Per Bylund Profile picture
Jan 27 6 tweets 2 min read
Frustrated by listening to @joerogan and @jordanbpeterson on the issue of "living wage." Otherwise intelligent people get the discussion completely backwards. Businesses do not pay workers and suppliers out of their profits: they make profits if they produce more value than cost.
It is a common but fundamental mistake to look at the numbers after the fact and, therefore, inadvertently reverse the course of time. Businesses pay for resources based on what they think they can charge for the product they're going to produce. The actual outcome is uncertain.
In other words, Apple bought resources needed to produce the first iPhone without knowing it would sell or at what price consumers would want it. The resources were acquired without information about revenue on hand--demand for it (and any product) arises much later.
The same with every generation. Just because iPhone 1 sold well doesn't mean iPhone 2 will, esp. considering competitors can enter the market and potentially undercut Apple's offering. *Every* purchase of inputs is made anticipating a selling price that is yet to be discovered.
The problem is partly the assumption that the selling price and quantity--demand--is known beforehand, which it is not. It is partly also the assumption that demand is fixed/stable, which it is not. It's impossible to pay resources today using the profit you earn tomorrow!
My column explaining this issue, which apparently confuses most nowadays: mises.org/wire/more-spen…

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More from @PerBylund

Aug 23, 2021
The Pfizer mRNA is now approved, despite the trial nowhere near concluded. So many questions about what happens now. I'd appreciate insightful pushback. Does this mean the Moderna and J&J EUAs are or must be expired/canceled? washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08…
What I would guess, with no particular insight into the process, is that the Moderna mRNA is also approved, perhaps with reference to the Pfizer vaccine and the technologies being practically the same (?). The authorities have obviously pushed for mRNA from the get-go (but why?).
Are there precedents for this situation with several parallel EUAs for the same end where one, but not the others, were approved? What happened then? Were the others 'grandfathered' in/kept as EUAs until approved? What do the rules say?
Read 6 tweets
Aug 11, 2021
The role of #entrepreneurship in the market process is little understood. Even those who are well read in Ludwig von Mises's magnificent Human Action tend to get the economic function wrong, especially its implications for the structure and progression of the market process.
To Mises, entrepreneurship is 'simply' the uncertainty-bearing aspect of human action. This is his praxeological definition, which therefore offers us truths about how the structure of human action explains observable phenomena and cause-and-effect relationships in the market.
This broad definition of entrepreneurship explains why some plans and decisions are unsuccessful, why different people may make different decisions, and why actors can reconsider/change their behavior before actions are concluded. Because the data change, actors learn and adapt.
Read 19 tweets
Aug 9, 2021
I really hate these modern fakester "fact checkers," who provide almost no guidance on what to think of things. Take this telling example from @TheAtlantic. The claim: cases may spike after first dose. The "rebuttal": research shows 90% effective two weeks after the *second* dose
A rebuttal must address the actual claim, not something else. The fact is that, by what's in the article, it may well be that both are correct: a possible spike after the first dose *and* effective protection after the second. (Maybe there's a reason 2 doses are recommended?)
Note also that the article doesn't quote (or link to) Berenson. (We have only the fact-checker's summary.) Isn't that a little odd if you're fact-checking? Even more so when claiming it is a "theme," which means there should be plenty of material to choose a juicy quote from.
Read 6 tweets
Jul 11, 2021
Public Health Agency of Sweden recommends rapid antigen tests over PCR for screening: "The PCR technology used in tests to detect viruses cannot distinguish between viruses capable of infecting cells and viruses that have been neutralized by the immune system and therefore...
these tests cannot be used to determine whether someone is contagious or not. RNA from the virus can often be detected for weeks (sometimes months) after the illness but does not mean that you are still contagious. There are also several scientific studies that suggest that
the covid-19 infectivity is greatest at the beginning of the disease period." Translation by Google Translate. Source: folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-mat…
Read 4 tweets
Jun 10, 2021
The economic calculation problem in brief: how can society economizingly direct scarce resources in the present toward different uses in order to produce goods that satisfy future consumer wants?
The problem is one of satisfying consumers on consumers' own terms (at the time they prefer). Central planning averts this problem by simply replacing consumers' wants with the planner's preferences and schedule, thus not generating much in way of actual satisfactions.
The problem is also one of economizing: using resources in the best way possible, from the point of view of consumers' future valuations. Central planning does not do this at all. Suggested solutions (Taylor, Lange) only maximized based on consumers' valuations in the past.
Read 8 tweets
May 24, 2021
Since the days of Aristotle, voluntary has been a prerequisite for the morality of actions. Someone's action cannot be judged morally unless it was voluntarily chosen. But the meaning of voluntary has shifted. Here follow a couple of thoughts on what voluntary means.
The formal definition of voluntary means the action or choice is made of free will. It must be without coercion, i.e. the use or threat of physical violence. Choosing with a gun to one's head is not a voluntary choice.
In everyday language we say there's "no choice" if one option appears much better than the other ones. This is, strictly speaking, incorrect, since there *is* a choice. It only appears obvious due to one's valuation of the alternatives. This applies whether it's voluntary or not.
Read 16 tweets

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