Monday, July 21, 2008

Equilibrium in Personal Economy

What is equilibrium as it relates to trade? What is it in relation to a personal economy? Is equilibrium one of the natural economic laws?

Does any person at any particular time have everything he wants? If he is not working to obtain something he wants, I would say he has everything he wants. To "want" something and not work for it is some kind of illusion of want.

Most people say they want to be rich but few truly work to achieve wealth. So what is a person really saying? "I would like to be rich if it was worth my time working for it." That is closer to what they really mean.

Thrift is the key to wealth. No debt (the bad kind), living below your means, and saving the rest is the start to amassing wealth. But it is not enough to have it (i.e. bury it), you must put it to use (i.e. put it in a bank at minimum).

With great risk comes great reward. You must take a reasonable risk to get rich. Combined with thrift even mistakes can be worked through. Oftentimes the rich did not get that way the first venture they tried.

Most people will admit that they are lazy (I have and am trying to reverse the curse of the desire for leisure). So even if some one says they want to be rich their actions will prove if they really want it or it is some unrealistic dream.

A persons "want" has to outweigh the "cost" be it laziness, time or money. If a person has to sacrifice too high a level of either of these he will not make the purchase (i.e. trading time for wealth). Thus that person has saved himself from mis-allocating that resource.

Being that people make decisions in self interest a personal economy reflects a certain idea of equilibrium (not sure if that was what Hayek was getting at but this is how I understand it). Thus people have everything they want, barring those things they are currently working to acquire.

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