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Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 21:51:51 -0400 (EDT)
To: James W Mickens <jmickens &AElig eecs.umich.edu>
cc: cameron wicklow <ckwicklow &AElig sbcglobal.net>, improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: mind the gap

Yes yes, I said early on that we have to tax externalities.  Very 
important; totally with you on this.  Everyone should pay any costs they 
impose on society and things like pollution and congestion taxes are the 
right way to do that.

The factory worker example doesn't make sense to me though.  The factory 
owner pays the worker the market price for the labor/expertise they are 
contributing.  No problem there.

--- \/   FROM James W Mickens AT 07.09.09 21:45 (Today)   \/ ---

>> Generating wealth (producing a good or service) does not hurt any one. If 
>> the new product or service is produced more efficiently or is more 
>> desirable than the other products on the market, it may change the 
>> conditions that other people had been previously exploiting to create 
>> wealth.  But, it does not negatively impact another person's current 
>> wealth.
>
> This isn't true. For example, wealth-generating factories may create 
> pollutants. These pollutants can negatively impact my environmental wealth, 
> e.g., if I own a fishery that is downstream of your dumping pipe. My ability 
> to grow fish, i.e., my ability to generate wealth, is hurt by your ability to 
> make wealth. As another example, generating wealth for shareholders may be 
> inversely related to generating wealth for the actual workers in the company. 
> If the company produces a more efficient service because my wages have been 
> slashed, but this newfound efficiency increases the wealth of the 
> stockholders, then I've lost wealth as a result of others gaining it.
>
> ~j
>

-- 
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"

    There are three kinds of men:
    The one that learns by reading.  The few who learn by
    observation.  The rest of them have to pee on the
    electric fence for themselves.