something else must incur an equal and opposite loss. It does not require socialism or, indeed, any other ism to state this. It's just an abstracted, re-statement of the 1st law of thermodynamics. In other words, the only people who could find this statement contentious are the ideologically possessed, the willfully ignorant or the intellectually challenged.

[stumuz1]

But, notwithstanding any of the above, as stated, we are now pushing up against the limits to growth.

First stated by Thomas Malthus
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Malthus

[vtsnowedin]

From now on in, for someone to make a profit someone or something else must incur an equal and opposite loss.

False!
Take the case of an inventor that comes up with a new product. It did not exist before he figured out how to build it so no one lost their invention.
He then builds it using raw materials he pays the suppliers for so not a loss for them just business. He sells a million units to a grateful customer population that can't wait for the new invention (folding I-phone for example) at a profit of $100 per unit after all taxes are paid.
He has gained $100 million in wealth. The government has gained $21 million in taxes and all the suppliers have made their usual margins after paying for their consumption.
No One has lost anything.

[adam2]

From now on in, for someone to make a profit someone or something else must incur an equal and opposite loss.

False!
Take the case of an inventor that comes up with a new product. It did not exist before he figured out how to build it so no one lost their invention.
He then builds it using raw materials he pays the suppliers for so not a loss for them just business. He sells a million units to a grateful customer population that can't wait for the new invention (folding I-phone for example) at a profit of $100 per unit after all taxes are paid.
He has gained $100 million in wealth. The government has gained $21 million in taxes and all the suppliers have made their usual margins after paying for their consumption.
No One has lost anything.

I largely agree.
It is new inventions and discoveries whereby relatively low value raw materials are turned into highly valued manufactured goods for which people willingly pay good money.
This has gone on, in a very limited way, since ancient times, but only on a large scale since the industrial revolution.
It is new discoveries and inventions that have given most of the population a greatly improved standard of living if compared to that prevailing centuries ago.

Such new inventions are seldom ENTIRELY a "win/win" situation since almost all new inventions, or the wider availability of existing inventions, have an adverse effect on someone.
Consider the number of laundry maids put out of work by modern washing machines as an example, yet I hear few calls to ban washing machines.
And as for railways, consider the unemployment among stagecoach operators, horse dealers, harness makers and allied trades.

I am in general in favour of progress.

[vtsnowedin]

Such new inventions are seldom ENTIRELY a "win/win" situation since almost all new inventions, or the wider availability of existing inventions, have an adverse effect on someone.
.

True enough but it is not "An equal and opposite loss." wherein lies the fallacy.
The percentage of loss depends on process and circumstances but in general our activities in a capitalist economy tend to be positive. If they were not we would still be fighting over the limited pile of gold and silver and other wealth that existed in ancient Rome.

[Little John]

From now on in, for someone to make a profit someone or something else must incur an equal and opposite loss.

False!
Take the case of an inventor that comes up with a new product. It did not exist before he figured out how to build it so no one lost their invention.
He then builds it using raw materials he pays the suppliers for so not a loss for them just business. He sells a million units to a grateful customer population that can't wait for the new invention (folding I-phone for example) at a profit of $100 per unit after all taxes are paid.
He has gained $100 million in wealth. The government has gained $21 million in taxes and all the suppliers have made their usual margins after paying for their consumption.
No One has lost anything.

Okay - one step at a time.

Where did the money come from for the people to buy his product?

[stumuz1]

Where did the money come from for the people to buy his product?

The banks printed it out of thin air.

[Little John]

And if the banks print it out of thin air, in the absence of actual economic growth underpinning that printing, what happens to its exchange value at the systemic level?

To be clear here, I am not suggesting that secondary economic activity does not have the effect of leveraging up the exchange value of primary economic activity. It does. What I am suggesting is that in the absence of primary economic activity, there is nothing to leverage.

[vtsnowedin]

Where did the money come from for the people to buy his product?

From their disposable income.

[Little John]

And where did their disposable income come from? In other words, where did the money originally come from?

[vtsnowedin]

And where did their disposable income come from? Stop pretending to be stupid. You know exactly what I am asking. Where did the money originally come from?

Forget the debt creates money rant.
A farmer grew a crop that yielded four times his cost. get it?
It doesn't matter where the money came from as the customer Has the Phone!! which retains the value of the money.