Summations Only

Well now you're just making a big hash of things. In Message 206 you emphasized that for you scarcity increased price, not value, but now you're saying it does increase value. And in Message 251 where I argued that advertising could increase perceived value you replied with unrestrained sarcasm, concluding I believe with, "Shocker that is!"I suppose I should give up hope of ever getting a consistent story out of you, but what the heck. So if you believe a person's perception of value can change over time, what criteria are you applying in deciding which things can affect perceived value and which can't? Seems to me that any and all information available to a person could affect that perception to varying degrees, so please explain how you are dividing things into these two categories of things that can affect perceived value and things that can't. Super peas would be a different product from peas. Jon, you're right, it's ridiculous, but that's the position you took. I'm just describing your own position to you. Maybe at some point you should look up what value in use means. In the case of air and other nutrients essential for human survival it means the value is infinite. I quoted the definition in this very thread, but there you were several posts later arguing that value in trade is useless and that only value in use made any sense for setting the demand curve.So are we going to see a response that makes sense this time. Maybe you have a different definition of value in use? Maybe you'll change your mind and decide that value in trade is the definition to use for circumstances where money is changing hands, i.e., things are being traded? But please, whatever you decide to answer, try to make sense.--Percy

Your "logic" has islands of consistency, but moving between them is as disorienting as climbing the stairs in an Escher drawing. Thus we have this as your current explanation, paraphrasing of course: I understand your point that WTP will always exceed value. It's one of the things you're saying that makes sense (though insisting that there are no other valid perspectives is clearly wrong). But if the value of air is infinite, as you also insist, and even if we instead say that the value of air to an individual is his total net worth, how can WTP ever exceed it?Here is the paragraph from The Economic Way of Thinking Part 1 that defined value in use versus value in trade: If you 'd like to propose a different definition of value in use then go ahead, but if you're going to accept this definition, as you appear to have done, then your logic contains a major contradiction.--Percy

If after all you have said you choose to let your contradictions stand, that is up to you.--Percy