Batman TAS - The Forgotten

[Independent George]

Comic book universes are ripe for an examination of the broken windows fallacy.

There's a lot of money to be made in repairing stuff that got broken during the latest supervillain attack, but all of that money is a loss by the people attempting to run a business. There are occasional references to 'superhero insurance' being a thing in the DC universe, but that only goes so far, and in hotspots like Gotham, it has to be akin to trying to buy quake insurance in San Francisco.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Comic book universes are ripe for an examination of the broken windows fallacy.

There's a lot of money to be made in repairing stuff that got broken during the latest supervillain attack, but all of that money is a loss by the people attempting to run a business. There are occasional references to 'superhero insurance' being a thing in the DC universe, but that only goes so far, and in hotspots like Gotham, it has to be akin to trying to buy quake insurance in San Francisco.

Gotham doesn't have so much of that though. Superman probably creates a voided insurance market for Metropolis, but you don't see Batman throwing Joker through five stories over and again. Shazam! on the other hand is a straight up nutcase.

I don't ever see people giving proclamation that the destruction is a viable thing in itself, though. That's more the problem with the broken window fallacy as it serves to excuse people of their collective, err, economic dismantling.

Wayne Enterprises actually tends to foot the bill for this kind of stuff. And speaking of Shazam! and Superman, Luthoar did the same thing in JLU. I really love him in JLU even compared to the prior show I think. His attitude especially in season 3 is just pointed and badass.

[Nealithi]

I'll say that much. Right now, I am 36 years old. I earn more than that, but I put myself in a place, where I can comfortably live off a 1,000€ a month, which covers rent, food, water, heating, clothing, TV, internet, mobile phone and still have money left over to buy a new computer every few years in addition to some extra for other hobbies or unexpected money-sinks. Assuming I live another 50 years, I'd need a meager 600,000€ to cover the rest of my life without ever having to work again. How much does a Bat-Boat cost again? How many people could easily get out of the worst by just giving them 10,000€, say $15,000? Heck, just by giving everyone enough to afford being able to go to college to earn a degree or a free student loan, you'd solve so many problems easily. You got any idea how fast this would snowball into an economy boost that made any sort of crime outside of addictions and white collar crimes completely and utterly pointless? Or even better yet: Free health care for all Gothamites. How many US citizens are in debt just because they need new glasses or some medication to function in a normal manner?

Minor points to yours. Your figures do not account for inflation.
I think just giving out large numbers of college educations is going to really help. As it seems the more of these educations there are, the less they are worth. And this puts people with less education in danger of losing their jobs to the 'bargains' of a college educated worker. Now you have to send that group to college etc.
While it sounds good on the surface, this sounds unsustainable in the long run to me. I would have to ask the better educated on the forum to explain why though.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I'll say that much. Right now, I am 36 years old. I earn more than that, but I put myself in a place, where I can comfortably live off a 1,000€ a month, which covers rent, food, water, heating, clothing, TV, internet, mobile phone and still have money left over to buy a new computer every few years in addition to some extra for other hobbies or unexpected money-sinks. Assuming I live another 50 years, I'd need a meager 600,000€ to cover the rest of my life without ever having to work again. How much does a Bat-Boat cost again? How many people could easily get out of the worst by just giving them 10,000€, say $15,000? Heck, just by giving everyone enough to afford being able to go to college to earn a degree or a free student loan, you'd solve so many problems easily. You got any idea how fast this would snowball into an economy boost that made any sort of crime outside of addictions and white collar crimes completely and utterly pointless? Or even better yet: Free health care for all Gothamites. How many US citizens are in debt just because they need new glasses or some medication to function in a normal manner?

Minor points to yours. Your figures do not account for inflation.
I think just giving out large numbers of college educations is going to really help. As it seems the more of these educations there are, the less they are worth. And this puts people with less education in danger of losing their jobs to the 'bargains' of a college educated worker. Now you have to send that group to college etc.
While it sounds good on the surface, this sounds unsustainable in the long run to me. I would have to ask the better educated on the forum to explain why though.

I don't think Gotham's youth is going to flood the market of college degrees. It's already not the best, but that would only lead to a marginal increase in supply.

The problem in my opinion is more practical in that you're using a good amount of resources that doesn't necessary translate into prospective turnouts. It's very easy to end up with a degree that isn't very conducive to a career, especially in your own city. Thus so far we have people fleeing Gotham effecting a brain-drain lest they end up with a liberal arts degrees. Sure you get a few stems ending up at WE. Probably not all of them, but a good amount imo. Now you're emboldening the already skewed collection of wealth and prospect in Gotham, further unevening the well-rounded markets that any economy needs for long-term sustainability.

