Nobel Prize Economist says war is bad for the economy
 

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/interna ... 10,00.html

Guy worked at the IMF as well, so don't say his word has no merit..he wrote one of my favorite books on globalization to.

yeah, I read something he wrote for my global politics class...end he is highly regarded, but just cause one highly regarded guy says something doesn't mean he's gauranteed to be right. It doesn't mean you can't argue with what he says.

Re: Nobel Prize Economist says war is bad for the economy
 

[quote="Corky Thatcher":38c58]No fuckin' shit, I'm retarded and I could have told you that. [/quote:38c58]

Money that could be spent elsewhere is instead spent on troops and supplies. In some extreme cases it could make an item scarce, therefore driving up the price.

I love how this is supposed to be some huge revelation

i could see how its bad for the nation getting its shit pushed in, and i can see how a limited war like Iraq can be bad for the economy. but werent total wars like WW1 and WW2 good for the US?

Re: Nobel Prize Economist says war is bad for the economy
 

[quote=Nyck]Money that could be spent elsewhere is instead spent on troops and supplies. In some extreme cases it could make an item scarce, therefore driving up the price.

I love how this is supposed to be some huge revelation[/quote:7cade]I know what you mean, but some people still find the old argument that war is good for the economy therefore justifying a good cause..Not like I read this piece and was like "I never knew that" oOo:

Also c312, I want to hear you rebuttal his arguments. happy:

common misconception.

more stuff was being spent on tanks and supplies, than automobiles, home gadgets and businesses

No, I won't offer a rebuttal because I think he's right in this case, but we've seen wars do good things for economies in the past. I think a limited war such as the one we are currently engaged in, without having manufacturing going to any extraordinary length can't be good for the economy.

Also, I agree with Stiglitz about his views on loan corporations and indebted countries to a point, he does have some good stuff to say.

During those wars, goverment were asking people to conserve, and they weren't spending as much. What was it War Bonds/US Bonds ... I forget what it was, but whatever it was was an investment for the war effort.

wtf, me and you agree on something? ed:

even if its "to a point"...better than nothing.

yeah, well I read an article he wrote about how the loan orgs are making it harder for indebted countries to get out of debt because their loans came with conditions that profited the loan orgs. I don't like that, I think they should give loans at very, very low interest rates, especially if they are loan orgs specifically designed to releive debt, the high interest rates make it impossible to help anyone.

Most third world countries have paid the debts off already..its just the interest is killing them. I read somewhere that some countries have paid the debts over 2 times already, just that the interest is killer.

well they may have paid their initial debts off, but often times they end up just taking out new loans to pay off the interest on their old loans, that's how they get stuck in debt, they constantly borrow to pay off what they borrow...

Yeah plus all the programs the IMF, WB institute upon them. Such as the SAP program.

Third world countries get fucked around by the central banks, UN and other agencies. They'll never pay off their debts.

What's the SAP program?

I know they place a lot of conditions on the loans, but I think some of them are necessary, you can't just give money to countries with no assurance that they won't spend it on building unnecessary monuments or two capitals like they did in Coute D'Ivoire (i think, it might have been somewhere else, but my point still stands)

TGB...where the fuck is that steaming pile of crap on this one....

SAP - Structural adjustment program.

I'll give you my favorite example. In Bolivia, the IMF basically said to the leaders.."privatize the economy"..what that means is privatizing transportation, water, electricity and other sectors of that nature. Now when that happens, the corporations buy these utilities and strictly enforce the rules. In Boliva they privatized the water sector. People couldn't afford it, so the corporation (forgot the name) shut off the water to the people who couldn't pay for it. Then it was a pandemic basically, no one had water because it was so expensive. What ended up happening in Bolivia was the government had to buy the water sector back from the corporation...making the country go further into debt. Not only did the government have to pay for the company but also the money people owed to that corporation.

That's only one example. There are many more.

yeah, but I think the main reason they try to privatize industries is because that method worked in developing countries in Asia, for some reason. they were able to grow when they had open markets, but in Africa and South America, the same method hasn't worked very well.

Indeed, why they need to throw the program out.

or just find out why it isn't working in this case and fix that problem, either way, they need to fix it.