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Up Topic Chit-Chat & Non-Welding Discussion / Off-Topic Bar and Grill / How Much Are You Worth?
- - By sbcmweb (****) Date 07-11-2008 03:03
This was somewhat disturbing. I guess everything has a price, even a God given life.......... S.W.

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20080710/Value.of.Life/
Parent - - By ctacker (****) Date 07-11-2008 03:11
they must take a mil off for the cost of fuel to drive you to and cook you in the oven when your toasted!
Parent - - By sbcmweb (****) Date 07-11-2008 03:20
Yeah. Real sad. I suppose they even have a rate for kids & pregnant moms too. It makes me sick. Wouldn't you figure one life is worth saving if you know you're doing something that is potentially harmful to the individuals to be effected? The rich & shameless living in the protective bubble of wealth & prominence don't seem to think so. Apathy is the ticket for those folks. They don't have to look out their window & see it firsthand, so it doesn't exist to them.

Sad. :-( S.W.
Parent - - By DaveBoyer (*****) Date 07-11-2008 03:43
How does it make You feel now that You know Your life is worth less to the DOT than to the EPA?
Parent - - By Jenn (***) Date 07-11-2008 12:04
Honestly, I'm surprised the value was that high. Unless we aren't one of those "commoners". Does it go up then, when your net worth is higher?? ;)
Parent - By sbcmweb (****) Date 07-11-2008 12:49
I was too. I didn't figure on quite that much either. I suppose they got a calculation for the richies too. S.W.
Parent - By sbcmweb (****) Date 07-11-2008 13:54
I frankly didn't feel I was worth a whole lot to them to begin with. :-) S.W.
Parent - - By OBEWAN (***) Date 07-11-2008 13:42
Someone has way too much time on their hands.  I am sure the argument is huge too.  Remember the stats argument about coated electrodes and disease?  I know I won't bring in $6M in my lifetime, but it might COST that much if I get sick in old age and end up living in a nursing home.  On the subject of wealth, how can it be "created" anyway if it does not already exist?  That is something I never understood.  There are x people with x amount in dollars/gold.  More and more x people are born, requiring more and more x dollars/gold.  If it did not already exist in the accounting system, how can it be created from nothing without printing money?
Parent - By sbcmweb (****) Date 07-11-2008 13:52
AMEN to that!!! S.W.
Parent - - By Metarinka (****) Date 07-11-2008 15:05
ahh I knew my economy class would come in handy! First of all money is no longer backed by gold. Think of money as a unit of energy. for commodities like wood, metal, grain etc  $1 of iron would take the same amount of "people energy" to collect and get to market as $1 of grain. This analogy doesn't work perfectly but essentially $1 is a unit of value that we all agree means the same thing instead of bartering, it's then up to the market and inviduals to determine how much metal is worth and that will determine how much you get for your $1, right now we are realizing metal is scarcer and demand is up so it's worth more and you get a lot less for your $1
Modern money is not backed by anything but good faith and our economy. However all over the world the value of the dollar is recognized as standard unit of value as backed by our economy. 100 years ago there was the so called Gold standard where everything was backed by gold, however we have a lot more money now than available gold in the planet. If our economy takes a dive (as it has been) the price of the dollar goes down as our economy is not producing as much to back up it's worth.

in terms of creating wealth, most currency is now just 1 and 0's in bank computers anyways. If someone is born and does some work, say collecting ore to make metal than essentially they are "creating" wealth. Same way if some Hip young artist throws feces on a canvas and sells it fo $1million they "created" wealth by collecting cheaper elements and added value because the market dictated that his work input was worth $1 million.

value is created when an object is agreed to be worth so many standard units of work. A Desert is pretty useless until you realize there's oil under there, then everyone recognizes the value of the land is much much higher.

