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notion that they ever were rests pretty much on evidence bolstered by government
subsidies such as FHA and FNMA and FMAC which began before I was born. As itis, I
don’t see enough evidence either way to assert whether houses or the publicly
traded corporate sector, cap-weighting its stock and bonds, should be risker. But
even that uncertainly is a surprise in view of what we all were taught.
Depreciation theory is one of my favorites. It doesn’t upset the applecart as much as
the pay rule does, because little economic theory depends on it. I love it because it
reverses tradition precisely. National accounts model depreciation as declining
exponentially. | model it as rising exponentially. It’s the same equation with a plus
sign in place of a minus sign. | love its obviousness once we think about it. It follows
when we remember the present value rule. Once we do, evidence for both factors
makes more sense. Depreciation theory rounds out the pay rule in explaining how
pay can rise or hold steady to the very end. And we see the same in businesses.
Gross realized profit, analogous to pay, does not tend to decline as firms approach a
date with the wrecking ball. My impression has been that rents go down when
properties aren't kept up or locations become unfashionable, but not with age in
itself. When it’s time to demolish and rebuild, premises are more typically vacated
with trade still running at norms. Gross realized profit is inevitably all depreciation
on the last day, and would approach zero steadily if tradition were right.
There may have been minor novelty in my derivation of my three fundamental
theorems as at least subjective certitudes following from definitions, and in my idea
itself of subjective as distinct from empirical certitude. A subjective certitude is one
such that contrary evidence would falsify the convergence axioms. | have found little
or no empirical certitude past the cogito. | concede that the idea of subjective
certitude is impertinent. How dare we infer what people must think?
We dare when we infer from definitions. | began with the somewhat unusual
definition of capital (value) as perceived means of foreseen taste satisfactions. The
usual “means of production” is equally valid, but less suited to my purpose here. |
Chapter 9: So What ‘s New? 3/17/16 4
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