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Comment by jncfhnb | Hacker News Reader

I mean… yes. That is how this works. The problem with its implied understanding is that the economists don’t appear to have gained anything from the work they paid the other to do. GDP is generally a pretty decent stat because people tend to pay things to do things that provide them with some sort of value.

With notable exceptions for things like war.

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Right. Presumably in that scenario both economists thought it to be at least $100 worth of entertainment to watch the other eat shit, while both also thought $100 was enough compensation to eat it. Everyone is better off.

Just because you think you're better off doesn't mean you're better off though.

Why not? What we think is pretty much all that matters

Perhaps cumulatively, but in a particular moment? A infectious disease specialist may further raise GDP in this story, moments or years later.

> GDP is generally a pretty decent stat because people tend to pay things to do things that provide them with some sort of value.

Only if the net value is positive-sum.

Setting a city on fire, or giving cancer to a million people, or just going down the street, smashing every parked car's window with a tire iron will likely increase national GDP.

Liekwise, people pay a lot of money for net negative-sum industries - the health insurance industry in the US immediately springs to mind. We'd all be better off without that parasite.

We do have to assume that externalities are not so material as to render such stats misleading, yes.

I mean, we have to pay someone to guarantee coverage in the event of catastrophic losses. You might even call them insurance companies.

If only there was a way to have just one of those insurance companies, maybe run as a government agency of sorts... Wait, I got one of those where I live, it's called the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. It is not amazing but it easily clears the extremely low bar of being better than the US health insurance setup.

Over in Manitoba they've got one of those for car insurance too. Amazingly, people continue driving there just the same, the government insurance plan never needs subsidies and Manitobans pay way less for insurance. Almost as if the concept of the free market being the best solution for market X needs to be tested once in a while just to be sure, and results may be surprising.

It's possible for really motivated individuals to run a government department well, if you have people of excellent character, work ethic and competence doing so, but there's not a load of incentive for them to be run well outside of that unlikely combination.

Well, while we're on the topic of insinuations that totally don't give away underlying biases, it's possible for really ethical individuals to run a number of competing corporations well, though there's not a load of incentive for them to steer clear of regulatory capture, cartel-like collusion and various other forms of customer-screwing behaviour.

The larger point being: there are many areas of the economy in which the free market approach is clearly better, and there are many other areas of the economy in which the free market approach is clearly deficient and a government-run agency is superior. Insurance is in neither of these convenient buckets. "Unlikely" is an opinion on a hypothetical; it is not necessary when real-world examples abound.

Any market is shaped by policy. It can be argued that the US health insurance market is not really free in significant ways and set up such that the net result is the mess we see. A government-run institution performing better than the private market is not necessarily a sign that the institution is good, it might just mean that the market is set up in a deficient way.

I mean, last time I looked, social security in France gave back 81€ for every 100€ invested. Swisslife (it was either 2018 or 2019) gave back the same year 67€ for every 100€. What's funny is that only 11€ went to shareholders that year, that mean that even w/o capitalists, sometimes public services are more efficient than private companies.

As I said a few comments above, it's possible for things to be run efficiently; there's just less of an incentive to do so.

In terms of this exact comparison - is this like for like? I don't understand it well enough to know.

I'm not insinuating anything; I'm just saying it. What do you think I was insinuating?

Too bad Manitoba guillotined its public telecom. How's Bhell treating you these days?

The risk pooling isn't the problem, its not why the industry is an unproductive leech on our society. The insane amounts of waste and bureaucracy it produces, and the price inflation it facilitates is.

(Not to mention suboptimal health outcomes arising from the perverse incentives it creates.)

Net negative sum would by definition lower GDP.

GDP is a proxy for 'amount of work done that people were paid for'.

If I pay Fat Tony to break your legs, and then you pay a doctor to put them back together, this whole adventure increased GDP, but is a net-negative-sum activity.

"People have to do more work to accomplish the same amount of results" isn't a worthy goal in itself.

And me not working due to broken legs is somehow not relevant to the GDP? My capital being misallocated is not relevant to GDP? I think your example is quite likely to lower GDP...

> My capital being misallocated is not relevant to GDP?

It's not. If I steal a million dollars from you, the net impact on GDP is ~0. Hell, if you were keeping it in your mattress, and I spend it on drugs and parties, GDP will actually go up.

GDP is a useful number, but it's not the only useful number.

If you steal 1 million out of my payroll account, GDP might go down because I might close my shop, for example. It really is not so simple.

Could one carefully construct examples, sure, does that scale - not so much.

Unless you earn more than the 200k the doctor was paid plus the 50k Fat Tony rightfully earned, the GDP grew.

But wouldn’t that be true of any kind of performance art? What value is created by me paying to watch a musician/movie/baseball? Fundamentally seems the same as watching someone eat shit for my amusement.

Your enjoying of it. The economists in the story don’t acknowledge enjoying making the other eat shit.

It is valuable to society to do things that create joy.

Shit eating may not hold up specifically.

One of the advantages of money is that the enjoyment is implicit in the exchange, with no explicit acknowledgment necessary.

The enjoyment derived by the watcher must exceed that of having $100 and using that money in the future, or he wouldn’t have paid out. The disgust of the eater is more than compensated by the $100, or he wouldn’t accept that payment and do the job.

Both coprophages have thus derived utility from the exchange. From an economic standpoint, eating shit is just a form of working.

Is that not the implicit agreement of capitalism? If I trade X dollars for a thing, I got something I value for it. Joy, revenge, boredom, or just a lighter load in the wallet. Something must have been gained. By definition, it seems that both economists gained the experience they wanted of watching the other debase themselves.

Yes. And GDP is a rough measurement of how much value is being created, in dollars.

A at-home dad get paid nothing to take care of his children.

He takes a 50k job, pays à baby-sitter 20k (said babysitter couldn't find a service job that could pay him 50k, weirdly), and voilà, 70k GDP.

I’m not going to argue that GDP is a perfect metric, because it clearly is not. But I feel obliged to point out that 5/7 of the GDP created in your own scenario is a guy doing presumably valuable work, and 2/7 is the baby sitter doing previously unaccounted for work; which is also based on wages, perhaps more fit to their skills.

It would be great if we could measure work done without exchange of goods however that is generally not so large as to totally distort the general numbers. To no discredit of the work parents do.

> He takes a 50k job

so, he produces 50k value somewhere

Healthier gut biome, people pay for this stuff.

It’s supposed to go in the other end though. Stomach acid is unforgiving.

Just in case anyone ever needs to DIY a stool transplant, double encapsulation with inner gelatin and outer enteric coated capsules works. Do a colonoscopy prep the previous day and try to take repeat doses throughout several days and in between meals rather than all at once.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr.... """ The administration of fecal microbiota is thought to facilitate restoration of the gut flora to prevent further episodes of CDI.

The dosing regimen of Vowst is four capsules taken once a day, orally, for three consecutive days. """

That’s the pharmaceutical version. When going organic, you gotta make compromises.

(I’m kidding. Obviously we don’t put probiotic foods up our butt, even though I do find yoghurt works great as a lubricant)

To be pedantic, if you ate it fast enough in large chunks as economists do, the inner core might survive as the outer core dissolves at some rate (faster rate but thicker shell to compensate compared to the pharmaceuticals).

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