M.Blackmore wrote, (quoting Les Leopold):
> Here's Leopold in his introduction, explaining the growth of the finance
> industry:
>
> The financial sector, up until the 2008 crash, was one of the
> fastest growing sectors of the economy, generating approximately
> 20 percent of our gross domestic product. It also accounted for
> 27.4 percent of all corporate profits. Finance grew as
> manufacturing declined, thereby dominating the real economy.
> According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1940 there were
> 7.1 manufacturing jobs for every job in the financial service
> industries. The ratio increased to 7.7 in 1950. Then the slide
> started, as you can see in chart 1 . By November 2008, there
> were only 1.6 manufacturing jobs per financial services job.
> Until the current meltdown, the financial industry produced
> almost 10 percent of all the wages and salaries in the country,
> up from 5 percent in 1975. In a few years, provided that the
> system doesn't collapse entirely, the finance sector is going to
> be larger than the manufacturing economy.
Back in October of 2006, in an article that y'all might find
interestng [1], Gabor Steingart (Der Spiegel) wrote:
Doesn't every business student learn that the currency of a
country is only as stable - and hence as valuable - as what the
national economy of that country has to offer and produces?
If the "product" provided by the US workforce is predominantly managing
financial objects -- viz. money -- then the value of US money is based
on managing money in such a way as to increase it's value. Huh? Say
what?
Somewhere there is a dangerous recursion and a potential positive
feedback, aka "run-away". When it starts to go away, it suddenly goes
away all at once. Isn't that what has just happened?
And we/they are fixing it how? With a great pile of money that, so
far as I can understand it, was conjured ex nihilo simply by saying it
was so.
Ho hum. I plant tangible seeds in my garden, add tangible manure from
palpable cattle and get an edible return on the investment.
- Mike
[1] Original article:
Excerpt from German best-seller "World War for Wealth: The Global Grab
for Power and Prosperity":
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,440054,00.html
Also at:
http://www.truthout.org/article/gabor-steingart-america-and-dollar-illusion
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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