Economists are so clever

A friend of mine once summarized Wagner's Ring of the Niebelung as "dwarf steals gold; gods get mad."

In that spirit, yet another reason to read Brad DeLong's weblog: lecture notes from his Berkeley economics classes. Just recently, he posted these notes:

Cost of the Civil War:

• In perspective, it would have cost $90 per capita to buy and free all the slaves
• Cost of Civil War to North: $140 per capita (including only economic damages for dead and wounded)
• Cost of Civil War to South: $340 per capita (including only economic damages for dead and wounded)
• "Indirect" additional cost of Civil War to South: $450 per capita

... which I think may be even more stunning than these notes:

The Slave Trade:

• Guns
• Slaves
• Sugar/molasses/tobacco/cotton
• Very profitable
• Extraordinarily inhumane

Adam Smith expected slavery to come to a rapid end after 1776; Adam Smith was wrong.

Okay, perhaps only amusing if you like extremely pithy summaries of complicated subjects as an art form for creating new insight. But I'm that kind of guy.