Indian kid describes America

[molly bloom]

Surprise, molly doesn't understand the concept of "value added".

Oh dearie me. Where was the United States finding the lumber, the iron ore, the copper, the coal, et cetera ?


Lumber from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, Washington, Oregon and California.

Minerals from the Rocky Mountains, coal from the coalfields of West Virgina and Pennsylvania.

The big new corporations from the late 1860s based their structures on the first major public bureaucracy in the Union- the United States Army. The same army which had made effective use of the railroads to defeat the South.

So people like Gustavus Swift became rich using railroads made with U.S. steel and U.S. lumber to send his produce to the rapidly expanding cities of the East Coast.

Similarly with Charles Pillsbury in grain, Henry Havemeyer in sugar (not just used in alcohol manufacture and candies, but also added to cigarettes) and naturally Frederick Weyerhauser the lumber king.

Same with Frick in coke/coal, Carnegie in steel...

[dannubis]

Causality doesn't seem to run deep in Kucifamily

[Hauldren Collider]

The value of those natural resources is very small until someone actually turns them into a product. Where the resources come from is therefore not particularly important. But of course that goes right over your head, or you are just going to selectively quote me in order to conjure very detailed but ultimately irrelevant historical trivia.

xpost

[kentonio]

Not sure if serious..

[rah]

Yes, is he trying to say that to all those Middle East countries that all their oil is unimportant to them.

[Hauldren Collider]

What's more valuable, a car or a hunk of metal that will become a car? Come on people, this is simple...

[Hauldren Collider]

Yes, is he trying to say that to all those Middle East countries that all their oil is unimportant to them.

I challenge you to understand the difference between that and molly bloom's examples. There is one, and it's obvious.

[dannubis]

Yes, that is why companies like vale are posting massive profit margins while companies like ArcelorMittal or Ford barely get by...

[Hauldren Collider]

Why are they making cars if it doesn't add any value to the metal?

You guys are being very stupid.

[rah]

I challenge you to understand the difference between that and molly bloom's examples. There is one, and it's obvious.

And I challenge you to understand how that much money has to have an impact on a country's economy.

[dannubis]

Why are they making cars if it doesn't add any value to the metal?

You guys are being very stupid.

It is not where currently the most value is generated.

And besides, your entire reply is besides the point. The US is so high on the development curve because at one point in time they had access to cheap resources to have their economy / population / internal market expand the way it did.

[MRT144]

Why are they making cars if it doesn't add any value to the metal?

You guys are being very stupid.

The way you phrased this, it makes it sound like there isn't a profit motive, rather, they're making cars because they have desire to add value to the metal.

[Felch]

There is a profit motive. You earn profits by adding value. HC's point is that Norway is benefiting from a temporary windfall from a specific limited resource. Its GDP is inflated by the North Sea fields. I've shown the export treemap that confirms this (oil and gas make a majority of Norway's exports). America has a much more diversified economy, which benefits from resource extraction, but is predominantly manufacturing.

[kentonio]

There is a profit motive. You earn profits by adding value. HC's point is that Norway is benefiting from a temporary windfall from a specific limited resource. Its GDP is inflated by the North Sea fields. I've shown the export treemap that confirms this (oil and gas make a majority of Norway's exports). America has a much more diversified economy, which benefits from resource extraction, but is predominantly manufacturing.

Norway actually utterly destroys HC's argument, although I suspect he hasn't noticed yet. The Norwegians are taking most of that oil money and investing it in a future where they will not have such easy access to oil, thus ensuring they can continue to maintain the kind of society they have now once the flood of oil isn't there any more.

[Imran Siddiqui]

America has a much more diversified economy, which benefits from resource extraction, but is predominantly manufacturing.

I'd argue that if the argument started like this we wouldn't have had pages of back and forth. Of course, a little bit of nuance goes a long way - HC doesn't have any, but you do.