growth: De Long view

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:16 AM 9/9/99 -0400, Tom Lehman wrote:
>Brad, this is all fun to speculate about.  For example, most if not all
>consider the Roman road system to be the best road system in Europe in 1700
>AD.  A capital investment made by the Romans in let's say 200 AD was still
>paying dividends 1500 years later even though the government responsible for
>the building of the road had collapsed 1200 years earlier. We could also
>consider Roman water works, sewage systems, bridges etc. etc.  I kind of like
>Lester Thurow's whole take on this even though he fluffs it off on William
>Manchester.

To complicate things even further, what was the "market value" of the
Egyptian pyramids when they were built?    Or the splinters from the "holy
cross" traded in the middle ages -- which had one thing in common with
today's stock market: their volume greatly exceeded the material base that
produced them?  How do you value professional services provided by
Pythagoras, Copernicus, Columbus or Magellan?  What was the value of gold
stolen from native Americans?  

wojtek


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