(Bill) "Is not resource supply determined by
discovery and
development?"
(Jim:-) I guess you could say
it's determined by both. Certainly there may be things that are
abundant, but are considered scarce because of our ability to develop them,
but scarcity itself is not determined by discovery and development. If
the resources are scarce, no amount of discovery or development will make them
abundant.
(Joe asks:-) But what
resources are scarce in respect to their being essential for
overall human survival? Isn't the only thing we're really short of
actually discovery and development? And need not discovery and
development mean only finding additional resources, i.e., new reserves
of oil, minerals, etc., (though we will certainly do that if we look for
them), but rather increasingly better ways to more efficiently utilize
what we already have? Or effectively substitute now unknown
or underutilized things in their place?
If we look back at the
great civilizations that have come before us, hasn't it been more often a
case of their losing the will to discover and develop that's caused their
stagnation or demise rather than some actual scarcity of resources?
I do like your propositions, and am
in general agreement with them. I do want to ask you about the last few
propositions:
"11] Saving is the process of acquiring
beneficial
ownership claims against capital, [12] which
generate
increasing income in the form of dividends or their
functional
equivalent, [13] as capital accumulates."
I agree with this proposition, but
is not the Social Credit thesis that ownership of capital essential so long as
we have the ability to diffuse the cost of capital as it
accumulates?
(Joe replies:-)
Shouldn't that read "....ownership of capital isn't essential...", or
am I way off the track in what I think you're getting
at?
Re: [socialcredit]
Reply to this message
