Here's a translation (via google translator) of Dario's post at his website.

The economy of bread-and-sausage
I understand economics and finance, we understand less than Beppe Fiorello acting, so I think 'I'm going to end post' judged to be very naive to those who never read it.
But 'in the formal ingenuity' reasoning seems to me simple and straightforward. Tell me where I'm wrong!
(Darius leans a little 'head right and raises his eyebrows in a dazed tone, then interlace the fingers and snaps to prepare for an intense key strokes)

If Italy wants to survive - they say - we must ensure that the economy will start growing again. In general, economic growth and 'fundamental prerequisite for the proper functioning of the system in which we live.

Mah .. I say that the economy can not 'grow.

I do not know which is the indicator that measures the growth or decline of the economy, but I feel like saying that if I produce today and tomorrow produce X Y> X, generating more wealth, then I can say that between now and tomorrow's economy and 'grown. And vice versa.

Now the lighthouse 'a huge number of simplifications to make a simple example, and then I'll try' to extend the scenario.

So.
(Dario is back to work, assuming a blatant agrotta the concentrated expression of the face).

Suppose you live in a country where everything that is consumed is produced and produces everything that is consumed. In that country there are no imports it 'exports.
Suppose to be Beings (Dario wrinkles his nose perplexed by the cacophony, but decided to pass by with indifference) that consume only one type of asset, a food, that food and they are filled completely. Each of us has beings need food and only food, it 'like other goods. (Dario believes that it is a world a bit 'boring ...).
Suppose that the country we live in and 'organized in a capitalist system. But that 'there is only one company that produces just the food (what will' never produce, on the other?).
There is also a currency exchange, which is used for the payment of salary and for the buying and selling food.
Suppose that every Being actively works for the company (it does not exist pensioners 'children - all adults who work all the same to produce the food) (more and more' boring, as an image!).

We say that in a day's work, each of the beings produces an average pound of food.
Obviously, since there is no trade between the country and the outside world, all the food produced in the Company Beings from work every day is consumed every day, from the Beings who live in the country. But as' Beings that live in the country are the same beings who work in the Company, it follows that any being, on average, consumes a pound of food per day.
All the work cumulative effect of all the Beings of the country produces a quantity 'of food, which is completely consumed by the same beings.

In summary, every Being "average" working to produce a pound of food, and then, when the well has produced, consumes him.

Between producing and consuming, however, 'there' half of the Currency.

The result of the work of beings, and 'quantified in a certain salary. The sum of the wages of all beings can not 'be higher, the consumer price of any food product, of course,' cause otherwise the money from the sale of the food would not be sufficient to pay the wages. So 'the average daily wage of a Being can not' be greater than the consumer price of a kilo of food.
The salary, however, 'can not' even be lower than the price of the food. If it were lower, a being, on average, may only purchase a quantity 'of less than one pound, and the effect of what' (ignoring the detail that the Being would suffer from hunger) and 'part of the excess power will be' wasted , and therefore will not be 'paid, and the company will lose' money exactly equal to the difference between the price of a kilo of food and the daily wage of Being. 'Cause the Company does not lose that money, must be adapted to produce a little' less food, so that it consumed everything. But if so 'did, he would need a little' less work on the part of Being. But if Being less work to do, is entitled to a lower salary. If before the salary allowed him to buy only part of the pound of food, will allow now 'to buy even less, which will force' the company to further reduce the production and consequently lower the salary, which will force 'the 'Being to consume even less so on ...
So the daily wage of a Being must be exactly equal to the price of a kilo of food.
The combined salary of all employees of the Company Beings must be exactly equal to the cumulative price for the sale of any food product.
So there will be no money to reinvest.
...
... And the economy does not grow '.

Hmm ... the economy does not grow ', you say? ...
A moment ... maybe I'm pulling conclusions. I said above that the economic growth and 'given by an increase in production. It's not 'not true that this can not' be done, in my model. If the Beings decide to produce, instead of a pound of food per day, two pounds, the company will have to 'pay double salary to ensure that the Beings have enough money to buy any food product. That the Company can not 'do,' cause that money does not have them, but could halve the price of food consumption. And so ', the daily wage of Being will' always the same, but will allow 'to buy two pounds of food rather than' one.
(Dario scratching his head - starts to re-read the last lines but does not seem very convinced of what you just wrote).
But because 'never be, who lives and thrives with a pound of food would have to work twice as hard to get a chance' ... indeed, the obligation to consume two?
Can we really say that the Being and 'enriched' cause working twice as hard to produce the surplus that it must consume?
A system may be the 'deciding to increase or decrease its consumption, which leads to a parallel increase or decrease in production from the Company, and therefore a decrease or an increase in the price of the sale of the food (paradoxically with rules exactly opposite to the law of supply and demand). What remains constant, 'Wage.
And the unexpected (?) And the conclusion 'that the Company shall, however, spend all the money he receives from the sale of food in wages, and therefore do not care remain to be reinvested, which is equivalent to failure of the principles on which based capitalism.
Finally, and 'sad that the Being has to spend his entire salary to buy the food it produces, and then ends up not saving anything that can then invest in their social growth. The poor remain poor and the rich remain rich.

