you'll still end up exploiting the manual labor, because when it comes down to it, all production is manual w/ a few exceptions. not that innovators aren't needed, but it doesn't include the majority.
that's my complaint about Obama's hands never seeing work. he'll have little appreciation for the body-breaking work of the little guy. and the work must always be done, machines can't do everything as cheaply as the poorest persons on earth. There is a certain arrogance to those that never get dirty and only use their minds and their money.

is a matter of whether you pay people for what they do.

Right now, we are not.

Sorry, makes no sense to me. Knowledge does not mean much unless it can be applied to the physical universe in which we mortals must exist. That usually involves some physical process of extraction, refining, fabricating, or manufacturing.

So, I'm wondering, in your piece on micro-, macro-, meso-, and mega-economics, is econometrics akin to the measurement of the physical economy?

People don't get happy because protons are moved, they get happy because of inner states. Real power is the ability to make people happy on less, not more, movement of energy.

Natural systems minimize, not maximize, energy flow.

work smarter, not harder? yeah, I learned that when I started working. but still manual work is required, and barely rewarded, if you're not an owner. I'm thinking Worker's Internationale. you'd think we'd be able to find a better balance by now, instead of how many poor people can we keep poor and steal from. ya-hoo, communism's dead. same as it ever was.
maybe there's some sort of constant, like the speed of light, or horsepower. say 3 hrs of manpower feeds 1 person for a week, instead of this money thing that determines the value of labor.
There's gotta be another way, but it's above my paygrade to figure out. so go at it, knowledge worker!
(and no, that's not snark. I'd be willing to contribute to a stipend for you. I may be making $4/hr right now, but I'm blessed w/ a lot of hours)

Or quaaludes, or whatever settles inner states. But if everybody is starving, it makes no difference if you can keep them happy. Humanity ends.

My critique of economics has always been that its practitioners have forgotten that an economy is how a society organizes itself to procure, produce, and distribute the material and immaterial goods and services required to sustain and reproduce human life. There are x number of people on the planet, each requires y number of calories and z liters of water each day. If you can't produce and distribute xy calories and xz liters of water, something is way wrong somewhere, and needs to be fixed. It may be just a problem of political economy, but it requires human intervention before it becomes so large a problem that the whole planet reverts to a truly natural state.

"Natural systems minimize, not maximize, energy flow." Perhaps. But an economy is not a natural system, because an economy is the result of human actions. And I know you know, because you've written some brilliant articles on the transition from wind to steam to internal combustion, that human history has been that of increasing energy flow. Though I think the better concept might be the history of increasing human mastery of the spectrum of energy, from diffuse wood fires, to chemical explosions, to concentrated lasers.

It really needs several separate diaries to discuss the issues involved. This is foundational and without addressing it, the debate is being carried out at cross-purposes.

Here's an interesting article on the major US camps. Background on "fresh water" and "salt water" macroeconomics

Here's another view altogether. PROUT

George Soros has been pushing this for some time through his foundation, the Open Society Foundation. He agrees with Hayek and Friedman that economics is fundamental to the open society in which we would like to live, rather than in the closed society he left in his youth. However, he completely disagrees with their economic presumptions, which he thinks are flat out wrong in presuming rationality, for instance. Well, we just had an experiment to test that — to paraphrase Alan Greenspan, "I never suspected that supposedly sophisticated market participants would turn out to be irrational and blow up the system."

It's called pitchforks and torches. Just insert shotgun for pitchfork and molotovs for torches for the 21st century. The best part is they already know how to do this, don't need a single class in economics.
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"The other observation I had was that, wouldn't it be the world turned upside-down when we become a nation of homeless people, pressing our noses to the windows of our old, now-empty, bank-owned houses? Wouldn't it be funny that we and our children would be paying taxes to prop up the banks that now own those houses? Wouldn't it be great to be in a state of permanent national tax-debt peonage so that the public-owned banks could retain the financial geniuses who created this mess? And pay them big bonuses for losing Trillions of dollars? And lobby congress with our own money to give them more money?
Man, that's like heads-I-win, tails-you-lose. We're in the wrong business!"

Things are starting to freeze down politically, as people want to vote right, but protest left.

"I'm cash flow positive. Are you?"

Here's a guy who is trying to lure Canadians into buying U.S. property. I don't know how legit he is.
Attention Canadian Real Estate Investors…

INTRODUCING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN CANADA!!

“HOW TO BUY
U.S. FORECLOSURES
FOR AS LITTLE AS $46,500 THAT
CASHFLOW $650-850 PER MONTH”

From: Aiden Win
Written: Friday, January 30, 2009

Dear Aspiring Real Estate Investor in Toronto,

If you didn't know, the entire United States is on sale!

Here are some US Foreclosure statistics for you...
More

Here's a less sensational approach.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

Make offers only on properties that need work. There are usually competitive bids on clean properties or the bank just holds on, knowing that the property will eventually sell. However, properties that need work are not easily marketable and banks know this. They are open to pretty low ball offers, since properties needing work deteriorate and become less valuable.

Of course, to work this you have to know something about construction, or get someone who does, so as to be able to estimate how much more needs to go into the deal.

The problem is that it’s the rednecks who are armed to the teeth.

eom