all tolled the world wealth is equal to the sum of the work output of everysingle person plus commodities, minus depreciation. give or take a few trillion. If all of the sudden we figure out mud cures cancer, then you can be certain the value of mud will rise and those with lots of it will have new found wealth.
Parent - - By OBEWAN (***) Date 07-11-2008 15:15
I realize the gold standard is gone, but we still have the same conundrum with paper money.  If we had 1 trillion total paper dollars in year X, how can the economy grow to 10 trillion total paper dollars in year y without printing money that did not previously exist?  Even if work is done to increase material wealth, the paper dollars that previously existed need to pay for that work.  We cannot just print more money because work has been done and say that we have increased wealth.  I don't see how the US will ever pay off a $10 trillion debt without printing money, which will ruin the economy.
Parent - - By Metarinka (****) Date 07-11-2008 16:29
we print more money specifically because we are creating more value if you have 10 bucks in your economy and one guy working making $1 a year and you add a second guy he'll "create" an extra $1. That scales up to when companies create new technologies, and commodity goods etc. Inflation also plays into this however a stable inflation rate of around 1% is a good thing.

the real creators of wealth is the international banking system. when you deposit money only about 10% is actually kept as "cash" or liquid assets so that you can grab a 20 from an ATM the vast majority is invested all over the world in all sorts of things. Now if that investment makes a profit the bank just created money from nothing, and you get a cut of that profit in the form of interest. Which is the same way a loan works. If you get a 10K loan and pay back 12K over the life of the loan 2K was just created. The money came from however you paid it back, but there are now 2,000 more dollars in the economy.

the national debt is a huge problem and will probably be the focal point of some war, great depression or other major catastrophy sometime in the future.  Basically foreign nations treat the USA as an investment like any other company, we are a strong performer and have a huge Gross national product. So they invest money by buying dollars, loans etc etc, and then they hope they get a return on investment when the dollar goes up in value (because we are creating more output) or when we pay back the loan for more than it was worth (by using the fund we get from our output). The problem right now is the national debt is huge.

this works dandy as long as our economy keeps pumping out more year after year, if we saw a major downturn say to natural disaster (katrina) or war or whatever then effectively most of the world is screwed us especially because then we become the worlds largest foreclosed home owner with a debt we have no way of paying. the scary thing is that the american economy hasn't show a good Return on investment. In fact the short term Cd's and bonds have a return of about +3% barely outpacing inflation, yet so many nations continue to invest in america as we are a stable country with a stable economy.  This is why the 9/11 attacks where on the world trade center, they were trying to strike the pocket books of america and hit our financial centers.

you could go on and on this subject, basically a loan or investment is a bet that future earnings will go up. saying I think you'll be making more, or worth more in the future so I'll give you money now. This is where the vast majority of increased money comes from, its all paperless and done on a very convoluted international market. The total world debt is so large though, basically we are paying ourselves now saying that in the future we'll be doing more work, which is fine as long as we do more work.

and that is where money comes from. The vast majority of new wealth is created through the return on investments
Parent - - By sbcmweb (****) Date 07-11-2008 19:33
Now, I'm really dizzy! :-) S.W.
Parent - - By Metarinka (****) Date 07-11-2008 22:32
me too, I'm glad I had an econ class (also dated an economist...) made sense of a lot of issues including where value and wealth come from, people always complain about taxes here in the united states but we have the lowest tax burden of any 1st world country. That is to say the average american pays less taxes than a citizen of any other 1st world country.
interestingly enough studies have shown people complain about taxes no matter what level they are set at.
Parent - By sbcmweb (****) Date 07-11-2008 23:02
Yes, that's a fact. France has a huge tax on earnings. They do have socialized health care, but they still pay more in taxes. Europeans pay about almost twice the amount we do for a gallon of gas. We can't really complain. :-)
Parent - By Wrench Tech (**) Date 07-13-2008 04:28
Metarinka.  Good posts.  I haven't thought about it much but you make pretty good sense.  T
Parent - - By CWI555 (*****) Date 07-14-2008 13:24
paper money is near worthless, but not all paper money is totally devoid of backing in the world. However; it will be as you say eventually for the reasons youv'e stated.

