economicmultipliers_175

Most people consider flooding to be bad. Any time you have development, it usually is. Often, the greater percentage of affected individuals in a community become poorer.

When people consider flooding to be good, it is usually because:

• • the silts from silt-laden water settle out on lands used for agriculture while making the lands more fertile and/or

  • the flood waters allow water time to percolate into soils to recharge groundwater systems which are used for irrigation and/or water supplies and/or

  • in an ironic twist of fate, a person with good insurance ends up ‘technically’ wealthier when insured items are replaced because the new items add equity to a storm-damaged property (like the replacement of an old water heater or an old roof) and/or

  • in an ironic twist of fate, as part of the recovery process, a job becomes available (an individual benefit) or added supplies are sold (a business benefit) - (also called individual, business, local, state, national and insurance expenses).

Note the dual benefit AND expense components tied to recovery.

I need to stop writing about flooding:

• • The colleges that teachers are educated by should already have educational modules that allow their ‘in-the-field/society’ teachers to assign homework to kids that asks how the families of those children prepare(d) for forecasted storms (It’s great to get data after the fact – better to get it before and be responsive).

  • The teams that work on disaster recovery should already know what things families aren’t doing and/or don’t know how to do as a result of the homework children do so the educational process continually improves.

  • The universities, media, local, state and federal governments and the insurance companies should already be well aware of the information which needs to be routinely communicated to people of all ages as part of a practical education process tied to building, retaining and maintaining wealth in their communities.

  • Builders, contractors and architects should already be educating people (before they build new houses or other structures) on the most ‘storm-worthy’ construction techniques.

  • ‘Community harvesters’ / recyclers / municipalities should already be educating people about how to retain the value of recoverable goods after major storms and what property rights issues are relevant. (Small items are like big items if you’re unsure: If a car floated away, it would still belong to its owner.) If there is someone in a community who could gain wealth from items set curbside for collection that might only need some cleaning or rework, you really don’t want those items in a landfill: You want those items as wealth and possibly creating wealth in your community or an adjacent community.

If I don’t write about flooding:

Young people: Do you know that you should expect these things? – from your ‘leaders’ in education, in government, in the media, in business and anywhere else where you consider that people ‘lead.’ Are/were these things part of your educational process? If you’re part of ‘leadership,’ are you leading?

What I really wanted to mention was a book I recently reread: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It’s fiction (1957) and you have to ignore all the dynamics related to male/female relationships:

• • no mention is made of ‘protection’ and yet no one got pregnant or got any diseases,

  • all the adults who were the main characters seemed to lack the basics related to creating strong and worthy family and physical relationships,

  • the main female character lacked the ability to have strong intellectual relationships with highly intelligent men without physical relationships and

  • the author ‘pretended’ that it’s possible for people, industries, communities and nations to easily absorb structural and technological changes and upheavals.

Why bother reading it? For one, it’s readable.

And, if you’re never going to take a college philosophy course (AND enjoy industry and production and always seem to have ideas), this is THE book to read.

It will help you understand how and why it is so easy to totally muck systems up – especially if the original ‘muckers’ seemed to have been educated.

If you do pick up this over 1100 page book (no pictures) or get the audio of it (skip the movie if you want to really learn something), you’ll get a good snapshot of what most people would call philosophical extremes related to industry, production, social service programs, government bureaucracy, taxation, nationalization of businesses and even civil and national defense. The extremes are the things that you listen to on the news that many times don’t make sense – because it seems like people would have more common sense.

Only read it if you place it ‘in time:’

• • post Depression (for the U.S. – other parts of the world were, in relative terms, in horrible shape)

  • post WWI and WWII – all the country leaders involved were still on edge and trying to find economic models which worked for them and/or their countries – or they had countries like the U.S. trying to guide them

  • post-Korean and pre-Vietnam Wars – what was the U.S. thinking? My guess: Look at all those people we can sell things to. Buy American. Buy our goods and buy our thought processes and we’ll tell you how to run your country because even though we don’t really know you (and there’s a high probability that at least half of the people in our own country don’t normally agree with us) – we know how you should run your country. Buy American. (Note: These thoughts are not the thoughts of the author Ayn Rand, the U.S. State Department or anyone (including myself) who can clearly state what the collective messages were to all the various parts of the world during those years because so many groups had so many different and conflicting messages. It is always fair to say the U.S. wants to ‘sell’ the concept of democracy even when, as a nation, the U.S. has its own struggles with all the responsibilities that go along with it. It is accurate to say that most U.S. businesses want to be able to do business anywhere – without interference – sometimes even when making a profit seems more important than paying attention to national and global security issues.)

  • no environmental controls on discharge to surface and groundwater systems and almost no cost to businesses for waste disposal (with much – including many toxic compounds) dumped and buried just about anywhere: Today’s taxes are still paying for the pollution from goods manufactured decades and sometimes centuries ago which proves that product prices were/are too low and/or profits were/are too high.

  • almost no competition for U.S. industry

  • an overriding philosophy globally that the accumulation of wealth itself can and does cause poverty (and most likely some global sense that if the U.S. and other industrialized countries were getting wealthier, they must be creating the poverty elsewhere – which is different than recognizing that if a nation is ‘standing still’ while others are increasing their bases of wealth, that nation might not be any poorer but they certainly look a lot poorer.)

  • a lack of understanding globally of how the accumulation of the tools of production and maintenance, placed in worthy hands anywhere, can make wealth multiply – IF the labor of the individuals who create and use the tools is valued

  • the evolution of political systems which had closed many borders and limited many people’s rights (and ability to achieve).

You can’t read an abbreviated version of this book without missing a lot. If you want to agree with the author’s overriding economic philosophy on all points, it’s easy to prove that some major components were missed (the most obvious was the environmental component). If you like the main characters, ask whether they would think like they did if their own business models and investments were continually being displaced. Ask how likely they’d be to always get along as friends and business owners given their competitive natures. Ask whether they could really live in a bubble without an outside world – a world they kept popping in and out of – and whether their actions wouldn’t have had a lot of other (so how do you ignore/overcome this part/event) consequences as well.

Wars leave victims: How long would it take before ‘trust’ was fully restored among ‘neighbors?’ (My guess: 3-4 generations if other issues didn’t interfere with the restoration process). The characters also didn’t have to deal with ‘external threats’ like ‘border problems.’

If you like to vote in elections and really care about ‘leadership,’ Atlas Shrugged is a great book to read and discuss with friends as long as you remember that it is fiction, you should always question everything you read and hear (even if it’s non-fiction) and you should ask what philosophical arguments were missed. When you consider 3-4 generations to reestablish ‘trust’ (a 55-100 year process), figuring out ways to exist where everyone benefits and for good reasons can be a challenging but worthy task.

'Leaders' have about the same amount of time in their day as everyone else: Sometimes the only difference is in how they spend it. Sometimes the difference is that they can see a lot farther than the person who is standing right beside them.