Econormics

Warning:  I'm completely out of the habit of writing. I haven't done it a while, and am not going to thoroughly edit this.  I dont want to be addicted to Brain Crack, so whenever I have an idea, im going to kick it out into the world no matter how much it sucks.  so, here goes.

 Econormics is a word I just made up, because I think it sounds better than Normative Economics.  Normative, or prescriptive economics is what tells us what we ought to do (usually with the oh so strong social More of what makes you more money).   This works out pretty well for businesses who are trying to figure out how much to charge for their sandwhiches or video games, or for enterpeneurs who are trying to decide where to invest their time and money, because there are magical mathematical formulas and functions and relations that will tell them exactly that and more based on the model they have of reality.

Sometimes however, people have economic questions that don't have anything to do with the desires of businesses or entrepeneurs, and less to do with functions or formulas.  They want to know if a human being deserves a certain minimal amount of money for their work (whatever it may be) and how much that ought to be.  They want to know if they ought to bail out the car company or the chocolate factory, and who should pay for it and how much should they pay?  Usually these questions are some form of the question "to what extent does the property of one man belong to his fellows?". 

These are difficult questions to answer becuase they don't correspond to a social more as simple as "maximize profit".  We don't have models of reality that will tell us anything useful because no one agrees what model we ought to use or exactly what it looks like. 

I have pretty strong opinions on this sort of subject, and I can point at my reasons and say "Look" and hope that people look and see and perhaps agree.  This sort of thing doesn't usually work very well.  Macroeconomics is complicated enough that it's quite nearly impossible for cause and effect to be directly linked like we might want.  For example, it is a matter of debate whether America has succeeded economically up to this point because we have so much freedom and in spite of socialistic aspects, or if it is instead because of our socialistic safeguards and in spite of our freedom. 

Microeconomics is simpler.  As you shrink the scale, it becomes increasingly clear what causes had what effects.  I'd like to talk a little bit about something we all have to deal with and so might all have questions about, and in the process, maybe give a start to an answer for larger inquiries.

When I have something I didn't earn, I don't love it.  I don't respect it, I dont care for it, and I don't assign it value in the same way I would If i had worked for it, bought and paid for it.  In fact, the greatest satisfaction I get from "Stuff" is just that I earned them.  It's quite nearly akin to the satisfaction I might have gotten from actually having created them.  I worked to earn money which was paid in a hundred different ways to allow the creation of the things i own, and there was no coercion or force in the entire matter. I believe this holds true for many other people, though certainly not all. And this is not to say that I do not love things I am given.

We've all been given things, by parents or friends or others, but we also know there are some people who have been given everything and more, and have not conceived of ever earning anything.  It's difficult for me to suggest that these different kinds of people will have the same answer to the question of how much of my brothers' belongings are mine by right.  This, I suppose is natural and alright.  However, what upsets me is when a person who does not earn or deserve condemns a person who does for loving the property they so rightly treasure. 

I'm really going to have to work on my writing