fractalnavel

a couple somethings i've been batting around in my head recently (besides my brain):

• note that the marginal value of a specific amount of money goes down as one's total assets increase.  well, what if the world valued money the same way as the individual did when dealing with that individual ?  that would in effect remove the marginal value effect and level the purchasing power playing field.  the problem is in making this seem desirable to people.  it kinda sort of lends itself to a “giving” economy, which is not quite the same thing as moving all transactions into a gift economy. 
• this one's more concrete: all fuel / energy needs to be treated as a utility now.  that's been the case for everything but transportation uses - why ?  that's one interesting impact of electric vehicles, it moves that part of the energy economy into the utility arena and out of the “free market”. the thing to recognize is that this treatment of energy as utility is justified since transportation is a necessity these days, not an option.  or, if optional, we need to change our culture (work expectations, for example) to reflect that.  i think it would be easier to match the economic treatment with current realities, rather than the other way around.  but right now, we have a mismatch between the two - and, of course, vultures who take unfair advantage of that mismatch.

i'm so ignorant of formal economics though, so i was considering reading up.  there was a good intro tv course i saw a few years back, but i only saw a few episodes.  oh, i suppose i have more knowledge of these things than i explicitly recognize.  i'm in the same position as i was a few years back with respect to philosophy.  an effort at review there was helpful in making me aware of what i knew or not.  one result of that review effort was disappointment - is that all there is ?  oh, the details would be rich, but larger reality is a limited set of knowledge and imagination.  that applies to all fields.  and now we bump into epistemology, and i don't want to go there now.

observation: it occurs to me that the the perception of whether someone is higher or lower is a gravity gradient bias.