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Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
You missed the point. Bill Gates didn't sit in his basement, make something, release it into the world like a dove, and have a cheque signed "Bill Gates's Idea Factory" worth billions magically appear in his mailbox the next day.
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People like Bill Gates, did what they did because they had a passion for it. These guys wrote code for fun. Then they found that it had value to others. There was no market for the code, IBM did not even recognize the potential of the PC. The power of the PC was released into the world like a dove, there then was a marriage of the dream and practical real world productive/useful application. There were/are two sides to this marriage, both sides participate creating synergy. Bill's synergy interfaces with perhaps billions of users. My synergy interfaces with but a few, hence I am not "Bill Gates".
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The money had to come from somewhere. Wealth just doesn't appear out of nowhere; it's generated.
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Now we are actually getting metaphysical. Wealth, IMHO, is created from nothing. When I refer to major standard of living improvements of man, those points in history are actual points where "wealth" or living standards take a measurable leap. There was no money involved, when man developed farming technologies that moved man from hunting/gathering to an agrarian lifestyle and the riches that flowed from that change. It was a knowledge or an idea based change, and a few had the courage to try and make it work.
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Tell me, how much wealth is created during a recession compared to an expansion? More? Less? About the same?
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Outside of the normal business cycle, productivity gains are the key to real economic growth. People in an economy have to be able to do more with what they have - there is no other way for an economy to have real growth. Nominal growth is entirely different, and we know government can temporarily inflate economic activity - but it is not lasting. Lasting and real economic growth comes from productivity gains.