On 8/31/2010 1:15 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
> Thanks for posting this, Julio. Did you see the extract from Carlo
> Vercellone that I posted here yesterday,
> <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20100830/011349.html>?
> I think what you are getting at here is what Vercellone calls "a model
> of profit without capital accumulation." I think.
>
> If it is, my next question is, what does it mean to have profit
> without accumulation? That is, what does it mean for the future?
>
But before we get into that, let's do our part to restore the sacred bond between words and things.
Since the economy stopped contracting in 2009Q3, "accumulation" - investment in equipment and software - has been rising at a 16% annual rate. So there doesn't actually seem to be any profit without accumulation.
Since I'm trying to meet the demanding standards of rigor exhibited by the excerpt you posted, I even looked at how many dollars of investment went into each dollar of profit by decade since the 1930s:
$Investment/$Profits 1930s $ 0.90 1940s $ 0.42 1950s $ 0.53 1960s $ 0.58 1970s $ 0.84 1980s $ 1.02 1990s $ 0.90 2000s $ 0.82
It seems like the era of profits without investment was the Golden Age.
Now: What does it all mean?
SA