(Photo from Isilme)
On this very site, under the previous post, Dearieme and I had this exchange:
The simplicity of DM’s economics is tied into a verbal agreement in which someone’s winter survival, had it been during the Irish blight or potato famine, might have devastated the Dearieme family, perhaps causing them to up sticks and head for the antipodes.
Sadly, were they to do this now, they’d find those countries also blighted, infrastructure crumbling, neglectful loons equally in charge as is the case here … and so on.
At the moment I saw DM’s comment, I had been reading this on “opportunity cost”:
The opportunity cost doctrine was first explicitly formulated by the Austrian economist Friedrich von Wieser in the late 19th century.[65] Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of the next best alternative foregone (that is not chosen). It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices.[66]Although a more ephemeral scarcity, expectations of the future must also be considered. Quantified as time preference, opportunity cost must also be valued with respect to one’s preference for present versus future investments.[67]
Opportunity cost is a key concept in mainstream economics and has been described as expressing "the basic relationship between scarcity and choice".[68]The notion of opportunity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that resources are used efficiently.[69]
That article, backing up the steam train of thought which was seemingly headed for a precipice called “Friday obligations” in the new dawn, was part of a Wiki article on Austrian School economics and the bit which hit home to me was:
It is the sacrifice related to the second best choice available to someone, or group, who has picked among several mutually exclusive choices.
I’m facing that right now with the new site tomorrow morning, which cannot become reality, despite last evening’s lack of blogging and concentration, along with the hard work of the technical whiz here beside me, unless I ditch some viable opportunities in favour of what seems best at the moment, along with some “no other choice” choices, e.g. certain routes could not be taken … desirable routes … because bstds out there had constructed barriers to prevent those choices.
Utility, getting around obstacles, loss from one of the choices … trusting the chap to come in and water the tatties … caused us to have to accept less desirable choices which, as he/we discovered, led to other multiple opportunities.
But I stray from the purpose of this post … backing back up that track, seeing the precipice ahead. Backtrack with me a moment. Why was I looking at Austrian economics?
Because I had been looking at Lew Rockwell. Why? Because Murray Rothbard had come into it, plus Hayek, plus libertarianism and individualism … but that steam train had chuffed off in the first place because of an article on Net Han the Yahoo. Do you see me backing this train back up the track, through the rail points which had diverted me in the first place?
And before looking at that article, which had been on Gab by the way … an aside about just how many names were Jewish sounding across all the articles I’d been reading.
And why had I taken the supposedly lesser choice of Wiki, in preference to long, learned, intellectual articles?
Two reasons … one being:
Quantified as time preference, opportunity cost must also be valued with respect to one’s preference for present versus future investments.
Time is a scarce resource for me, far more scarce at this point than money, given my reduced needs … but that only holds true due to all elements in the equation remaining roughly in the same relationship to each other.
And slap bang in the middle of this mindset of mine, almost like an unwanted, gatecrashing guest in the minds of the other guests, comes moral choice and inevitably, if going that route … Christianity versus utilitarianisn.
The second reason is rejection of Lew Rockwell’s author’s premise that it was fine to devastate Gaza, as long as the hostages were “brought home”.
But we must back up even further … why did Net Han the Yahoo get to devastate it in the first place? Because he switched off the Iron Dome in order to allow the CIA funded and supplied Hamas, just as with Isis before them, unfettered access to fly in and slaughter … they love slaughter, these people, which brings in satan, which brings in God, which brings in the events sround the year 30 of this era again.
Does this justify the pro Hamas false victimhood of Gaza and so called “Palestinians” no other Arab nation wants anywhere near them?
Answer … because the scenarios, as presented, are false … it is nothing like what those marching fooled were projecting onto Big Ben or Westminster or whatever it was. The whole shebang is false.
Which is why we had to bring to a creaking halt this runaway train before it hurtled over thst crumbling precipice.
Are there any good players in this thing? No.