In my opinion, it's not just the material objects that give value. One of the strongest values of America is in it's knowledge base. As long as the know how is there, the value of America cannot ever truely go away. Unfortunetly for a variety of reasons, that knowledge base is slowly but surely deterioration.
There were many societies throughout history who's knowledge base simply vanished for lack of interest, apathy, and other reasons.
Consider the current issues with welding. The art and craft of welding is slowly but surely going away because our youth have been trained to push a button for a living. The skilled craftsmen/craftswomen available today, are considerably less than what was 30 years ago, and nearly gone when compared to post ww2 era.
It is nearly to far gone to return. commercial ads, products, and media entertainment are primarily targeted to white collar work. Think about this as you watch the TV tonight. The icon of success is portrayed as a guy at the airport with a three piece business suit or a bunch of office types standing around a food bar or coffee machine. How many welders and craftspersons do you see running around in three piece business suits? A 6010 rod would make short work of tha suit, as well as crawling under, over, and around the pipe, tank, or structure they are welding up.
When a society forgets how to build itself, that society fades into obscurity, dies outright, or is taken over by a hostile hungry society. That is historical precedence carried out around the world for thousands of years.
These wall street types are slowly but surely killing the American society, and themselves by focusing on the what have you done for me lately mentality, rather than what have I done for you.

My opinion for what it's worth,
Gerald
Parent - By Metarinka (****) Date 07-14-2008 15:15
yah I forgot to mention that non material goods the so called "intellectual property" ideas patents, knowledge and skills are probably worth more than raw assets, but much harder to measure. For example Japan a tiny island with few natural resources, has a highly trained and skilled workforce. Likewise america's strength lies in our research institutions and universities where many new products and concepts are developed.

I would disagree with welding going away, I'm part of the generation coming up I'm 21 right now and I got into welding when I was 17 through art classes. For the last 20 years or so guidance counselours and teachers pushed students away from trades and blue collar work, into academic degrees. Rightly so with the collapse of the value of unskilled factory work and the inability to compete with China to create low cost consumer goods. Now more than ever people are going to college and getting a degree or certificate which is a good thing overall. However neglecting the trades for the last 20 years means theres a dire shortage of skilled blue collar work such as welders, plumbers, electricians etc etc. I think  given time and market forces people will realize that trades can be satisfying work with good pay, not everyone is suited for desk work and skilled blue collar work often offers higher wages than white collar work.  I just had a bunch of my friends graduate from top colleges with high GPA's and honours, however currently the market is saturated with things like biology, antrhopology and other soft science degrees the only course for them is to continue to grad school which most are doing or getting jobs outside their field. Many schools are clueing into this and beginning to offer more "blue collar" trade programs and 4 year degrees, especially when welding engineering schools boast near 100% placement for graduates with salary among the top of engineering degrees. for years people have been convinced as you said that all trades are dirty work and that blue collar work involves sitting in a factory hitting a button until you get ruthlessly laid off with no where to go.  What people don't realize is that the plumber that fixes their pipes is making 60-70 /hr top welders make over 100,000 and other blue collar trades are equally as profitable.

I think the trades in America will bounce back when people realize someone still has to build our infastructure, you can't outsource on site construction. Nursing is in the same dire straights, everyone wants to be a doctor...
Parent - - By brightblue (**) Date 07-11-2008 15:25
On a bad day, I'm worth -$2.50

On a good, I'm worth a bazillionmillion <---future math
Parent - By snuffman (***) Date 07-12-2008 03:38 Edited 07-12-2008 03:40
I'm worth however much I put on the bottom of the invoice, and it goes up if they piss and moan or b**ch. :-) lol
Up Topic Chit-Chat & Non-Welding Discussion / Off-Topic Bar and Grill / How Much Are You Worth?

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