Peeling the Onion: What

…I


We might look at the boom and bust cycle of our economy, and indeed, the world economy, as one moved not just by energy, but by new workers (who then conveniently become new consumers and create new markets – remember, 70% of the economy is consumer spending). Each boom cycle has followed the move of vast numbers of new workers into the economy, essentially creating more money in the form of productivity, and more income to spread around and lubrication to the economic system.

So, for example, after the Great Depression, we got the country moving in large part by the industrialization of a large portion of the agricultural population – millions of farmers were brought into the industrial economy either to serve in the service or work in the factories. After the war, many of them never returned to the farms – and the GI bill and the conversion of wartime industry to peacetime industry encouraged lower income farmers to go to work. The movement of people employed largely in the subsistence economy into the industrial economy created a huge boost – poor black farmers in the South moved to industrial centers in vast numbers to take advantage of good wages, and low income women who had worked in the factories never did return to pre-war levels of women