economicmultipliers_78

Economic Multipliers (78)

Do you know what these are?

They help CREATE wealth in systems.

Wars rarely create economic multipliers, even for the nations that like to sell weapons.

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I’ve never read any of Machiavelli’s works. There is no significance in that fact. I never have enough time to read the books that I pursue.

What’s odd is that I have the impression (probably based on comments that I read years ago) that Machiavelli thought that human beings were destined to ‘mess things up.’ I have the impression that his work does not focus on building societies whereby when a person does well for himself, he can also do well for society. (See P.S.)

I don’t have time to read Machiavelli’s works and that means one of his quotes, found at the end of the movie: ‘Home of the Brave,’ could be totally out of context:

‘Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.’

‘Home of the Brave’ is about Americans returning from the Middle East and the difficulties they have adjusting to life back in the United States.

I don’t like to see Americans or any country go to war. In any region in the world, money and resources spent on destruction is not money and resources spent on infrastructure and goods and services which improve the lives of everyone in the region.

Unfortunately, sometimes wars start because money that should be used to improve the lives of everyone in a region is ‘siphoned off’ or individuals in countries forget that if ‘laws’ are selectively applied or people’s rights are not protected, large groups of people will ultimately see a need to ‘remedy’ the ‘problems.’

War never guarantees that any of the problems will be fixed: They could actually get worse. Wars are initially just a statement that something has gone horribly wrong.

Whether I have Machiavelli’s quote in context or not, he was right: Wars are easy to start and hard to end.

The counter to this is society building can be hard to start and easy to end (just start a war).

I think (without knowing for sure) that I sometimes see more potential in people and nations than they see in themselves.

But I never see that potential in the midst of conflict.

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P.S. In the United States, when individuals are young and doing well for themselves, doing well for society is most often manifest through hopefully reasonable taxes and fees which are supposed to be used to help build and maintain infrastructure and social support systems. And many times, when people are older, doing well for society is manifest through inheritance taxes and ‘gifts’ to charitable organizations.

The key of course in all of this is that individuals have the opportunity to ‘do well for themselves’ in the context of ‘doing well for society.’ That is how nations build wealth.

And, if anyone ever tells you that ‘trickle down economics’ works, tell them that you’re glad that they support taxing people who have and have had the opportunity to do well so infrastructure and social support systems can be continually built and maintained.

That’s not what they will mean but it is the one single proven way to build societal wealth that supports the creation and maintenance of individual wealth (as long as, of course, the individuals who are spending the tax money are ‘responsible’).

I myself hope that MANY, MANY young people get interested in how technology can change probabilities and help reduce expenses in areas where there are a lot of negative economic multipliers while learning about how their communities can use any available tax dollars to build their community’s bases of wealth.

You only need to turn 18 to become the next generation of ‘adults.’

An hour or two every week learning how to turn all that ‘texting’ into a ‘force’ for ‘responsible’ spending and change could change the future of the world you will come to live in … a future that you yourself should be helping choose.