Hi everyone. Sorry I'm a day late with this. I sat down to write yesterday and the power went out. With no power there was only one thing to do, go on power saving mode myself. Great nap.
Where does the wealth of a nation come from. There are many things that can make a nation wealthy and the top one is natural resources. This can be anything from mining to agriculture. What a nation does with these national resources is what determines wealth for the country.
What if a nation has little or no natural resources? There is a country like that, Japan. A small island country with almost nothing became an economic powerhouse. How? They were driven. The Japanese, after they were dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world, used their culture to not only catch up with innovation to the rest of the world, but surpass it. The island of Japan recycled long before it became a noteworthy thing to do. No metal, no problem. They took in the scrap of the world and learned how to make it into plowshares and guns. This is an oversimplification, but the basics are here.
What about a nation that has resources. Say a nation loaded with oil and farmland. Just because there is an abundance of resources does not mean the nation will be wealthy. The resources must allowed to be used and enter the economy. Example, Venezuela. They have some of the largest, most accessible deposits of oil in the world, yet the people of Venezuela are starving to death instead of living a life free of starvation. They have everything, but the wealth must be spread around so everyone gets some. This drives the internal economy.
The United States went though growing pains like this too. In the age of the robber barons. (I use robber barons. Others use captains of industry. As I look at history and how their people were treated and how they treated the nation, robber barons fits better.) All the wealth was concentrated into few hands, sound familiar? Who was one of the pioneers that changed everything? Henry Ford. Ford decided that if he paid his people well they would buy cars. If they bought cars, he made more money. Employees were happier, moral at his factories was light years ahead of other factories were men from the Pinkertons National Detective Agency were hired to keep order and stop strikes. Wow, what would have happened if instead of hiring Pinkertons to keep order, this could not have been cheap, they just gave the money to the employees?
Once money started flowing into the hands of the people instead of just the rich, a massive middle class developed and drive the living standard of the country. So, do we go after the rich? No. We need to look out for our own interests, but the rich have the wherewithal to start new business that would be out of reach for the middle class especially if it requires an infusion of money to do research.
Conclusion: Where is the wealth of a nation? It is in its natural resources. A nation's resources is in it's land and in it's people's innovation and creativity.
Thanks for reading.