Barks, Scrooge and economy (WDC 144)

[Niels Houlberg Hansen]

Daniël wrote:
>There's a Barks 1950s ten-pager about Scrooge spending money to get rid
>of it (WDC 144), a plan that fails because Scrooge unconsciously spends
>it to his own factories and businesses, so that he gets almost the same
>big surplus of money at the end.
>Would this model work that way in real life, or did Barks use a huge
>artistic liberty to tell the story? If one would spend money at his/her
>own business, then a lot of money would be spend in the costs of the
>production, wouldn't it? Then how can Scrooge get almost the same money
>at the end?

If Scrooge owns the car factories and restaurants, he probably also owns the
businesses that supply them - and their suppliers etc. etc. And when
Scrooge's employees spend their (meagre) wages, they buy McDuck cars and eat
at McDuck restaurants.
In theory the story would work for a closed economy (i.e. few imports) where
the consumers have a very low savings rate (i.e. they spend all their money)
and where one producer (=Scrooge) dominates the market (i.e. supplies
consumers with most of the goods they demand). So maybe if the US economy
was like that in the 1950s....

Kind regards
Niels