[Marxism] 45 percent of world's wealth destroyed: Blackstone CEO

[Charles Brown]

__
    * From: "Joaquin Bustelo"  
    

We are referred to the following article: 

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity company 
Blackstone Group LP (BX.N) CEO
Stephen Schwarzman said on Tuesday that up to 
45 percent of the world's
wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis.

"'Between 40 and 45 percent of the world's 
wealth has been destroyed in
little less than a year and a half,' 
Schwarzman told an audience at the
Japan Society. 'This is absolutely 
unprecedented in our lifetime.' 

Back when Jerry Ford was president,
 there was a Herblock (I think!) cartoon,
that had various people coming into the 
oval office with the caption "Send
in the Clowns" and the label, economic 
advisers.

This article reminded me of that cartoon.

NO percent of the world's wealth has 
been destroyed by the current "crisis."


Hundreds of oil wells did not disappear not 
were thousands of factories
devastated by saturation bombing.

The ONLY thing that has been affected is the 
capacity of capitalists to set
productive resources into motion in such a
 way as to give them average or
greater profits. But even more: the only thing
 that has been affected is the
confidence of the capitalists that they can 
set productive resources into
motion in the economy in such a way as to 
give them average or better
profits.




^^^^^^^^^^^^
Marx writes:
"To the extent that the depreciation or increase in value of this 
 paper is independent of the movement of value of the actual 
capital that it represents, the wealth of the nation is just as 
great before as after its depreciation or increase in value.
" 'The public stocks and canal and railway shares had 
already by the 23rd of October, 1847, been depreciated 
in the aggregate to the amount of £114,752,225."
 (Morris, Governor of the Bank of England, testimony in 
the Report on Commercial Distress, 1847-48 [No. 3800].)'
"Unless this depreciation reflected an actual stoppage of 
production and of traffic on canals and railways, or a suspension
 of already initiated enterprises, or squandering capital in 
positively worthless ventures, the nation did not grow one cent poorer 
by the bursting of this soap bubble of nominal money-capital."
(Marx, Karl (1894), Capital, volume III, chapter 29,)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictitious_capital