Chimble’s Nightly Doodles

The recent downturn in world economy had me thinking. How come it seems that some people are just unaffected and they seem to lead their lives like they did before. Here’s me thinking out loud in an attempt to explain our society… get ready for Chimble’s Social Economics Theory.

Lets kick it off with some illustrations:

The lines represent the relationship between effort and reward. Gray line illustrates how much effort people are willing to put and the corresponding reward they can expect from it, which is represented by the red line.

To theorize further:

In general, most people are driven by possession of material things. You want to drive around in a Benz, or your own house thus most likely you will put in more effort to gain that reward. However there are different kinds of people, there are few out there that are not driven by material things, they are simply content with the ability to scrape by day by day, and thus by giving up on expected rewards they can meet minimum living conditions. However as you notice in the graph, the current social structure in U.S. allows for situation where no effort is put out and to still reap benefits. For some it would be easiest illustrated in the form of social welfare structure. People without a job can expect the government to pitch in enough for them to have a roof over their heads and provide them with food. Really nothing more is needed to live day to day. Zero effort, 24 hours a day just dedicated to yourself and you still have the necessary basics. Thus zero effort, but still some reward.

As you move to the right of the graph, start working in a crappy job that pays minimum wage, your life actually becomes harder. The welfare benefits are scaled back now since you make money, but your total rewards go down. Now you spend your earned money on rent and food, which before came with no effort what so ever. And so on as you move further to the right… better job, better rewards, and then you can even reach a point where you only slightly increase your effort but the benefits are exponentially higher… that’s known as a jackpot spot. Chaaa Ching!

Categories : Your Dark Future //