Jeff, while I'm one to claim that military activity is usually pointless, I also think that the people who do the really good work in the military are genuine heroes. The world is full of people like Adolf and his cohort who use and abuse power in the most horrific ways with no concept of happy synergism in the human family.
Those who risk their lives and create the means for defeat of these people are worthy of the highest praise. I'm pleased to support Qualcomm which is involved in Condor, which will defend one of the best examples of freedom the world has seen [though it is about as perfect as a hagfish, the commander in chief having hummers in the Oval room and allegedly sexually molesting a woman whose husband kills himself later that day - but when that's the best we can do, we have to go with it for now]. Of course I admire my father who spent 4 years in the 1940s successfully defeating Germany in the middle east, fortunately, for me, living to tell the tale. Had he not returned, you would not read these words.
While these military activities are not 'economically productive' in the normal sense, I'd argue that they are the most basic unit of economic production = social stability and defence against destruction without which there would be no economic activity to speak of.
But let's not pretend that any activity for military purposes is therefore economically productive. The economic value of military communications satellites comes from their success, not their destruction in launch explosions. Sure, that's part of the cost of getting the job done, but it is measure of the inefficiency. Just as entropy is a curse, but necessary to get steam into a steam engine. It doesn't mean the entropy losses are a good thing. If they can be stopped completely, that's just fine.
The fact that the money for the launch went to the makers of the failed launch doesn't mean that there was economic value transferred. Again, I refer you to the concept that if all the people in the world were put on building and exploding rockets, there would be no time for growing wheat or building cars and we would not be happy. The taxpayers who provide the money for the failed launch are deprived of the opportunity to invest in economic activities such as investing in Quialcomm, which would actually yield a useful product which makes lives better and enables even more production improvement. The fact that their money ends up paying for busted satellites and is still in circulation does not mean that the failed rocket was economically useful.
I think I've flogged that to death now, so if that doesn't explain it, I give up!
Then the next bit. Money is not wealth. I still say that. It is just a promise to pay. The person holding the promise has to hope that the promise is kept. If everyone goes around spending all day blowing up rockets, the money holder won't be able to buy anything other than busted rockets. That is not wealth. The wealth is in the productive capacity. The money is a claim on that wealth. The holder of the money 'owns' a share of the available production capacity to be collected when they want to do so.
I don't actually feel wealthy holding money, and don't hold it. I don't trust that the value of it will hold. I DO feel wealthy borrowing the money to buy Qualcomm stock. By borrowing it, and then giving it to somebody else, I don't actually have the money. I have Qualcomm stock instead and have to pay back the person I borrowed from. Since I believe the money will be diluted by further printing and The New Paradigm will roar ahead with Q! in the vanguard, I have no doubt that when I have to pay it back, I'll be able to do it by selling a few very highly valued Q! shares.
So, no, money is not wealth [though it is transiently, until depleted by money tree madness = constant printing and dilution]. Sure, it holds a store of value, but it leaks like a tyre which needs reinflating every week. Shares don't lose their value [unless things go wrong]. Production is only wealth if it has some useful result. Producing roads to the middle of nowhere, rockets which explode on launch, bombing your house and family to prove that wars are economically productive do NOT enhance wealth. These are NOT productive activities, even though roads to nowhere would show up in GNP figures and so would exploded rockets.
The oddity would be a high GNP per capita and a terrible way of life if all economic activity were like that. Fortunately, not many people really believe exploding rockets and bombing their houses are economically productive. They prefer to buy Q! shares.
And rightly so. [You'll have to look out or I'll call in MIT Prof SurferM to expostulate on Zenit rockets crashing and how economically productive that activity is. Check Loral shares for a guide to his likely thinking on crashing rockets.]
Sorry to be so brief,
Mqurice
PS: Unfuelled by other than Japanese Green Tea!! |
