I like your section on GROW, USE, WASTE. For the past couple of years, I've held to the notion that there are two types of people in this world: Builders and Destroyers. I try to be the former. I do not like the latter, and hate it when people I love do destructive things.
I think your 3-level system is better, because I think my problem is that I go around using a lot, but need to grow more and waste less. I guess I view destroying more as actively wasting resources instead of passively wasting resources. And I like the a person is going to be doing some of all of them.
It's kind of a tangent to your whole point. I did like your whole point.
It's funny: I had a little hitch when I started the Grow, Use, Waste section where a part of my brain said "what about destroy?" And I ignored it for some fuzzy reasons having to do with simplicity and a feeling that Waste sorta already covered it.
As a fellow consumer with little knowledge of economic theory, I probably have very little to add or contend here. However, I will say that my limited experience with macroeconomics was while employed at a Fortune 500 company that only cared about maximizing the amount of money taken from customers over an increasingly shorter period of time. In terms of profit, that made sense to me.
However, when I hear on the news how the GDP or unemployment rates are faring (these are macroecon stats, right?), I find myself not caring. Perhaps the bigger issue is that people are generally not well informed about how things work, and they like hearing the news tell them what they need to care about so they don't have to think.
So, to sum up - eat your Brussel Sprouts, and stop trying to make me think.
It's interesting you mention a Fortune-500 company. My direct experience and second-hand observations of large companies is that the structure creates some incentives for WASTE behavior on the part of their employees.
One might argue that large companies can afford that some increased WASTE behavior because they magnify the effectiveness of their employee's more productive behaviors, so it's a net win on balance. Economies of scale and such.
One might also argue that large companies are indeed less efficient and yet survive because they can engage in behavior that is WASTEful on net, but benefits the company at the expense of others. Lobbying for government contracts or predatory business practices.
I strongly suspect there is some truth to both those arguments.
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I think your 3-level system is better, because I think my problem is that I go around using a lot, but need to grow more and waste less. I guess I view destroying more as actively wasting resources instead of passively wasting resources. And I like the a person is going to be doing some of all of them.
It's kind of a tangent to your whole point. I did like your whole point.
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I like your "actively waste" label.
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However, when I hear on the news how the GDP or unemployment rates are faring (these are macroecon stats, right?), I find myself not caring. Perhaps the bigger issue is that people are generally not well informed about how things work, and they like hearing the news tell them what they need to care about so they don't have to think.
So, to sum up - eat your Brussel Sprouts, and stop trying to make me think.
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One might argue that large companies can afford that some increased WASTE behavior because they magnify the effectiveness of their employee's more productive behaviors, so it's a net win on balance. Economies of scale and such.
One might also argue that large companies are indeed less efficient and yet survive because they can engage in behavior that is WASTEful on net, but benefits the company at the expense of others. Lobbying for government contracts or predatory business practices.
I strongly suspect there is some truth to both those arguments.
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