jSpeaking of trivial activity, let's not forget that advertising
extracts a half trillion dollars from the economy per year and
has negligble value to the citizens.  It is of course the frantic
effort to overcome the endemic over consumption of the capitalist
system.
wcmwq
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> > On page 112 of _World Orders Old And New_ , Chomsky devotes a paragraph to
> > mention of frivolous economic activity. There is one sentence about mergers
> > which is not preceded or followed by another on the same topic. "A National
> > Science Foundation study at the peak of the [merger] mania estimated that
> > R&D expenditures declined by 5 percent for companies involved in mergers
> > and acquisitions compared to a 5 percent rise for others." What is he
> > saying here? Whatever it is, he's got it wrong. How much R&D should it take
> > to figure out how to build more and cheaper widgets? Is he a sudden tech
> > booster looking for an invite to Silicon Valley?
> > The usual cover story in favor of mergers is that the surviving company
> > will experience greater economies of scale and that redundancies can be
> > eliminated. If two similar companies merge, they should be able to
> > completely eliminate one R&D effort resulting in a fifty percent reduction
> > of R&D not five percent. In real life, the buying company is often paying
> > in inflated stock rather than in cash and the bought out company's managers
> > will bail with bonuses and severance packages in real money.
> > The section reads as though it were written by a committee with
> > fear-mongering in mind. I'm most unclear about what it is to be afraid of:
> > black helicopters, Jewish bankers, the eye at the top of the pyramid?
>
> Good point. I have had similar problems with other of Chomsky's stats. While
> they are almost invariably factually correct, he seems to take the logical
> inference from them to be so self-evident as to need no extended argument.
> As a reader not automatically given to accepting his conclusions I find
> myself thinking, "And the problem with this is....what?" If this thread
> continues in a useful direction I'll cite specific cases.
> >
> > Interestingly, this ties in with additional list messages re:
> > http://www.msnbc.com/news/326578.asp
> > It's done with mirrors. None of it is real. The DoD remains a very big
> > piece of the U.S. economy. After the forced de-industrialization and
> > colonization of competing economies, the U.S. is busily de-industrializing
> > itself. This has not gone unnoticed by economists who work in public policy.
> I'm not sure I follow you here. Please elaborate.
>