[ExI] undercover at Walmart

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/2/23 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:
>
>>> In theory a nation of
>>> complete slackers could have a high per capita PPP GDP and hence a
>>> high implied productivity, as long as the exporters are happy to take
>>> the money they print.
>>
>> ### In whose theory? Most people, including the Chinese, are not
>> sufficiently stupid to take worthless paper from slackers, therefore
>> in theory and in practice if somebody takes somebody else's money it's
>> because both have something useful for each other to trade.
>
> That's right, but all the trading partners have to do is believe that
> they will ultimately get something useful for their IOU's. If they
> believe that then the slackers can claim to be very productive. They
> would say that they do idleness (or substitute something else, like
> belly-button fluff removal) better than everyone else, and therefore
> there would be an opportunity cost if they engaged in more pedestrian
> work like their neighbours. This would be fine until the trading
> partners got nervous about their accumulating reserves of the
> slackers' currency and decided to demand real assets, such as property
> or gold, for the IOU's. In that case it becomes clear that although
> the slackers thought they were buying stuff with income, they were in
> fact spending their capital.

### Stat, do you really believe what you wrote? That the 4 billion
people who are involved in global trade would willingly subsidize the
equivalent of belly-button fluff removal over the period of many
decades in the hope of getting back some gold?

Rafal



>
>
>
> --
> Stathis Papaioannou
>



-- 
Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD
Chief Clinical Officer,
Gencia Corporation
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