> "Consume" labor hours? What does that even mean? Those laborers get paid, and then they spend the money they get. That money is circulating through the economy.

Money isn't stuff. Yes, those craftsmen get paid, but when one of them has something he needs done, some service provided, or some physical resource, he ends up paying more for the labor, because he is competing in the same labor market as everyone else.

Don't you think spending the working time of 4 million labor hours a year, building megayachts, is perhaps not the most productive/ROI generating activity for society at large? You could for example, with ~4 million skilled labor hours a year, build a lot of housing. You could build factories that provide for the needs the people. Hell, you could just give people time-off to, y'know, live and enjoy life (and perhaps, uh, have _children_, which the current system seems to be very efficient at disincentivizing).