Wall Street Protests

[Undertoad]

Different kind of wealth sir; the wealth of a nation is measured in how it maximizes its workforce's output, and additional wealth is generated through innovation (tw is right all along about this), in which it creates more or new things while consuming fewer materials.

Whereas in 1979, listening to new music required me to drive to a merchant, purchase a layer of vinyl made out of oil, produced by large pressing plants and distributed by truck, right now a friend suggested a new band and listening to them required me to make a search and two clicks.

Whereas in 1979, the lung cancer survival* rate was ~15%, by 2007 it's ~30%. This is another measure of wealth.

Generating new wealth in the pizza game would be found in getting food to the people using less raw materials. Shifting the price around between dough and labor doesn't improve a nation's wealth. But if one created a 20% more efficient oven with the same cost, that would create wealth out of nothing.




*Cancer survival rate is a complicated thing to measure and so any single number given for it is probably an simplification, but you get my drift.