Re: what's wrong with eastern germans?

royls_at_telus.net
Date: 08/18/04 

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 07:42:01 GMT

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 20:45:08 GMT, Grinch <oldnasty@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>On Fri, 13 Aug 2004 15:44:40 +0000 (UTC), "Darren Rhodes"
><darren.rhodes5@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>
>><royls@telus.net> wrote in message news:411bb954.2106712@news.telus.net...
>>> On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 15:05:55 +0000 (UTC), "Darren Rhodes"
>>> <darren.rhodes5@btopenworld.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >"sinister" <sinister@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>>> >news:nVISc.9543$EQ5.441@nwrddc03.gnilink.net...
>>> >>
>>> >> To add to Roy's comments about land rent:
>>> >> Classical economists defined 3 factors of production: land (==> rent),
>>> >> labor (==> wages), capital (==> interest).
>
>Yes, and classical astronomers of the same period defined the solar
>system as having seven planets,

That is of course false.

>and classical physicists were big on
>the aether.

Ah. So, in your world, the falsity of any given false theory proves
that all theories of the same vintage are likewise false.

I wish I could congratulate you on setting a new Olympic record in
illogic, Grinch, but in all honesty I can't. This is pretty
pedestrian stuff, even for you. You need to work on exceeding your
personal "best."

>But 1840s definitions and analyses aren't a whole lot more convincing
>in economics than anywhere else, for all that some revere the
>"classics".

Some things are eternal. Like the dishonesty of lawyers.

>>> >Do you regard information as a factor of production? Darren.
>>>
>>> Information is considered ...
>
>I love the passive voice. By whom?

Those who are informed on the subject.

>By the authors of the scores of papers on the Fed's web site alone on
>"human capital" as a separate factor of production?

Care to specify one?

And "human capital" wouldn't happen to be, well, _labor_, would it?

>>> to contribute to production as part of labor
>>> and/or capital.
>
>>> It is also not scarce as the other production factors
>>> are: if it exists,
>
>What?? It's "not scarce" but it might not exist??

And now let's roll tape on Grinch, competing in the 3 metre strawman
event...

If it doesn't exist, how can it be a production factor?

>So we'd have to
>invest money and labor to create it?

If it doesn't exist, it's not a production factor. If it does, it's
not scarce, because it can be reproduced at arbitrarily low cost.

I realize you will never agree to know such facts, though.

>What an odd definition of "not scarce".

Just an economic one. Nothing you would ever be willing to know.

>>>it can be reproduced at arbitrarily low cost.
>
>Right, the information needed for an individual to have the skill set
>of an MIT-trained engineer, Harvard doctor, Wharton MBA (not to
>mention that of somebody who's actually picked up worthwhile
>information and skills from real-world experience) can be obtained by
>anybody at "arbitrarily low cost" in terms of investment in money,
>time and labor.
>
>Suuure they can... ;-)

Of course, you are now just surreptitiously appropriating the concept
of labor and renaming it "information."

>You could obtain all the information needed by a heart surgeon or
>Fortune 500 CFO, or to pass the bar exam, tomorrow if you wanted it,
>at "arbitrarily low cost".

Well, we know the bar exam is a pretty low hurdle (for reasons which
must be all too obvious at this moment), but I doubt the information
needed to be a heart surgeon or Fortune 500 CFO is readily available.

>Except for the damn copyright law!!! ;-)

Which you claim below has no effect....

>>If two entities attempt to produce something and one of the entities has
>>information as to the method of production while the other entity does not
>>have this information there will be a huge cost disparity of the otherwise
>>equivalent products. As the products become more sophisticated the cost
>>discrepancy can be such that without the necessary information it is not
>>possible to make the product (in this case information _is_ a factor of
>>production).
>
>Of course it is. And there are *shelves* of books and papers written
>on "organizational capital" -- the information and skills sets that
>must be developed through investments of money and labor to provide an
>organization with a structure providing a lasting level of
>productivity.

Labor and capital.

>As a productive factor apart from the "classical
>three." Post-1840s analysis.

<yawn> Communism was also post-1840s analysis....

>> As for the scarcity of information - doesn't copyright make
>>information _artificially_ scarce since it cannot _legally_ be reproduced at
>>arbitrarily low cost?
>
>No.

Ah. Grinch has denied it. No stronger proof of the previous
statement's truth could be offered.

>Copyright doesn't restirct use of information at all.

You are of course lying, as usual.

>Anyone can take the *information* found in a copyrighted work and do
>whatever one wants with it. You can *reproduce the information* any
>way you want

As long as you don't mind the occasional visit by a SWAT team...

>What one can't do is copy the other person's *presentation* of the
>information, then sell that copied presentation of it as your own, to
>the cost of the person who did.

That is of course also false, as successful copyright infringement
suits over independently written music prove. Copyright also
penalizes people for reproducing information _for_their_own_use_, no
selling of it involved.

Do you never tire of seeing your lies demolished this way, Grinch?

>On the list of onerous costs of doing business, that's about 10
>millionth.

You are lying filth. I happen to work in a business where monopoly
copyright privileges exert an increasing stranglehold, and your claims
are idiotic and laughable. Having to get and pay its "owners" for
permission to use publicly available information has become a huge
burden on production and a major financial cost.

>(And that's disregarding the fact that before effective copyright in
>the US and Britain, compiler/publishers of commercially useful
>information protected their investments in their publications by
>selling them to users under *contracts* which *did* prescribe how
>information could and could not be used, which terms were fully
>enforcable under contract law. Which system do you prefer as a user
>of information?)

I prefer the one system you can't stand: freedom.

-- Roy L

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