TED Conversations

Ronald Vallecer

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

That perspective margins is a better measure of wealth than current monetary based systems

Perspective margins is that which makes one feel poor either by comparison, satiation of reward appreciation or lack of appreciation. Though it is hard to put a number to it, perspective margins is hinged on an emotional response so strong that it takes very little training to verbally report. And unlike money which is a zero sum based unit of wealth, often making it hard or sometimes impossible to acquire in satisying quantities, Pmargins is all about universal empowerment, the idea that one can affect inter and external socio infrastructure framework to regulate Pmargins.

Pmargins have existed a lot longer than money has, in fact money works under the premise of Pmargins. Time is up!!

Related Talks:
0
Share:
progress indicator

  • Ronald Vallecer

    • 0
    Dec 16 2012: Pmargins made Our World go round
    Everything in life that man can experience can be broken down into contrasts. The innate ability to make connections between past and present, to make future predictions all stem from something that a lot of us take for granted, consciousness. Consciousness allows us to reflect on intention and premeditate action, it allows one to state fact or opinion, experience essence or the absence of it.

    Though countless artefacts have been uncovered giving us minute glimpses into the minds of our past ancestors, one can never know for sure really, what had happened had happened and as is always with experience, can never truly be be fathomed completely. On the bright side though, what we lack in documentation we can make up through imagination, as it truly matters, at the end of the day, everything is a personal experience.

    I can imagine the earliest of us, just as I can imagine what a cat is thinking, or a dog, or beings of species that we consider "like us", memory, surely they had consciousness, five senses driven by the most basic need of anything, survival. We are social species, even before we knew of the concept. Through nature and nurture, the cycle of culture was passed on through social and some would argue biological means. But just as we do even today, the ability to be conscious of consciousness was not always with us. Any of us upon reflection notice that our memory of our past stops a long way from birth. Babies cry, smile, crawl, stand, walk and talk, and then a couple of years later begin to report consciousness. For more.. visit http://perspectivemargins.blogspot.hk/2012/12/pmargins-made-our-world-go-round.html

  • John Smith 30+

    • 0
    Dec 12 2012: Monetary wealth IS a way of measuring of what you call "perspective margins".

    • Ronald Vallecer

      • 0
      Dec 12 2012: Yup... like I said above... money works under the premise of pmargins...
  • thumb

    Krisztián Pintér 200+

    • 0
    TED Translator
    Dec 12 2012: @Fritzie Reisner:

    "I believe you understand my point"

    surely, and i agree. just added a note.

    "that many people dismiss the idea of actually studying it because of some convenient misconception"

    indeed. we are on the same page here. however, if someone finally decides to study the physics proper, he can know where to go. but if someone decides to study economics, he will face the rather troublesome situation that even professionals disagree in basic things, and there are alternative schools making just as much or more sense. and also, one needs to be blind not to see that physics works. 800m high buildings, space ships, x-ray and mri devices all do what they supposed to do. however any successful application of economics is yet to be seen. on the contrary, we see widely accepted theories fall flat on their face all the time.

    so i'm not saying that disregarding theory is a good thing. but i understand where they are coming from.
    • thumb

      Fritzie Reisner 100+

      • 0
      Host
      Dec 12 2012: I understand where they are coming from also.

      A difficult idea to convey, often, is the idea that models in a discipline can be useful even if they do omit some features of a complex situation.

      I see some fields many people believe they understand long before, or much better than they do. Economics is one. You have seen how many people are utterly persuaded by such economics as is put forward in the Zeitgeist movie.

      While people tend to accept that they know little mathematics, a -to me- surprising number of people accept themselves as educated in physics or in educational systems and pedagogies.

      But the study of economics is often summarily dismissed or substituted with reading/accepting popular material that stands on a foundation of a few toothpicks.
      • thumb

        Krisztián Pintér 200+

        • 0
        TED Translator
        Dec 12 2012: maybe it has something to do with this

        http://xkcd.com/451/
        • thumb

          Fritzie Reisner 100+

          • +1
          Host
          Dec 12 2012: That's extremely funny. I will be sending this to a buddy of mine at MIT (who is a leader in his field but has just this type of sense of humor). This comic has tremendous potential for expansion to other disciplines. Let me know if you come up with a short quip for economics.
      • thumb

        Krisztián Pintér 200+

        • 0
        TED Translator
        Dec 12 2012: for the record, i'm not creative enough to come up with such things. i'm just a consumer of these.

      • Barry Palmer 50+

        • 0
        Dec 14 2012: Hi Fritzie,

        My ignorance of economics is enormous, but in the one class I took it was pointed out on day one that economics is about values, not money.

        Many people posting on TED seem to think that our economic system is "monetary based" and that seems completely wrong to me. Would this analogy make sense?: If our economy is based on money, then mammals are based on blood. What are your thoughts?
        • thumb

          Fritzie Reisner 100+

          • 0
          Host
          Dec 14 2012: I would have thought that any economics class would address this matter on the first day, but my first such course was so long ago, I cannot remember.

          I don't think your analogy quite works. Mammals all have blood, and yet there have been exchange economies that have not used money in the sense in which we mean it today. Money is a means of streamlining and reducing the cost of transactions involved in exchange. Transactions involving exchange are the fundamental economic idea, with such exchanges driven by value in the sense of benefit/utility.

  • Ronald Vallecer

    • 0
    Dec 11 2012: The second element of Pmargin, have you ever worked with a person who earned the same amount of money as you, but is valued more by his or her peers? Again, we all know this instinctively, but if you do a formal investigation on it, skills and attitudes all on the positive side begin to grow? Why do we not measure this? Isn't living or working with "quality" people a better standard than just their monetary value? Economic systems in place increase and decrease value of areas depending on factors of wealth, shouldn't the Pmargin the people, place and tools be taken as a whole, and its affect on people's Pmargin values be a better indicator of true value?

