eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) (03/27/86)
> > I have not touched on this kind of a trade-off, because I don't see any > >real situation where we would have to make a choice between saving the > >shuttle orbiter *or* the crew. But, *if* this choice were necessary, it > >seems clear to save the orbiter. > > > > -- David desJardins > > Money is trash ( ask Reagan, or just look at his deficit spending ) we just > print it, if a shuttle is so valuable, we print x billion dollars and make > one. Memories and human relationships are not replaceable, the price of > 100 shuttles will never make what happened right with the children of those > astronauts. Can you imagine telling their husbands and wives that you really > wanted to save them, but it would have destroyed your expensive toy? > Money is a placeholder for human labor, which is the only thing which has original value. Human labor has value to the original owner (i.e. worker) because that person could use the time for fun things, or can trade the labor for useful and necessary things, i.e. food. Money was invented as an intermediate placeholder. This eliminates the search for barter partners. Instead of going to MacDonalds and offering to cook hambergers for a day in return for getting a few to eat at the end, you work at whatever you are efficient at (like writing software), get money, and then trade that for hamburgers. Now, with that preface, I can respond to your comment that we can just 'print it'. Dollars are a tradeable commodity. You buy hamburgers with dollars. MacDonalds buys money with hamburgers. In the Commodity Exchange in New York you can buy Japanese Yen with Dollars, and Dollars with Japanese Yen. Since we have a fiat currency (not exchangeable at the Treasury for a physical commodity like gold or silver), it is physically possible to print and coin as much as we want. But the only thing that maintains the value of Dollars in the market is their scarcity. If the supply is increased, it only stands to reason that its market value will drop. Now, what happens to you if you have dollars gotten in exchange for your writing software, and the value of the dollars decreases before you can buy your hamburgers? You can buy fewer hamburgers. On a national scale, if the federal government causes more dollars to exist, everyone other than the federal government can buy fewer things. The federal govermnent, though, can buy a Shuttle Orbiter. This is because the dollars the government caused to exist are indistinguishable from any other dollars, and while worth less, they still have some market value. The net effect is appropriation of some of the labor stored in dollars from everyone and putting it to the use of the government. In the limit of the goverment creating infinite dollars, ALL of the labor stored in them would be appropriated by the government. This is a bad thing. Hence I conclude that, while the government COULD print money to pay for a new Shuttle Orbiter, it shouldn't. My second response is to your apparent valuation of human lives at almost infinite value. You used the phrase "the price of 100 shuttles will never make what happened right with the children of those astronauts". Our society places a high but finite value on human lives and the collateral value of that life to other people. Any number of court cases involving wrongful death, mental anguish, personal injury, etc. where juries set the damage awards have established the value of a human life at on the order of $1 million (i.e. between $100,000 and $10,000,000). Your apparent valuation in excess of $24 billion/astronaut (i.e. 100 shuttles/7 astronauts), is not in the same ballpark. Dani Eder/Advanced Space Transportation/Boeing/ssc-vax!eder