His functional net worth declined.

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by. The economic illusion we’ve been using to drive our lives is fragile and thin.  Practical, or functional economics is right there where it’s always been, waiting for a dysfunctional government to reveal it.

The practical, or functional worth of an individual as it applies to the real human condition is in what that individual produces, compared to what that same individual consumes.  A farmer who produces 20 tons of wheat in a year and only consumes the value of 10 tons has a practical worth of 10 tons of wheat.  A person who grows 50 beef cattle but only consumes the value of 49 beef cattle has a practical worth of one cow.

Same with hamburger flippers, though the hamburger flippers aren’t getting bonus credit for the secondary product of their profession, creating patients for heart surgeons.

And so on, reduced to its lowest common denominator.

Okay, so what about us useless eaters?  Insurance salesmen, congressmen and senators, presidents, CEOs, billionaires, and drug kingpins living down in the ghetto?  Retirees?  Professional military.   Party girls and celebrities.

Well, we’re all worth the same.  The amount of something we produce, minus what we consume.  We aren’t worth as much as a slum welfare mother who, at least, produces 13 children. 

For the moment, at least, the fabricated illusion is still holding together.  Even with a dysfunctional government ignoring the alternative reality.

But it’s still worth keeping in mind that we useless eaters are all pretty much of equal value when measured by practical or functional economic standards.  Whether we’re retirees, CEOs of multi-national banks, welfare mothers, or inheritors of the Colgate fortune.

Caves in Germany containing the remains of Cro Magnon people 43,000 show they kept their worthless eaters around during prosperous times.  But when times got bare they discovered a strange new respect for functional economics.

Maybe they eventually found themselves blessed with dysfunctional governments and multi-cave marketeers, besides their retirees.

Old Jules