Andy Rooneey Comment

Thank you helpmespock. It's nice when someone can do the translation. I think you have presented my view reasonably accurately, except that it gets more complicated with a much larger society that needs both manufacturing and service industries and you have to balance them.

Of course, I am not really an economist. You did, however, remind me about the old comment that if you ask two economists about any situation, you will get three opinions. At least.

Edit: pacomartin, I liked very much the example in your final paragraph. I did not see your post until after I initially submitted this one. As for your first paragraph, I think I would place Dell, Intel, and even Microsoft in a different category than I would finance. My terminology -- perhaps a bit dated -- would consider the first three production or manufacturing industries but would classify finance as a service industry. As I have already argued into the ground, I believe that finance generates new "wealth" when helping the manufacturing/production industries perform better and otherwise mostly is involved in the transfer of wealth. I don't feel I am maligning the finance industry. Finance was my first minor in my terminal studies.

Quote: pacomartin

That would be a very traditional view which most economists wouldn't use anymore. All of the wealthiest men in this country before WWI built there fortunes in production or transportation. Almost all of the wealthiest men now built their money in organizations or organizing principles. By which I include media, retailing and distribution of goods WALMART, or software (MICROSOFT), chips (INTEL), or computers (DELL). I would also include finance in that list.

When you say "wealthiest men" and "fortunes" you're talking about indviduals who have a lot of money -- Michael Dell, Bill Gates. That's different beast from macroeconomic wealth.

That said it's funny you mention those areas because my job is a software programmer -- I program the software that shows your radiologist your digital x-rays. I believe most macroeconomic people classify software as a service. I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but software is not strictly a good either.

Quote: pacomartin

Nowdays, of course with fiat money you just have to print it. The $100 bill is by far the most valuable export of the US economy, far exceeding airplanes (the most often cited super export of the USA). But the reality that we learned from Spain in the 15th and 16th century, that the presence of most of the money in the world meant that the society completely changed. The acquisition of money became the central occupation, and most people lost their ability to work trades. As the world broadened the country of Spain quickly went from the wealthiest nation ever known to civilization to one of the poorest ones.

There's a great series of articles at one of our national newspapers about money supply and how it affects things:

How the money in the economy is managed

While an interesting discussion, it seems to have devolved a bit into a question of definitions. I think this gets away from what ol' Andy was getting at.

Ultimately, Rooney looks at the gambling revenue in the U.S. and fears "...that people fritter away money so they don't get to spend it on things that someone else has been paid to produce....who's best for this country - a machinist at an automobile plant in Detroit or a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas?"

Ol' Andy thinks we're a bunch of idiots who can't be trusted to act in our own self-interest. While he might not be so bold as to suggest that he has a better way to spend that 30-odd billion dollars, I suspect he might be more than happy to have all those smart people in Washington take it and do what's best for us. They can plan out the best way to spend it, determine how many people we need in each job, set their pay, and decide what we need to produce.

To Rooney, the problem in Detroit isn't the cost of labor, it's that we're frittering away our money at the tables instead of buying Chevrolets.

I think Andy Rooney just likes to amuse himself, and perhaps a few others, by ranting on something that he has come across. Six months later, he might take essentially the other side of the argument and rant that direction, if he can find some amusement in it. I really doubt that he takes any of his closing comments for the show all that seriously, and it surprises me just how many people seem to have taken this latest comment so seriously. I have read what amounts to responses of outrage on multiple blogs. Perhaps someone is a bit touchy.

JUST WHO ARE YOU CALLING TOUCHY, MAC??

No doubt you're correct. Actually, this thread is the first I've seen or heard from Rooney in a while. I haven't watched 60 Minutes in a couple decades.

Quote: Calder

JUST WHO ARE YOU CALLING TOUCHY, MAC??

Love it!