🚀 go-pugleaf

Greig Ebeling wrote:
 
> My complaint is that not that we should not have responded to ozone
> depletion, but that we apparently over-responded in panic, and failed
> to implement a solution in an economically efficient manner.

As I have pointed out in the past Greg, you are optimizing
 for the wrong variable.  Instead of asking "What's good
  for the economy?", ask "What's good for the people?"

Neoclassical economics admits to NO objective measures
 of human welfare.  Thus, when an economist says "trade
  makes people better off", he probably means that trade
   makes his own personal finances better off. 

Since our society has accepted no objective measure of
 welfare, we are forced to rely on gross domestic product
  (GDP) as the de facto measure of our welfare. 

But a close look at the GDP reveals that what passes for
 welfare, is actually the satisfaction of more and more
  trivial wants, while creating more and more unwanted costs
   that are destroying both our life support and social systems.
    For example, the costs of treatment of cigarette-induced
     cancer, pollution-induced emphysema, and television-
      induced crime show up in the GDP as increased welfare.

There is now strong evidence that the U.S. economy is
 making us poorer by increasing unwanted costs faster
  than it increases benefits.

See:
 http://csf.Colorado.EDU/authors/hanson/page11.htm

Jay