Also, free education sounds good, but don't get me started on the neglected issues that people of color and the lgbt face.

[AllanO]

Sure, Superman could spend a lot of time just building skyscrapers for all the needy if he wanted. That's the problem with such a character, but I'm willing to say that the concept of such a character allows us to embrace that there are wacky things just as powerful as him around to keep him busy.

This part remind me of the joke Superman a transitional power source.

In terms of the broader argument, I always thought Bruce Wayne as depicted in things like BTAS is shown being pretty on top of his business stuff (keeping Wayne Enterprises out of clear cutting operations in the Amazon etc.) and it seems like the Wayne Foundation is always up to various charitable stuff and he is at a charity dinner etc. every night and so on. So I sort of assume he is pretty much giving away vast sums of money all the time and in a targeted and responsible way etc. and I think people miss this when they say why doesn't Bruce Wayne just use philanthropy or some other kind of development to save Gotham. My sense he is already pursuing that angle as far as it will go.

Now why if that is true is Gotham still a crime ridden hell hole etc. if it has such a rich and wise benefactor? I don't know for sure, curse, massive corruption, the machinations of some foreign power, ancient aliens?

My favoured explanation for why super science, lasers etc. have not lead to some golden age is that all the productive gains of the super tech is eaten up by super villain attacks, invasions from Atlantis and so on. So I guess Gotham is just plagued by supervillains, super tech mobsters, ultra corrupt politicians and the like that constantly bring it down.

On the value of education. Hard to say in the context of a relatively rich country where most people have at least a basic education, but in poor countries plagued by illiteracy and the like education is a powerful source of development allowing people to reduce their poverty and help ameliorate various other social problems. If education actually makes people more productive (able to produce more or better goods and services etc.) then the education produces the basis for producing more stuff (or prevents the destruction of stuff) which is the cause of the rise in wealth, so in itself there would be no dilution of the effect. At some point presumably you reach a point where (given technology and resources etc.) increased skills will not allow more production, everyone is already running at full tilt etc., but at that point per person production is presumably relatively high so there is no poverty at that point (or at least no more poverty then in a similarly maximally educated population etc.).

Now what is the saturation point for education? I have no clue, perhaps a relatively rich place like Gotham where presumably more than half the population has some form of post secondary education and almost everyone has high school, more education would not help much. On an individual level (in rich countries) getting a post-secondary degree is associated (on average) with making more money (less than in the past but still a substantial amount), but it could be argued that is just employers using degrees as a way to easily gauge competence and in reality those with degrees are not really adding to the person's ability to actually do anything productive (education in this situation is a zero-sum gain). So if Gotham is in a place like that yeah education would not do any good, but it seems hard for me to say if cities in the real world much less Gotham are at that point.

However if Gotham is suffering from an above average rate of illiteracy or other lack of education then indeed more education might do a substantial amount of good, even if the main cause of poverty is actually more some other factor like the League of Shadows poisoning the water supply or the like.

Note even if the educated just pick up stakes and move to greener pastures that could help by distributing the same amount of resources, opportunities over fewer people (it depends on things like the way money is raised).

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

negligible gain, not zero-sum.

[AllanO]

negligible gain, not zero-sum.

I should have said education might be a zero sum game, I am not clear how you would distinguish the cases where education creates negligible benefit, no benefit and some negligible dis-benefit for everyone (say employers use degrees etc. as means to pick employees and in doing so neglect some equally easy and more effective screening technique, and so make things worse for themselves and everyone else that would be the dis-benefit case). Although I suspect there is a large enough net benefit for all that this is not a problem....

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

negligible gain, not zero-sum.

I should have said education might be a zero sum game, I am not clear how you would distinguish the cases where education creates negligible benefit, no benefit and some negligible dis-benefit for everyone (say employers use degrees etc. as means to pick employees and in doing so neglect some equally easy and more effective screening technique, and so make things worse for themselves and everyone else that would be the dis-benefit case). Although I suspect there is a large enough net benefit for all that this is not a problem....

Well just that zero-sum game has more to do with a sort of pareto condition where distribution allocation is closed circuit and where one's gain amounts directly to another's loss. Though I see maybe that might kinda describe it better as far as selecting for degrees. Still though that's not how I would picture the matter considering degrees can tend to over qualify people. So like I was saying, yeah they're smarter and that's great, but the resource that goes into that education is overkill with little reward at that point.

edit: Oh wait I see you were saying what I'm saying here. I just don't get how education specifically is considered zero-sum in this scenario. I see education as very much not zero-sum as it in itself is nonrival up to the point where resource and wealth that goes into it can be considered rival.