Godzilla is good for you?

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The big­ger the finan­cial sec­tor gets, the more it can destroy. And Bank of Eng­land Gov­er­nor Mark Car­ney’s vision of British banks nine times the size of GDP is pos­i­tive­ly ter­ri­fy­ing…

Fans of Japan­ese schlock fic­tion will be pleased to know that that old mega-favourite Godzil­la is return­ing in 2014, to stomp on sim­u­lat­ed cities in a cin­e­ma near you. And of course, he’s big­ger and bet­ter: the orig­i­nal Japan­ese movie had him at about 50–100 metres and weigh­ing 20–60,000 tons; I’d guess he was about twice that size in the 1998 US remake; and by the looks of the trail­er for the 2014 movie, he’s now a cou­ple of kilo­me­tres tall and prob­a­bly weighs in the mil­lions.

That’s good: when you want thrills and spills in a vir­tu­al world, then as it is with sport (accord­ing to Aus­tralian comedic leg­ends Roy and HG) too much lizard is bare­ly enough. The big­ger he gets, the more he can destroy, which makes for great visu­al effects (if not great cin­e­ma).

But in the real world? The biggest dinosaur known came in at about 40 metres long, weighed “only” about 80 tonnes, and had an esti­mat­ed max­i­mum speed of eight kilo­me­tres an hour. In the real world, size impos­es restric­tion on move­ment, and big can be just too big. So a real-world Godzil­la is an impos­si­bil­i­ty.

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About Steve Keen

I am Professor of Economics and Head of Economics, History and Politics at Kingston University London, and a long time critic of conventional economic thought. As well as attacking mainstream thought in Debunking Economics, I am also developing an alternative dynamic approach to economic modelling. The key issue I am tackling here is the prospect for a debt-deflation on the back of the enormous private debts accumulated globally, and our very low rate of inflation.