Routers and porn

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Almost all of the discussions I am hearing about economics and politics seems to center on the various kinds of "lever-pulling" the government can do: tax policy, money supply, interest rates, etc.

While I don't doubt that this lever-pulling has a real impact on economic activiity, it doesn't seem to me to be what the creation of wealth is really about.  We add money to the economy and stocks go up.  Big deal.  It's just an anticipation of inflation -- not the actual creation of actual value.

Conversely, we might reform healthcare and education more aggressively.  Sure.  But it doesn't help to educate people for jobs that don't exist.  And physical wellness, whether we like it or not, is a function of wealth.  Drugs would cost money even if we nationalized pharma.   

If we look back through history, in fact, we will see that wealth has always been created be actual stuff: spices and silk, slaves and cotton, war production and automobiles, highways and consumer goods, routers and porn.

So I'm wondering what it is that the U.S. economy is actually going to produce to create wealth, jobs, tax revenue and human delight.  What will a 24-year-old community college graduate living in Dayton, Ohio be doing for a living four years from now?  Anyone have any ideas?

And can anyone tell me why this is not a more central topic of discussion generally?

Comments

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, right. I thin kthe idea of "real wealth" has changed, too. Mark Cuban has "Real wealth," but from what? Tech stocks, mostly.