Update (June 11) – I’ve edited this article since the original post to clean it up for submission to other sites. The overall message and analysis are unchanged.
Nike recently published a series of ads declaring “winning takes care of everything,” in reference to Tiger Woods’s recapture of the world #1 golfer ranking. The slogan went over with certain critics like an illegal ball drop.
Many economists insist that “economic growth takes care of everything,” and the related debate is no less contentious than the Nike ad kerfuffle. Listening to some pundits, you would think there’s one group that appreciates economic growth while everyone else wants to see the economy crumble. It seems to me, though, that growth is just like winning – there’s no such thing as an anti-winning camp, nor is there an anti-growth camp.
More fairly, much of the growth debate boils down to those who think mostly about long-run sustainable growth and those who advocate damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead growth. I’ll break off one piece of this and consider: How much of everything does growth take care of?
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