Meadmaker
Unregistered
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2004
- Messages
- 29,033
I just reread the original post, and there's another aspect to it.
My wife stays home with the kid instead of going out to make money. How does that affect the economy. I think that the answer is that it takes away two jobs. It takes away her job, but it also takes away the job of the person who would have produced all the stuff we would have bought with the money we would have spent.
But did it really, and is that bad? By not "working", ie she is working, just not producing economic output, we are lowering the overall "standard of living", if that is measured by goods and services. Because she doesn't work, there are fewer things produced.
In so doing, she is making it slightly easier to "keep up with the Joneses" because the Joneses won't have quite as much stuff. So, maybe some other people will work a little bit less as well, and that job that was "lost" will actually be by people who really didn't want to be the second job of the person who didn't really want it, but felt she had to have it to keep up with the Joneses.
My wife stays home with the kid instead of going out to make money. How does that affect the economy. I think that the answer is that it takes away two jobs. It takes away her job, but it also takes away the job of the person who would have produced all the stuff we would have bought with the money we would have spent.
But did it really, and is that bad? By not "working", ie she is working, just not producing economic output, we are lowering the overall "standard of living", if that is measured by goods and services. Because she doesn't work, there are fewer things produced.
In so doing, she is making it slightly easier to "keep up with the Joneses" because the Joneses won't have quite as much stuff. So, maybe some other people will work a little bit less as well, and that job that was "lost" will actually be by people who really didn't want to be the second job of the person who didn't really want it, but felt she had to have it to keep up with the Joneses.