    I work in a school were countless tangibles go unnoticed but are valued nonetheless. The Pmargin values are super high for students, teachers and parents alike, but I am one to notice that although the Pmargin values are apparent, the design in which it is sustained isn't. We don't learn, live and socialise to make money, everybody knows this, some people are good at making money, but why is it that they should have the most influence of all, when a lot of the rich have very poor Pmargins value. Next up, tomorrow when I wake up maybe, the role of culture and biology in Pmargins.

  • Comment deleted

    • Ronald Vallecer

      • 0
      Dec 11 2012: Because "marginal utility" shifts the focus back to the use of money, Pmargin keeps the focus on the personal experience and how it translates to those in society. Everyone already does it, but since it hasn't been a focus of society, it hasn't been systematically documented or given an official value. Think about it, a person who is considered unemployed is categorised so because of his or her monetary earning value. The label "unemployed" has such a negative social stigma both to the person and the economy. On the other hand, if we start paying more attention to Pmargin rather than monetary value of activity, positive and negative values are more formative and their summative value is also more meaningful. Buying a chocolate bar and consuming in itself is not a complete Pmargin, the amount of satisfaction derived form both the purchase and the consumption all falls under one category in the Pmargin, which is the Reward section. Everyone in this world sets a certain amount of their time for leisure or reward, the Pmargin can be calculated through the optimum levels of satisfaction based on frequency.
      • thumb

        Krisztián Pintér 200+

        • 0
        TED Translator
        Dec 11 2012: so you want to retire the word "utility", and put "perspective" in its place, just because utility has bad reputation? i don't think it is necessary. inventing new words for old concepts does not help understanding.
        • thumb

          Fritzie Reisner 100+

          • 0
          Host
          Dec 12 2012: "and at this point, opinions diverge."

          I believe you understand my point, as you have studied economics. In any field, there is material grounded in basic understanding that a person in that discipline or out might come to reject. Indeed that is how theories can be modified in a discipline over time.(The same is true in a science). What may not be entirely peculiar to economics but is conspicuous to it is that many people dismiss the idea of actually studying it because of some convenient misconception about what sorts of ideas they believe economics cannot address. For example we have the concept of "utility" you raised in reply to Roald. Many people assume that economics concerns itself only with money and assumes no one values anything else. Because people, in fact, value other things, this misconception about economic models causes some people to decide the whole discipline is useless in understanding human behavior and therefore not worthy of understanding.
      • thumb

        Fritzie Reisner 100+

        • 0
        Host
        Dec 11 2012: The concept of marginal utility, or of utility, is not about money but rather about value. You can talk about the marginal utility of increasing the number of books you have by one, or of eating a hamburger, or of attending a dance.

        • Ronald Vallecer

          • 0
          Dec 11 2012: I'm up early reading about margin utility and thr diminishing returns or the marginal decision rule that states consumption value must equal cost and I'm led to think that their is an overlap between Pmargins and margin utility, goods and services both havr Pmargins and margin utility, but the main difference is how much influence humans can make to the equation. In utiliy margin, abstinence or consumption to affect frequency that then translates to margin utility depending on cost. Pmargin takes into consideration not only the transaction itself but also the design in which the consumer understands or the awareness of what value the transaction will bring. In otherwords, a person who has premeditation of high Pmargin values for work + purchase of reward + work + consumption of reward will still have a higher net Pmargin than a person who did all four without planning because of the added Pmargin value to goal achievment that requires systematic understanding and awareness of the design.
      • thumb

        Fritzie Reisner 100+

        • 0
        Host
        Dec 12 2012: Reading is always a good move. Lots of people think they understand economics and economic models well before they do. Study is the best remedy, but make sure you are reading good stuff.

  • Ronald Vallecer

    • 0
    Dec 11 2012: Pmargins is the diffence between two perspectives of the same person between different times. Awareness and understanding are the primary elements to a perspective. A person who has a billion but is unaware of its use or purpose is poorer than a person who has a ten dollar bill, but knows exactly what to do with that. Is it measurable? Sure... Imagine person A who wakes up and writes ten things that are important and meaningful for him to do that day. He goes about his day and at the end reports he has accomplished 9 out of ten. Wealthy guy right? Depends on the effect to other people though right? Second element of pmargin...
    • thumb

      Krisztián Pintér 200+

      • 0
      TED Translator
      Dec 11 2012: so you use "perspective" in a very broad sense, since buying a bar of chocolate, and eating it right away is a perspective in this sense. why don't we use the good old word "utility" then? the marginal utility of money is a 150 years old concept.

      but i don't exactly understand how would that change our views or policies.
  • thumb

    Krisztián Pintér 200+

    • 0
    TED Translator
    Dec 11 2012: can we have a definition first?

  • george lockwood 30+

    • 0
    Dec 11 2012: Okay This is a solid point because the cost of living or living well can vary so ;much from country to country.

    • Ronald Vallecer

      • 0
      Dec 11 2012: Not only is it the cost of living but rather the perceived cost of living. Pmargins turns the table of focus, because instead of asking how much is the cost of living, the question turns to, what designs lead to better Pmargin. Is a state that provides welfare really good for Pmargin, we all know that being in welfare in the long term beneficial for one's Pmargins. Why can't we make cultivate and make use of everyones' talents being as it is most likely a positive thing for all our Pmargins. The answer, money? People feel like they need to make monetary profit. We don't need to make monetary profit if it means sacrificing Pmargins, after all, isn't it always the experience that counts??
Showing all 24 comments