After seeing so many GF tests I decided to make my own.
As she rides home from university alone in the bus observe her behavior. If she endlessly chats on cell phone it means she is ready to throw money away, she does not care about it, she is unable to count her own money. She is not serious and she is a bad match.
Limitations: Impossible if she does not use mass transit.
Disclaimer: it is a joke, do not take it seriously.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Is there any wealth created by clicking ads?
Recently many economics bloggers, some of them have Ph.D, blamed new financial instruments for the crisis. Key claim of many of them is that fancy financial instruments do not create zero real economic value are not connected to labor productivity. Something that gives one money without useful work done is potentially evil. I'm not going to argue with them, I will explain how intangible banner clicks generate wealth.
Billy and Jimmy create state-of-the-art decorative fences from beer cans. Give them soldering iron and a ton of recyclable aluminum and they will create real masterpieces. They are very proud dudes, so proud that they refuse to work with Coca-Cola cans, only beer cans, please, Czech bear preferred. Also they are not very successful at selling their product, so they only work 3 hours a day.
Alice browsed a web site and saw a Google ad (under Firefox with AdBlock extension she wouldn't see it). She clicked the banner to read about decorative fences. After reading the relevant information she decided to order some for her garden. For the next three week Billy and Jimmy work full time and overtime thus reducing unemployment and creating real product to be consumed.
This way a single click that increased employment, GDP, consumption and everything else.
But wait! Alice could spend the money differently, she could spend it on aesthetic wallpapers from synthetic waffles that would require even more work-hours without wasting precious aluminum. She could donate it to kids starving from cancer. She could save the money for later use.
One more thing to note. Bob and Rob also clicked the link, but they did not need anything that Jimmy and Billy could offer. Their clicks that cost real money to Jimmy without creating actual wealth, they are potentially evil.
Back to our topic. Was there any wealth created by clicks? We will never know. Economics is about making theories based on wrong assumptions. Assumptions that are known to be wrong from the beginning. You can define wealth in one way and discover five alternative ways and no definition is better, in general case, than the other.
Billy and Jimmy create state-of-the-art decorative fences from beer cans. Give them soldering iron and a ton of recyclable aluminum and they will create real masterpieces. They are very proud dudes, so proud that they refuse to work with Coca-Cola cans, only beer cans, please, Czech bear preferred. Also they are not very successful at selling their product, so they only work 3 hours a day.
Alice browsed a web site and saw a Google ad (under Firefox with AdBlock extension she wouldn't see it). She clicked the banner to read about decorative fences. After reading the relevant information she decided to order some for her garden. For the next three week Billy and Jimmy work full time and overtime thus reducing unemployment and creating real product to be consumed.
This way a single click that increased employment, GDP, consumption and everything else.
But wait! Alice could spend the money differently, she could spend it on aesthetic wallpapers from synthetic waffles that would require even more work-hours without wasting precious aluminum. She could donate it to kids starving from cancer. She could save the money for later use.
One more thing to note. Bob and Rob also clicked the link, but they did not need anything that Jimmy and Billy could offer. Their clicks that cost real money to Jimmy without creating actual wealth, they are potentially evil.
Back to our topic. Was there any wealth created by clicks? We will never know. Economics is about making theories based on wrong assumptions. Assumptions that are known to be wrong from the beginning. You can define wealth in one way and discover five alternative ways and no definition is better, in general case, than the other.
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