[tw]

Originally Posted by Luce

Lots of things spur growth. Certain wars have, ...

That is a very popular lie. Again, when does growth finally appear on spread sheets and GDP? More than four years later.

We spent on Vietnam in the late 60s and early 70s. What resulted? A massive recession throughout the 70s and into Reagan's first term. We had to pay bills for that war.

We spent massively on Mission Accomplished in the early 2000s. And so the latter 2000s were a major recession.

Desert Storm was not recessionary. We did not pay for it. Rest of the world did. Japan was the number one contributor. So a serious recession did not happen many years later - according to spread sheets.

Too many confuse employment (activity) and money movement with growth. It only means growth when what results (four and more years later) is something tangible. War means nothing useful exists four plus years later. So economics takes its revenge. Borrowed money must now be paid back while no profit exists from all that work.

A destroyed bridge means plenty of work. To only replace what was lost. Nothing was gained. Europe and Japan finally recovered from WWII after 1970.

WWII meant many Europeans and Japanese were employees of US companies - that prospered from their labors. What happened to those industries? They were sold to pay for Vietnam.

Why did things look prosperous after WWII? The nation had a massive shortage of cars, homes, and consumer goods. So those factories - for almost as much as it cost to build new ones - had to be converted. Machines had to be scrapped and replaced. Entire contents of buildings trashed and converted. Plenty of work to simply do what had not been done for most of ten years. Where was the growth? They were simply undoing and redoing what should have / could have happened ten years earlier.

What happened to all those shipyards? Most were mothballed. Massive convoys of ships sat rusting in the Hudson River (ie 1200 ships), Beaumont TX, and in Puget Sound. James River VA, and Sacramento River CA until most were finally scrapped after 1970. Where was the growth?

Shipyards in Philadelphia were so massive that (if I remember a number) a ship was completed every three days. Show me any American shipyard that does that today. What happened if that was growth?

When we build something only to replace something defective or destroyed, there is no growth - no increased value. Only work and bills that must be paid.

Which takes us back to what business school graduates believe - worship. If we require everyone to replace their front lawn annually, then spread sheets show increased money movement. To bean counters, that is growth - even though nothing has been produced. Even though nothing of value has been created.

Do not confuse business school myths with reality. Business school graduates do not have tools that measure value. Even claimed we could make more jobs and wealth by investing the Social Security fund in the stock market. A money game. Yes, it could have resulted in massive returns annually. And would have eventually resulted in major economic disaster a decade later when the money bubble burst.

Would throwing all that money into the market result in more industries, products, employment, and growth? Of course not. Wall Street already has all the money it needs. It would have only enriched business school and finance people on Wall Street. Massive $multi-million bonuses would have paid for many more European vacations and yachts.

Spread sheets may or may not be reporting growth. Only thing that matters is tangible items. We created massive economic growth in the ponzi scheme that created sub-prime loans, CDL, SIVs, and other financial instruments - only on spread sheets. Spread sheets confuse money movement with value. And when that ponzi scheme collapsed, so did a major amount of cash (ie 40%) on all spread sheets. Things of value did not disappear. What only disappeared were the myths and lies openly promoted by finance and business people - using spread sheets.

What of value was created? Why did that ponzi scheme, for example, not result in one new bridge or tunnel into Manhattan in almost 50 years? Manhattan desperately needs more tunnels and could easily use some more bridges. When was the last one built? George Washington bridge in 1931. Then doubled in size in 1962. What of value has been built since then? NYC desperately needs train tunnels - which were killed off because it they cost money.

What do Europeans note when they arrive in Kennedy International? As one bluntly stated, infrastructure (roads, subways) in many third world countries is in better shape. More victims of myths called growth. Not to be confused with something completely different - that is actual growth - something tangible - a creation of value.