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The US economy expanded from subsistence farming to superpower mostly because of high quality coal and oil reserves, an excellent river transport network, and e
by maoistinquisitr 9y ago
The US economy expanded from subsistence farming to superpower mostly because of high quality coal and oil reserves, an excellent river transport network, and excellent topsoil. Ideas about monetary policy don't figure. Might as well wonder about the monetary policies of the Mongols.
- WalterBright 9y agoThe rivers weren't remotely good enough, which is why the Erie Canal was dug. For the first 70 years, commerce east to west had to go around the horn of S. America, and the economy still boomed. The explosion of the railroad system solved those problems, but that was around 1870. Massive oil, gas and coal reserves are hardly unique to America. Oil, for example, has made Saudi Arabia very wealthy, but not an economic powerhouse.
- maoistinquisitr 9y agoThe canals and rails are the expected endogenous result of a unified european or east asian people blessed with such land, after being formed by a thousand years of scarcity and warfare. It's not a monetary policy or tax thing. These people just don't get that civilization is energy flows and culture, not laissez-faire economic policies.
- WalterBright 9y agoWhy didn't it happen in S. America, Central America, Africa, etc.? The only consistent pattern distinguishing prosperity from poverty is free markets. Anyhow, my point was fiat money was not a necessary condition for such prosperity.