But I don't think our "Wealth" is illusory given our description of "True Wealth". Because if wealth is farm land, timber land, and resources in the ground, and machine tools and computers and factories, it may be diminished but it isn't gone.
So if we think it through to the day after the collapse, we might be able to restart everything with people going back to the farms and mines and factories. Maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems the whole structure of financial wealth ie:401k's,etc. is what is being wiped out because it is based on debt as money.For example, even if GM goes bankrupt the Machine Tools and Dies and Blue Prints remain.
Wouldn't the real wealth remain to be put back to work creating new wealth for our people in what you call "restarting the economy"?
I think the US still has the world's best industrial plant, just by a much smaller margin than previously. So you're exactly right, lop the looters off the top, reining in unreasonable and unreasoning levels of environmental and employment regulation, tort exposure, and meddling from the doofus class in general, and the US could become vastly more competitive overnight.
Two caveats however. People have to be inspired, to really believe it will work, otherwise just telling them to go back to their old jobs is like implementing directive 10-289 -- decreeing by fiat that production will resume some historical level. The other issue I see is the erosion of skilled labor. The wealth may still exist, but if all the tool and die makers "die" off (or whatever flavor of people who know how to do stuff) there's going to be a heck of a learning curve akin to chimps finding a laptop.
Correct. It's back to basics.
...it seems the whole structure of financial wealth ie:401k's,etc. is what is being wiped out because it is based on debt as money.
Correct again. Likewise, our whole fiat currency system is based on debt, which has exploded out of control.
...even if GM goes bankrupt the Machine Tools and Dies and Blue Prints remain.
Correct. And what medium of exchange do we use to restart the business, pay the employees and sell the cars? The current fiat money supply is based on unsustainable debt. How do we start again? (You can see what I'm leading to.)