Dragon
Senior Member
- Sep 16, 2011
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No.
Good grief.
The united states economy is a huge and highly complex animal. Trying to relate one variable to an observation is not possible. In economics, the one phrase you read in text books all the time is "...all else being constant". Some that is never the case in real life. During those four decades we have wars and shifts in social norms that need to be factored in as well as advances in technology and the impact of emerging markets (other countries).
So even repeated cycles (and in Phoenix....it happens every summer so it does happen time and time again) does not prove a thing.
If you're going to reject all empirical validation of your claims, then all you are doing is making doctrine-based statements similar to those of a religious believer with no factual basis whatsoever.
Are you prepared to admit this?
Also, the reason why the American experiment is useful here is because of the long time frames involved. As you say, over those four decades we have had (in every period) many changes, with the only significant constants being the widening and narrowing of income gaps (together with the government policies that brought this about). All of those other possible factors, therefore, cancel out.
In addition, I offered the international evidence from the present time as confirming evidence, so we are not dependent on what happened in U.S. economic history.
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