Kenya in Crisis

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by aimeecc

But if the glazier doesn't have any money to buy the bread that the baker is making in his new oven (vice having his window fixed), how does the baker make more money?

The oven maker can now afford to put a new room on his house and calls the glazier for that. At least, thats the theory. And they can both buy bread.

Originally Posted by aimeecc

I am not an economy major, or minor, or even taken on class. However, I do believe that war can jump-start the economy. Long term wars are a drain...

Any government spending spree can kick-start an economy. It can be on war or roads or schools. With roads and schools, they continue to deliver benefits after the initial spending, but war is unlikely to do that (unless the war annexes some juicy natural resources or something).

Originally Posted by aimeecc

Also, there is a large idea that war drives technology. New technologies are funded during war time to find solutions. Often (although certainly not always) these technologies have dual-use, and benefit the population as a whole.

War has driven technological advance, it is true. Advances in flight, computers, and antibiotics are clear examples of dual-use* technologies developed during wars.
However, this is not the only way to encourage technological advance.
I'm going to plagiarize my mate's PhD here and contrast DARPA with Japan, Inc.
DARPA takes government money and develops military technology. These sometimes have dual-use spinoffs, but not always. This creates a situation where to stimulate spending on these products, the only really effective way is to go to war. See previous posts about how war spending is wasteful.
Japan, Inc. takes a smaller amount of government money, gets the corporation together and plans a new wave of purely consumer products and the standards and protocols for them. This results in the economy being stimulated by consumer demand, which creates a feedback loop. Oh and doesn't kill so many people.

Originally Posted by aimeecc

BTW, the 'internet' was developed with DoD $s. Joint venture between universities (who needed the money to develop) and the DoD, who need the invention.

No! That was Al Gore!



*typed "duel-use" hehehe

[tw]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

The oven maker can now afford to put a new room on his house and calls the glazier for that.

The oven maker can now spend same money and labor to develop better ways of making that bread. The resulting productivity in bread means everyone prospers. It means the glazier may have to spend money, work harder to be educated; to operate that new bread making technology.

Notice that the human is not central in economics. The human is required to adapt to change. He must learn - get educated; or be unproductive - an enemy of the economy and punished with less money. But again, what does sound byte logic fear? Innovation - change - constant education - smarter workers - an economy viewed from the perspective of its products rather than its people. That means happier, wealthier, and more prosperous people.

Notice that I have just attacked the logic of extremist liberals and extremist conservatives simultaneously. Why? Because both are enemies of the moderates - the smarter people who can see the larger picture rather than worship sound byte reasoning.