Greetings Economists, On Nov 16, 2007, at 7:49 AM, Charles Brown wrote:
There is very little variable capital or even fixed real capital destroyed. It's mostly destruction of fictitious capital, Monopoly game money, play money.
Doyle; The scale of the losses, 2 trillion or so according to Goldman Sachs or about %7 in their way of calculating non-financial sector debt (see LP's recent note). Your point I think relates to a concept of how does money get spent. Is it socially useful or is the money pointed at fools gold profits (high risk returns)? I don't think this is entirely fictitious in the sense that development in the g20 is based upon these money flows. The pain from outsourcing is very real. the displacement pain from peasants forced off the land into the cities is very significant. If real estate collapses in value the creative destruction you talk about is social rot. People 'buying' homes that are then taken away because the huge profits dream is based upon extracting gold from their empty pockets. Of course that is my experiences in life speaking. Perhaps Jim Devine can elucidate? Thanks, Doyle Saylor
