The Most Persistent Economic Fallacy of All Time!

Sorry, i got tired "He can sell the machinery to the owner of the mine". Which will mean the miner will be replaced; the miner can become an operator though and the owner can better compete. What you're buying is the equivalent of the forger's labor in your example. The problem is; when money is inflated; there is an overdemand; then a bust. The owner can overextend; then once money's value resets the demand drops. Every owner that received this money suffers extreme losses.

Look at it this way, when you produce, you're selling your LABOR, to create something. A miner is hired to mine resource. A forger can use this resource that he purchases (covering the miner and resource costs) to create something of value, let's say , machinery. He then sells the machinery at the price he paid, and an extra for his labour. He can sell the machinery to replace the owner of the mine; to raise efficiency to allow a lower price. It's a continous price lowering cycle.

I have a question for all you people.

Wouldn't spending also be production?

For example, if i spend money by hiring a cable guy to make a new cable, isn't that also producing an additional cable?

No. If spending were production then you would have one generated by spending and one by the actual production of the man hired (double counting).

Every case of spending is purchasing the production of someone else - not the production itself.

Um, let's see: real wages and per-capita energy consumption in the West have been stagnant for over a generation. We're fighting resource wars and facing economic collapse. The economies that are growing right now are horribly overpopulated and engaged in widespread environmental destruction. So-called "free market" capitalism over the last thirty years has rewarded stagnation and environmental destruction and the creation of a huge underclass of people completely dependent on the state.

Okay one more: the implications of the real wage statement are completely false. Wages have flattened becasue workers have demanded more in benefits. Total compensation in real terms has never fallen in over 40 years and living standards (before this latest crisis) have continued to rise. We face no economic collapse (beyond that created by govt) and neither massive overpopulation or environmental destruction are waiting in the wings.

You are merely a tin foil hat alarmist.

Couldn;t let this pass either. Capitalism has done more to bring people out of grinding poverty than any force in all of human history. It is the welfare state (exactly the opposite of capitalism) that has created an entrenched underclass and, still, the US has embraced capitalism sufficiently that we have the wealthiest poor in the world - comparable to Europe's middle class in many ways.

Your view is based on nothing but fallacies.

Ta ta...

Human beings have historically died and fought and killed each other off whenever scarcity has become a problem. Alternative resources are frequently worse, and leave future generations worse off. Existing capital must frequently be destroyed or cannibalized to make way for new means of production. More negative externalities completely ignored by economic theory.

Certainly human beings have fought over resources in the past - that alters nothing that I've said. That alternative resources are frequently worse is a value judgment on your part completely at odds with the judgment of virtually everyone else on the planet. That capital is converted from one form to another is not problematic. The most common means of capital creation is to convert resources to something with more use value via the application of labor - a point you can't grasp.

Sigh. Got better things to do. I've tried to get you to realize the fallacious nature of your position but faith is a tough nut to crack. You can continue to maintain that the elimination of some resources creates externalities and that we're in some kind of resource death spiral diminishing each future generation, but since that is so at odds with reality all you'll accomplish is having those coming across your statements view you as nothing but a fool...

...and rightly so.

Goodnight.