----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Johanning" <jjohanning at igc.org>
On Friday, May 14, 2004, at 06:39 PM, Joseph Wanzala wrote:
> The idea is not that the worse things get the better. It is that we
> have been stripped of so much that the opportunity cost of reclaiming
> what we have lost and obtaining what we should have is negligible.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this economic jargon -- "opportunity cost," etc. -- so I'm not sure what you are saying. Who is this "we"? The Left? Americans? Human beings in general? I'll pass on commenting on this sentence, unless you want to re-write it in ordinary English.
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OPPORTUNITY COST The true cost of something is what you give up to get it. This includes not only the money spent in buying (or doing) the something, but also the economic benefits (UTILITY) that you did without because you bought (or did) that particular something and thus can no longer buy (or do) something else. For example, the opportunity cost of choosing to train as a lawyer is not merely the tuition fees, PRICE of books, and so on, but also the fact that you are no longer able to spend your time holding down a salaried job or developing your skills as a footballer. These lost opportunities may represent a significant loss of utility. Going for a walk may appear to cost nothing, until you consider the opportunity forgone to use that time earning money. Everything you do has an opportunity cost (see SHADOW PRICE). ECONOMICS is primarily about the efficient use of scarce resources, and the notion of opportunity cost plays a crucial part in ensuring that resources are indeed being used efficiently. http://www.economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?TERM=OECD#OPPORTUNITY%20COST