Off Topic: Musing On Money And Wealth

To try to understand the relation between money and wealth let's take a look back a few centuries at European history.

The Spaniards came back from the new world with more money (gold and silver) than anyone had ever seen. Did it bring the genuine wealth? I believe what happened was the spent it all on some stupid wars (against Holland, for example) and after that were not a significant player in history and neither did they have an enviable standard ever again.

Conclusion: an abundance of money, even "real", hard gold and silver money does not produce real wealth.

The French in the 1700s invented paper money under the final monarchies, ruined their economy (apparently), had a violent revolution which continued the use of paper money into hyperinflation and yet... pretty shortly after Bonaparte came to power, there was sufficient productivity (wealth) left over to power Bonaparte's conquest of continental Europe. After Bonaparte's bust at waterloo it didn't take long for France to again become a significant power.

Conclusion: horrible monetary problems (e.g. hyperinflation) and even military defeat can cause temporary problems, but does not extinguish a nation's core wealth.

One could argue that China's emergence after 30 years of abysmal government mismanagement demonstrates temporary set backs do not permanently extinguish as nation's core wealth.

Perhaps the United States can emerge from what looks to be a period of monetary and economic chaos in a similar fashion.

MontyHigh

Comments

[Alex]

A nation's wealth comes from its people and their work ethic and their creative ideas. Look at Germany after WWII for example and look at them today. Near annihilation could not keep them down. Prosperity will come back when the lessons of this crisis bear fruit in the form of sustainable, true growth.