Misappropriation of public funds is the greatest driver of economic growth! Let's do more of that.
The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
41–46 of 46 posts
Re: The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
#42Judging by the content of the article I get the sense that he didn't choose that title. The gist seems to be that some previous wars helped focus our values and priorities of spending, and that recent wars lacked that focusing aspect. There is no spending argument in the article, which is good because econ 101 tells us that war spending doesn't increase demand and doesn't create jobs.
However, the author's theory doesn't point to any solutions, so it is not interesting. I could also point to many other factors that may have changed US (and global) values and priorities aside from wars, so I don't find this theory compelling in itself either.
Re: The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
#43The unspoken assumption in this theory is that growth is good. What about peace and love? Isn't that good too? I wonder what Orwell would have thought about this.
> The unspoken assumption in this theory is that growth is good. What about peace and love? Isn't that good too? Does one preclude the other? Generally, economic resources are necessary, but not sufficient, for happiness. We still need growth because we do not yet generate enough resources either worldwide or in the U.S., to meet people's needs. If you question whether that's true about the U.S., consider health care…
> 'consider health care; we can't afford to provide all that people need.'
I beg to differ. I argue that the US can afford to provide all that is needed, but chooses not to do so. As a fraction of GDP, no one spends more than the US on healthcare; many developed nations spend half. [1] For this spending, we get roughly the same outcomes, more medical innovation, higher profits from running health care operations, and millions of people with poor access to health care. We've chosen profits over people. I could judge the choice, but I'm only here to point out that it is a choice, not some fundamental lack of resources.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_heal...
Re: The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
#44"Lack of smashing and fixing windows may be hurting the economy"
Re: The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
#45So I have a little piece that I've written about this, it is woefully incomplete, but I'll post the abstract. BEGIN TRANSMISSION---- From the Paratime Economics and Sociology Department, University of New Earth, 2332 Dept of War Studies, University of Mars Investigation of countries at peace and at war: A trans-worldline study. Status: Failure Recommendation: Further study of evolution requested There has been signif…
"Whenever one country switched from a state of war to another, so did some second country as well!"
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here...
Re: The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
#46The title does not match the gist of the article. It should be something like "Fear of war motivates politicians to do their job properly"
This is the main significant conclusion to me.
Simply that losing a major war can mean ultimate removal of the entire political system of the vanquished, even if it does not result in replacement by that of the victor. This is the steepest threat that politicians ever face. This is when all the stops are pulled out, and incentive given to those who "new ideas" might otherwise be discouraged until a larger external threat is looming.
The beneficial element is not the war itself, but the wide & deep threat to the politicians.
This encourages them to unleash the forces of innovation which have naturally been throttled historically to preserve the status quo. These are the powers-that-be, if they weren't that powerful it wouldn't be so.
War is always a net loss. Any small local or focused gains fall mainly to politicians or those politically connected. This is nothing new, it will always be less than 1% of us who have a "Daddy" Warbucks.
For greatest efficiency in creating wealth or innovation, minimize the violence & destruction while doing whatever it takes to make your politicians bend to your will as much as they would to an overwhelming outside force.
Even when threat becomes reality, removing evil politicians pays off much better than merely seeking plunder.