These studies are perverse, "historical judgement" and logic(!?) notwithstanding. It's not just economists who think like this. The same cold-blooded calculations have been used for centuries by oppressors when planning to exterminate people to steal their land and resources. The of use of graphs and spreadsheets just makes it all seem more logical.
Classifying the survivors of a holocaust by their occupations may have given Truppner the data he needed to create his report, but it reeks of survivalist capitalism. His assumption is that if enough (capital) property and people (workers) can survive the blast then the local economy will reemerge; and maybe wealthier than before!
Why look for one's profession in Truppner's lists? You really think there will be an immediate need for professors (you) or graphic designers (me) in the aftermath? You and Truppner don't consider that besides the physical losses in some categories there will be exponential increases in others. I did a search of his report and found no data for scavengers and gravediggers; however, there was a listing for "Engravers ... ." LOL
Finally, a modest proposal: workers who do "not have transferable skills" may be useful as a food source.
Truppner is talking about economic value, not subjective value. That is, what is something worth, in exchange. But he also errors by looking at real estate selling price rather than land rental value. Yet he does get it perfectly correct that the value of land - its economic rent, is the best measure of the state of an economy in that time and place. It matters little, economically, about anything else if you are trying to measure its value...economically.
Of course there are other values to be considered. But which ones in this scenario will be considered first? It will be the ones that can get you the most water, food and shelter and a stock of reserves for the future. That, is how all people will be thinking and acting will it not? And that value is measured in RENT. Just as it is today in peacetime.
I concur with you that relying on a professor of economics is a mugs game. They are always and always will be devoted to their 'Lord' feeding them and maintaining their incomes in rent. And this might be why Truppner has 'accidentally' forgotten about the one thing all economists agree on - rent. Because its an embarrassingly selfish activity for all people in times of peace and war equally.
So it is not the "properties" that matter post burst. It is the land rental value. As it always has been in the past, as it will be after the bang and as it always will be, forever.
The term 'wealth' also raises its head and as usual prior to anyone defining what they mean by the term. And then going onto to use the identical term with different meanings within the next few sentences. People think this is not important. But are we trying to decide what is actually happening or not?
When he state "we must protect property" surely he means we must increase its value as soon a possible. This is not greed. It is because that is how people recover the most quickly. Speaking sentimentally about greed will soon seen you shot dead post nuclear attack. This is not nice I agree. It will happen.
Its hard to consider the possibility that whatever happens, RENT IS ALL. Even Mr. Musk is not that bothered about data centres in space. He wants the rent from those operating the centres - his tenants. I reckon. Maybe I'm being too harsh on the man. Many are way too harsh on him already, especially the rent seekers themselves. But do you remember how rail expanded out west in the young United States and those who owned a piece of desert one day next to the stop, where millionaires the next? And look to the chattel slaves in the southern states - were they better off as slaves in the cotton fields or tenants with their freedom? Harsh, yet true. I digress.
It is not "a horrifying" analysis. It is how things happen today during peace time. Te same will happen after a bomb. Only the scale of it changes.
This is an interesting post. Because it talks again about how all people are again trying to cover up their complicity in the kind of activity - that might lead indirectly but with great force, to nuclear war. But will never confess to it for obvious reason in the eyes of society.
Having lived in Houston from 1982-1986 and after escaping to Cleveland, again from 1999 to the present, this post gave me a good chuckle. I worry a lot more about living through the aftermath of a Class 5 hurricane than a nuclear attack. In either case, protection would be nonexistent to those who cannot evacuate the city. Bomb shelters? People in Houston do not even have basements in our clay-soiled, flood-prone area. As I said in a post last year, I would prefer to be at ground zero if a nuclear weapon struck—a view that I know Dr. Wellerstein finds misguided, but I think a post-apocalyptic Houston in 2026 would be even more unbearable than the historic version! Think of the tender mercy Governor Abbott would show for one of the blue islands of Texas. He might even applaud its incineration. One more comment: Some economists have very practical evaluations of the future. I would love to see Paul Krugman tackle a vision of the USA after a limited nuclear war.
It reminds me of something I once heard, along the lines of "even just the cost of a full-scale nuclear ALERT would be economically devastating, what with all the work stoppages, evacuations, supply chain disruptions et cetera, even if there wasn't a single actual nuclear explosion." The disruptions and cost caused by a test alarm / response drill exercise or some such. It might have been in the context of Peter Watkins' "The War Game", possibly in a trailer for that film.
This echoes in my mind some contemporary talk about the most apocalyptic impacts of AI: the Altmans and Musks, but also the larger financial actors, talking about the economic impact of AI "making everybody obsolete."
I don't claim that's at a plausible scenario and there are in some senses they are opposite concepts --the "AI apocalypse" is semi-religious imagery for many of them, a nuclear war is a terrifyingly realizable proposition; Heinlein Libertarians and DC think tanks have different mindsets -- but there's something about the dissonance of such an event being framed in mundane economic minutiae ("what should the tax regime on capital gains be after we've built an artificial demigod?") that made me think of the latter while reading this (of course, it's also SpaceX IPO week, so that's probably in my head in one way or another).
These studies are perverse, "historical judgement" and logic(!?) notwithstanding. It's not just economists who think like this. The same cold-blooded calculations have been used for centuries by oppressors when planning to exterminate people to steal their land and resources. The of use of graphs and spreadsheets just makes it all seem more logical.
