N9WOS wrote:
>>(Note that these cost accounting schemes are all legal and ethical, and
>>versions of all of these are commonly used in the real world.)
>
>
> You just don't grasp it.
No, I grasp what you are saying just fine. You just haven't come
anywhere near convincing me.
> No mater WHAT accounting and labor figuring the company uses to arrive at a
> cost, is irrelevant.
I see. So if the power company decides to charge industrial users -- and
only industrial users -- for electricity production, and residential
users -- and only residential users -- for infrastructure, then you
would argue that the efficiency of the transmission system has no effect
on the efficiency with which primary energy is converted to electricity
for industrial users?
>>All I'm saying is that in order to have a viable economic theory you need
>>to have a self-consistent accounting scheme. If you don't have that, your
>>theory is worthless.
>
>
> All the errors I have seen you try to impose on it, are totally irrelevant
> to the accounting system.
No, they're not. Not when you are trying to use cash as a surrogate to
find inefficiencies in a physical system. If energy and money are
equivalent, the places where I am spending the most money should also be
the places where I can achieve the greatest gains through improved
energy efficiency or energy conservation. Sometimes that's the case; but
then, a jewelry store owner isn't going to reduce his energy bills by
spending less on diamonds.
But there's a larger issue here. I challenged your theory with a
real-world example. You "proved" me wrong using your theory. That does
absolutely nothing either to prove me wrong or to advance your theory.
You have to demonstrate that your theory reflects physical reality
before meaningful proofs can based upon it.
In my opinion, for your theory to stand even a ghost of a chance it has
to be posed as a macroeconomic theory. That is, it has to be used to
look at the economy as a whole. It takes nothing more than my jewelry
store example to show that it has serious limitations as a microeconomic
theory. Even as a macroeconomic theory it will be a tough sell --
similar theories have been posed, but failed to find wide acceptance.
> It's like complaining that you can't have fluid in the tires of a farm
> tractor, because it will make it impossible to properly balance the tires
> for high speed operation.
No, it's more like complaining you can't pump water into the tires
through the valve stems. Wrong tool for the job.
>>You would have a point if you were talking about money, and only money.
>>But when I spend money, the money can be passed on to somebody else, then
>>to another, then to another. In other words, money cycles through the
>>economy and is not rendered useless when I spend it.
>
>
> You just don't grasp it.
> That does not affect the equation.
No, I'm quite certain I grasp it just fine. But here's what I don't get:
If energy is money, the amount of energy coursing through the economy at
any given time must be proportional to the amount of money coursing
through the economy. That is, a unit of energy must be worth a certain
number of constant dollars. This is *demonstrably* false. The value of a
unit of energy changes over time (value and money being two very
distinct things).
> >I cannot pass it on to another person.
>
> That is irrelevant.
> The product you made will carry the cost for the gas that you used.
No, *that* is irrelevant. I'm not interested in the cost of the gas
used, I'm interested in the amount of energy used.
>>It is rendered useless. For all practical purposes, it is destroyed.
>
>
> When it is going back to the energy supplier, it is being lost from the
> system. Destroyed as far as you and me are concerned.
That's ridiculous. Even if the energy supplier stops making energy it's
still paying salaries, taxes, dividends, interest, etc. If it stops
doing those things, the company is liquidated to pay off the government,
debt holders, and shareholders. All of that money returns to the
economy, regardless of whether it's tied up in an energy company or a
hot dog stand.
> If the energy maker doesn't buy anything with that money, then there will
> never be any money reenter the economy to by energy. And the energy maker
> will cease to exist because his equipment will finally stop running, so
> there will be no economy.
Even in the days of subsistence farming there was an economy. In fact,
there are people in the world right now who never pay a cent for energy
but nonetheless consume it (in the form of wood, cow chips, etc.). Those
economies aren't very big, but they're still economies. For your theory
to be viable it must explain them.
> BTW, just because that doesn't directly apply to everyone, doesn't mean that
> it don't have an affect on everyone.
You can say that about nearly everything.
With that, I will bow out of this discussion. You can have the last word
if you wish.
> a cost, it is irrelevant.
>>It is rendered useless. For all practical purposes, it is destroyed.
> When money it is going back to the energy supplier, it is being lost from
> the system. Destroyed as far as you and me are concerned.