4 ms·
> So what’s the total damage? The granite-countertop > craze got rolling in the late 1990s, so even using > Reis’ much lower figures, we’ve spent $12 billio
by RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
> So what’s the total damage? The granite-countertop
> craze got rolling in the late 1990s, so even using
> Reis’ much lower figures, we’ve spent $12 billion.
> There’s a pretty good argument to be made we spent
> $15 billion.
But that's money that has been put straight back into the economy. It's not as if the money were burned (and even if it were, it would just make the existing money worth more), but it's been put into circulation and created employment.
Is that bad?
- sabat 16y agoSomeone might argue that giving all that money to Halliburton and other private war profiteers does the same thing -- so war is good for the economy, right? And maybe it is -- but at least granite countertop makers presumably pay taxes (unlike our favorite govt contractors), and the money comes from consumer discretionary spending.
- cma 16y agoIf the money were burned it would be less worse, since no underlying resources would disappear. It would just be mildly deflationary. What was actually burned was resources; labor and diesel (shipping to China and back to be polished).