Brake! brakes! ... I tell you '...
The conclusions you have drawn, Darius, is distorted by all those "assume" the 'above, which have simplified too. Your country has a closed economy. There are no export it 'imports. But there, in the real world, such a state ', thankfully.

Mah Suppose then that there are two countries. One, the PaeseFormica, produces more 'of its requirements. The other, the PaeseCicala, less. The PaeseFormica exports ... indeed ... to export food to the PaeseCicala. If it does not, the COMPANYTRAINING should increase the salary (or, presumably, lower the price to sales), to increase domestic consumption, and would fall in the case described above.
But if the matter PaeseCicala that part of food, means that EsseriCicala to consume, they buy it, paying with part of their salary, paid for the work required to produce a quantity 'of less food to their needs'. So, since that part of SalarioCicala need to pay for the food product dall'AziendaFormica, the total must be greater SalarioCicala cumulative revenues for the sale of the product dall'AziendaCicala. Which obviously is not 'possible. How can 'the AziendaCicala give their workers a wage greater than the proceeds from the sale of the goods produced?
No, you can 'go on like this'! Or AziendaCicala fails (without leaving the EsseriCicala salary, which would trigger a crisis of overproduction dell'AziendaFormica) or do a debt. The EsseriFormica to lend money to buy food produced EsseriCicala excess dall'AziendaFormica. EsseriFormica agrees to, in effect, otherwise the EsseriCicala could not consume the excess production dell'AziendaFormica, which would be disastrous for the economy of PaeseFormica.
One might say that the PaeseFormica becomes more and more 'rich, in terms of public debt, at the expense of PaeseCicala becoming more and more' poor.
(Dario and 'undecided on moral judgments related to this conclusion: we feel, paradoxically, more' on the side of EsseriCicala, apparently more 'lazy, condemning the EsseriFormica only for their greater activity')
The conclusion 'that a more EssereFormica works' to perceive a higher salary, but they can' spend only enough time to buy a pound of food, 'cause it must pay the remaining (Tax?) Because all'EssereCicala' purchases all'AziendaFormica excess food. So, altogether, the more EssereFormica works', but can 'always consume the same amount' of food. The excess money in the end Cicala Beings who purchase the product all'AziendaFormica. Damn, and who profits from this tour? In the end I think that the money go all'AziendaFormica, but are not redistributed.

The fact 'that, apart from any ethical judgments, if we put together the PaeseFormica and PaeseCicala and evaluate the situation as if it were a single economy, we eventually reach the same conclusions as before. I mean ', in total, the two companies spend on wages exactly the equivalent of the proceeds from the sale of food, and Beings have a total of just eating any food product, spending their entire salary.
It 'true. In the real world there is no 'one country. And even just two. But of course this reasoning can 'be extended to all countries of the world, I'm a big number, but limited. Coming inexorably to the conclusion that the global economy can not 'grow. And if you can not 'grow the global economy, every time that a country grows, decreases that of another, only to have a balanced budget.

Gia ', but ...
(This time Darius prepared for you to find your objection!).
The real world does not have a single type of product, and in every single state there are many companies, not just one.

Overall, however, 'when cumulated all goods produced by all companies in the world (which means putting together pears and potatoes, but it is precisely this), and' clear that the combination must be consumed by all the people (the ' humanity ') that produced it. And it must buy and pay with the money they received for its production. If you produce a peanut in more ', the nut should be to accumulate with the rest of the goods produced, and then,' cause is not wasted, will have 'to be consumed after being purchased and paid the salary for the work required to its production.

Pero ', and what I think' that the increase of wealth and 'not so much as by an increase of money you can spend, but by a greater amount' of things you can own spending. If the work being twice and ends up consuming more ', evidently the well-being and' increased.
When they invented phones, for example, have created jobs to produce them.
It 'true that the wealth and generated in this way' (of course) was all spent on the purchase of mobile phones, but it 'also true that we in the end we were all a cell phone in his pocket, which had not previously . The question 'whether we really need that phone or, as often happens, it is a need "driven" by whom and' cycle involved in producing that good, and then we earn proportionately.

The impression 'that what we buy is worth less than what we spend to buy it. If it were so 'we mean that in PaeseFormica, and we work to impoverish the PaeseCicala benefiting the company we work for. Yet we are in a country full of debt. This means that our salary is less valuable products that we can buy?

