Will we change in time? I don’t know. But I do know we need to change our national accounting and tax systems to make this possible. In the process, we need to reject thinking based on the idea that time does not matter, which is implicit in almost all modern economics
This from the man who insists that nothing should ever be discounted in order to include the miportance of time…..that is, discounting is how we actually do acknowledge the importance of time.
The concept of the time value of money is so old, it appears in the Talmud* from as early as 500 AD. But maybe Professor Ritchie is still learning about how demand curves work.
*As I’ve said all along, stereotypes save time.
I do sometimes wonder if the whole thing is a deliberate wind-up? Contradictions we’re (mostly) all capable of, but this almost predictable regularity (today’s Tuesday, I’ll wear the pink hat) is something altogether quite different/surreal.
Reject discounting and at the same time declare that OTHER PEOPLE don’t care about the time value of money… lunacy.
My grasp of economics is shaky but Murphy’s ignorance is so obvious, even to me, that I despair at the fact that he gets any credence whatsoever from anywhere.
Someone call National Health… Spud needs a medication adjustment.
In most cases, there are three explanations for why that is happening. The first, of course, is a lack of spending on the necessary investment.
But to move beyond the obvious, the bigger reason for why that has not been noticed to date is that the government fails dismally to account for its actions on a proper basis by producing regular income statements and balance sheets that are reconciled by a cash flow statement. As a result, it has no perception. of the scale of underinvestment that austerity has created. It has simply pretended that this is not an issue.
Third, a system of national accounting that emphasises only debt without matching it with asset creation creates a fixation on all the wrong measures of economic performance, the consequences of which are coming home to roost now.
Within the context of governmental accounting and reporting, this literally makes no sense. Actually, within the context of accounting and financial reporting, this makes absolutely no sense. None.