  I briefly review the outcomes of two very different old questions -- where
global SUSY improves on ordinary QFT -- when they are in turn posed in the
local, SUGRA, context. The first concerns the unexpectedly powerful role of the
"Dirac square root" graded algebra relation $E=Q^2$, originally found in D=4
SUSY by Gol'fand and Likhtman, in proving positive energy theorems both in
SUGRA and in ordinary gravity theories, where $E$ and $Q$ have very different
-- gauge generator -- definitions. The second seeks SUGRA counterparts of the
boson/fermion loop ultraviolet cancellations in SUSY models. Here the result is
negative: local supersymmetry cannot overcome the infinities associated with
the dimensional gravitational $\kappa^2$ even, as recently shown, in maximal
D=11 SUGRA.
