[Lula-biz] suicide as a career move

[john riehl aka j.r.]

Jack Denman wrote:
> On Thursday 07 August 2003 06:41 pm, Christopher Smith wrote:
>> > All of the above happened in the last major war. It would be 100 times
>> > worse with the foreign dependencies we have developed over the last 50
>> > years.
>>
>> Those in favor of globalization would argue that this is actually a good
>> thing, as it provides a much stronger incentive for peace. In some ways
>> it's a trade: terrible wealth and resource drops when war breaks out (or
>> more like: terribly high wealth and resource supplies during peace) vs.
>> not as many large scale wars.
> 
> The problem I have with this view is that it's rational. The biggest wars were 
> began without any rational thinking.
> 
> Wars don't cure bad economies; they are part of the bad economy coming at the 
> end of the bad cycle. Examples are World War II 1941 (after the crash of 
> 1929), Korean War (Ressession of 1952), Vietnam War (Resession of 1974), Gulf 
> War (Resession of 1990-1991) and possibiliy the Iraq War assumming we don't 
> have another.
> 

There are two major problems with this.  1) if wars are irrational, then 
why are they linked to a business cycle?  this seems contradictory. 
2) the dates dont line up with business cycles.

specific date issues:
1. if the crash signals the end of the bad economy, ww2 should have 
begun in 1929.  strangely, germany in the mid 1930s seemed relatively 
quite prosperous, compared to anytime since ww1.  the german economy had 
collapsed in 1923.
2.  the vietnam war didnt start in 1974.
3.  we didnt have a major war in 1946, in 1957, in 1982 (that would be 
the double dip war, from the double dip recession), in 1987.  In fact we 
should have a major war at least every 7 years.  we're missing a whole 
lot of wars.
4. there have been lots of wars without an economic downturn.  what did 
start the Chaco war?  (without looking it up).

wars, with a soundbyte 3rd grade level explaination sound really 
irrational, but they are not so irrational.  there is often an economic 
link (balance of power vis-a-vis resource struggle), but not necessarily 
"a bad economy".  Further, there is linkage between economic distress 
and armed conflict, but it is not so empirically linked as to be at the 
end of the bad economy.    Wars do spurn production and employment, 
potentially ending an economic depression (it is a matter of scale), but 
when the war ends, this boom ends, the economy crashes again (rosie the 
riveter gets laid off).   this isnt a history discussion list, so I will 
stop now.


If you want to get full tech employment, release the mother of all 
viruses, that takes out all types of systems at the same time, forcing 
organizations to hire anybody who can fix it, and forcing them to be 
local to deal with the systems.    Further, tell me ahead of time, so I 
can get the reward money by turning you in.

jr
MBA et. al.










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