Investing lesson from Uncle Scrooge McDuck

When investing it's important to keep in mind what about economic activity is real and what is important only if and when it is connected to what's real.

I know that's vague. I'll illustrate with an example of a comic book story I read when I was a little kid.

If you're a comic book fan who knows more than superhero comics, you should know that in the 1950s and 1960s a man named Carl Barks wrote and drew the Donald Duck comic books. Since Disney didn't give credit to its artists, nobody at the time knew his name -- that came out later -- but he was widely known as the "good" artist. His style of drawing is distinctive for its detail and authority. Plus, he wrote a lot of fun and terrific stories -- sending Donald, Uncle Scrooge and Huey, Dewey and Louie to have adventures all over the world.

Anyway, in one story everybody in the world is given a million dollars or some kind of unlimited amount of money (I forget the details).

So everybody in the world decides that since they're rich, they don't have to work anymore. They start taking it easy.

Of course, Donald and his three nephews start to do the same, so they're shocked when Uncle Scrooge McDuck (I wonder if some Scottish civil rights groups would object to Disney giving him a Scottish name, if these comics were to come out today?) makes them start growing food!

They don't understand why their rich uncle says there's going to be a lot of trouble in the world!

Of course, once the world's supply of food and other goods get used up, people start to go hungry. They find that all the money they have is useless when there is no food to be bought.

Of course, the ducks are just fine, since they listened to Uncle Scrooge and worked hard to raise their food.

So Carl Barks through this comic book story gave me an important economics lesson. Money is important, but only when there's food available to buy with it. Somebody has to grow it, harvest it, and distribute it to stores. Or people don't eat.

So this connects with investing -- you make money from giving people what they need and want. All the money in the world won't help you if you can't do that.


Scrooge McDuck investing
Scrooge McDuck investing