Classifying the survivors of a holocaust by their occupations may have given Truppner the data he needed to create his report, but it reeks of survivalist capitalism. His assumption is that if enough (capital) property and people (workers) can survive the blast then the local economy will reemerge; and maybe wealthier than before!
Why look for one's profession in Truppner's lists? You really think there will be an immediate need for professors (you) or graphic designers (me) in the aftermath? You and Truppner don't consider that besides the physical losses in some categories there will be exponential increases in others. I did a search of his report and found no data for scavengers and gravediggers; however, there was a listing for "Engravers ... ." LOL
Finally, a modest proposal: workers who do "not have transferable skills" may be useful as a food source.
Truppner is talking about economic value, not subjective value. That is, what is something worth, in exchange. But he also errors by looking at real estate selling price rather than land rental value. Yet he does get it perfectly correct that the value of land - its economic rent, is the best measure of the state of an economy in that time and place. It matters little, economically, about anything else if you are trying to measure its value...economically.
Of course there are other values to be considered. But which ones in this scenario will be considered first? It will be the ones that can get you the most water, food and shelter and a stock of reserves for the future. That, is how all people will be thinking and acting will it not? And that value is measured in RENT. Just as it is today in peacetime.
I concur with you that relying on a professor of economics is a mugs game. They are always and always will be devoted to their 'Lord' feeding them and maintaining their incomes in rent. And this might be why Truppner has 'accidentally' forgotten about the one thing all economists agree on - rent. Because its an embarrassingly selfish activity for all people in times of peace and war equally.
So it is not the "properties" that matter post burst. It is the land rental value. As it always has been in the past, as it will be after the bang and as it always will be, forever.
The term 'wealth' also raises its head and as usual prior to anyone defining what they mean by the term. And then going onto to use the identical term with different meanings within the next few sentences. People think this is not important. But are we trying to decide what is actually happening or not?
When he state "we must protect property" surely he means we must increase its value as soon a possible. This is not greed. It is because that is how people recover the most quickly. Speaking sentimentally about greed will soon seen you shot dead post nuclear attack. This is not nice I agree. It will happen.
Its hard to consider the possibility that whatever happens, RENT IS ALL. Even Mr. Musk is not that bothered about data centres in space. He wants the rent from those operating the centres - his tenants. I reckon. Maybe I'm being too harsh on the man. Many are way too harsh on him already, especially the rent seekers themselves. But do you remember how rail expanded out west in the young United States and those who owned a piece of desert one day next to the stop, where millionaires the next? And look to the chattel slaves in the southern states - were they better off as slaves in the cotton fields or tenants with their freedom? Harsh, yet true. I digress.
It is not "a horrifying" analysis. It is how things happen today during peace time. Te same will happen after a bomb. Only the scale of it changes.
This is an interesting post. Because it talks again about how all people are again trying to cover up their complicity in the kind of activity - that might lead indirectly but with great force, to nuclear war. But will never confess to it for obvious reason in the eyes of society.
Having lived in Houston from 1982-1986 and after escaping to Cleveland, again from 1999 to the present, this post gave me a good chuckle. I worry a lot more about living through the aftermath of a Class 5 hurricane than a nuclear attack. In either case, protection would be nonexistent to those who cannot evacuate the city. Bomb shelters? People in Houston do not even have basements in our clay-soiled, flood-prone area. As I said in a post last year, I would prefer to be at ground zero if a nuclear weapon struck—a view that I know Dr. Wellerstein finds misguided, but I think a post-apocalyptic Houston in 2026 would be even more unbearable than the historic version! Think of the tender mercy Governor Abbott would show for one of the blue islands of Texas. He might even applaud its incineration. One more comment: Some economists have very practical evaluations of the future. I would love to see Paul Krugman tackle a vision of the USA after a limited nuclear war.
It reminds me of something I once heard, along the lines of "even just the cost of a full-scale nuclear ALERT would be economically devastating, what with all the work stoppages, evacuations, supply chain disruptions et cetera, even if there wasn't a single actual nuclear explosion." The disruptions and cost caused by a test alarm / response drill exercise or some such. It might have been in the context of Peter Watkins' "The War Game", possibly in a trailer for that film.
This echoes in my mind some contemporary talk about the most apocalyptic impacts of AI: the Altmans and Musks, but also the larger financial actors, talking about the economic impact of AI "making everybody obsolete."
I don't claim that's at a plausible scenario and there are in some senses they are opposite concepts --the "AI apocalypse" is semi-religious imagery for many of them, a nuclear war is a terrifyingly realizable proposition; Heinlein Libertarians and DC think tanks have different mindsets -- but there's something about the dissonance of such an event being framed in mundane economic minutiae ("what should the tax regime on capital gains be after we've built an artificial demigod?") that made me think of the latter while reading this (of course, it's also SpaceX IPO week, so that's probably in my head in one way or another).
Also their was this that I posted in a game folder on Nuclear War called First Strike
https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html
There was a boardgame put out by SPI on this very subject back in the 70s. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5475/after-the-holocaust-the-nuclear-devastation-of-ame
The best board game of all was the one which told you directly how every economy works from the root - Monopoly.