The work that there is' behind the production of all the products we buy and 'more' or less of the work we do to earn our salary?
Hard to say.
I tried to think of everything you use (or own). The electricity consumption, the house that I'm paying, gasoline, I am writing on the computer, clothes, food ... and not just goods, but services ... I tried to imagine that I'm the one that produces those goods and provides those services myself (making me totally autonomous and self-sufficient). To do impiegoherei more 'or less time and energy than they use in my daily work?
Definitely more '. If I worked to produce all consumption goods, it will take much more 'time and energy than it does now. This, however 'cause it would not be a method optimized. I know how to make programs for PC, but I can not make bread. My bread baker, but he can do but can not make programs for PC, so I make plans for him and he makes the bread for me, and in this way we can be far more 'efficient both. Both programs can afford bread and minimizing the work necessary to produce them.
In the calculation, so you should evaluate whether the portion of the work of people who have helped in the production of consumer goods is greater than or less than the work done by me to earn enough money to buy it. And we are again: how to tell? I do not think I could do it.
The fact 'that we are not talking about me, but an average man living in this society'. And the impression 'that he who has the most' money often and 'what it produces less. Those who work and 'poor and who and' rich does not work. A common place?
But then, who's' who has to pay for rehabilitation of the debt by Cicada? If we do not end up paying the poor will have the chance 'to consume all the goods that the company' produces. The poor do not save because they simply 'do not have to spare. They are the rich rather than accumulate. If we take away the money to the poor, they consume less. If we take away the money to the rich instead continue to consume these, but would save less.

But I wonder if the increased wealth has its limits. If you do not have it, means that to increase more and more 'our health we must work harder' to consume more '(hopefully useful things - alrtrimenti well-being and that'?). But if there 'a limit, the more' we approach that limit, we have to stop producing more and more '. We must adapt to the fact that we can not become more and more 'rich,' cause that would mean that, consciously or against our will, the only way to become rich and 'someone else becomes poor.
I fear that there is a limit, dictated by the fact that producing means consuming resources, and resources are not unlimited.

I ask myself, finally, another dilemma.
If we have a large public debt means (although I suspect that someone has made a ridge above) that we were the crickets, that 'we bought for our well-being of the goods produced abroad, more' than we exported. In other words, we were EsseriCicala and worked for less than what is necessary to produce what 'we have eaten. PaeseFormica now wants us to extinguish our debt.
But how the hell do we do? To do this we must work harder 'to produce a quantity' of goods is sufficient not only for our livelihood, but also for export to PaeseFormica. But if you PaeseFormica and 'enriched by exporting goods in excess,' cause today should never import them?
That we should producessimo something they are not capable of producing. We should invent something totally useless for us and only we can do to convince them that for them is essential.
And here I stop, because 'everything' seems totally foreign to Man and his needs.

In my naivete 'I like more' imagine a world where there is' one who knows how to make bread, and one that knows how to make sausage. We sit together and make a snack.
Posted by dario at 10:24

Dario's simplified view of the problems of international trade is intended, as I understand google's rather garbled translation, to point out what happens when country one (The Grasshoppers) end up owing a debt to country two (The Ants). It puts that country in an insolvable dilemma - it must produce more and at the same time reduce its imports - but it has now reached its maximum production potential - at least in the near term.
In that worldview- there is no room for ethics, ether in business or government, rather the grim reality of unbridled competition, which as Dr. Chaambers pointed out, isn't really appropriate when dealing with a country's economic infrastructure.

@Zeal4living - The American Dream - basically the following:

1.the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American.
2.a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.

The basic ideal not appreciably changed. This idea originated with the very first European Immigrants to north America - in those days it was focused on religious Freedom in the British colonies, personal enrichment in the Spanish and French. The idea of somehow getting away from European (or other hegonomous) social controls and stratification has spread around the world and been an inspiration for many. I suspect the first Dutch immigrants to South Africa were inspired by that idea. It is probably one major source of the present day popularity of Democratic socially responsible governments around the world
Of course over the years the definitions of Freedom, Equality, and Opportunity have changed and from time to time the dream has seemed to slip away - Americans have never been completely satisfied with the reality of the dream and the history of the US is largely been the struggle of most of us to achieve it.
Currently we are moving through one of the more turbulent tides of social change. Many Americans see their idea of the dream receding while a few see the opportunity to use their great wealth to further secure their comfortable lifestyle or quest for economic power enhanced by modern technology. e.g. They can use their wealth and modern electronic media to persuade voters to in many cases actually vote against the American Dream through the clever use of propaganda designed to cover real issues and solutions with illogical but popular misinformation.