The recent video segment “Breaking the piggy bank (again),” on CNN’s business news program The Buzz, discusses American spending and saving habits during the (post-)recession. The underlying question of this brief program is whether the decrease of American saving habits is indicative of economic recovery or of our inability to mind recent economic realities. At one point during the segment, however, the host reads the following quotation by Alex Macha: “The wealth of a nation is provided not by its savings, credit, amount of money in circulation, or ability to print money; but instead, by the nation’s production capacity... Identify the cause of the de-industrialization of the US during the 1970s, 1980s, 2000s to find the cause of our problems we find ourselves in today.”
Macha’s assessment is one of Adam Smith’s most resounding dicta. Macha surely swiped this sentiment from Smith
. Likewise, however, to give Smith credit for this idea would also be inappropriate. The notion that the wealth of a nation has nothing to do with the nation’s monetary capacity became popularized during the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries because of Spain’s “backward” economic relationship with its American territories. And I would caution against Macha's overly simplified and (perhaps) antiquated assessment.
. Likewise, however, to give Smith credit for this idea would also be inappropriate. The notion that the wealth of a nation has nothing to do with the nation’s monetary capacity became popularized during the seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries because of Spain’s “backward” economic relationship with its American territories. And I would caution against Macha's overly simplified and (perhaps) antiquated assessment.As you may or may not know, I have been researching how Spanish society perceived Spain to be in decline and backward during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Like then, many today perceive Spain’s current economy to be “backward.” But unlike the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of course, we have reliable measures and statistics to back these claims up. So it will be very interesting for me to study/research in Spain during this time of continuing economic turbulence. In particular, I’ll be interested in seeing what BBC’s “PIGS” survey yields (PIGS is an flattering acronym for the eurozone countries with continuing economic woes: Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain).
ne plus ultra
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