What Caused the Last Recession
Peter Thiel makes my point that the last recession was not mainly about the financial crisis, but a crisis in technological growth. A point I make in both of my non-fiction books
SOURCE URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOB7nezuQ7g
the politicians' giving homes to people who could
not afford them??? -- j
the 2nd level reference to the viet cong. -- j
I never thought of it before, but "Religion" is a totally free unregulated market, that thrives, and continues to expand in the USA as opposed to Europe, and that is due to lack of Government.
Britain still promoted the Church of England, and the government is well invested into religion and over the years religion is losing year after and over year.
We cannot count Isis and Muslims because that is join or die.
But in the USA Religion continues to expand with more and more churches, and more and more people joining one religion or another, or Atheist groups, or Agnostic groups. All because Government for the most part is totally out of the "God" business.
Want to KILL religion, get Government to Regulate and Promote a State Run Religion. Oh that's right the 1st Amendment would have to be wiped out for that.
A most brilliant point!
And the greatest collapse hasn't even happened yet.
I just recently heard from someone who attended the cyber-security conference last month involving NSA, Secret Service, DIA, etc. His admonition: technology is making us _less_ secure - not more. He said that if you have a social media account - it's been hacked, and not just by the NSA, but by the Russians. Facebook? MySpace? LinkedIn? Gmail? All are insecure.
I don't look at technology itself as being anything more than a tool. And every tool comes with the danger of hitting yourself on the thumb with it - or having someone else hit you over the head with it. Because at the end of every piece of technology is the one wielding it. THAT is my concern: people.
The spying problem is not a technological problem, it is a moral problem. Governments tracked every little detail about their citizens long before the internet.
I would argue that it is man's ability and desire to work hard that makes him wealthy. Your second question outlines things even better.
"The spying problem is not a technological problem, it is a moral problem."
100% agreed, and that was my point. Technology is a tool - it is ultimately the people and their morality that determine the use of the tool and therefore productivity. But it is a mistake to argue that technology independent of morality is a path to wealth. The great line from "Jurassic Park": "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they _could_, they didn't stop to think if they _should_."
"Governments tracked every little detail about their citizens long before the internet."
Which governments are you talking about? None that existed prior to the Internet ever had the scope and interconnectivity that exist today. The GRU of the Soviet Union and the Mao-led Reds only wished that they had something this powerful in the 1950's. Hitler, too, would have loved to have had something as detailed. I'm failing to see anytime except in very recent history where such a claim can be made.
I've grown fruit and vegetables all my life by hand with a hoe and shovel and it's not much different than what they did back in the 1600's. It's long, hard, back-breaking work. If you want to compare a farmer from the 1600's with a farmer of today, they both still work their butts off, but the modern farmer has a tractor and weed killer which allow him to effectively cultivate thousands of acres in the same amount of time it would have taken for a peasant from the 1600's to cultivate only a few. And no one is arguing any different.
The equation, however, hasn't changed from the 1600's to now: Productivity = work x coefficient of technology. Let's say the hoe and shovel are a coefficient of about 1 and the tractor and weed killer is the coefficient of about 1000 (plug in your own figures if you don't like these). It still doesn't change the outcome when work = 0. And as per your point above, I can use that tractor to either till my own fields, or ruin the fields of my neighbor - which I choose to do is all up to my morals.
Technology gives us new things to buy, but without the money to buy them, it does no good unless we buy less of something else.
I don't think it's useful, though. It's like saying that all deaths are caused by lack of oxygen to the brain.
Would there have been a normal pull back based upon market activity? Yes, and some weak businesses would have failed while others prospered. Just the fall off of activity dealing with the millenium bug in software might have caused a mild pull back in economic activity. However, the market would have recovered to stability and there would not have been a devastating loss of investments and retirement funds of millions of people. This was caused by fraudulent promotion of mal-investments that would likely have been used to fund more rational uses including technology.
The government protected and promoted bankster cartel (including wall street) is primarily responsible along with socialist policies of government.
The increases in technology have been constrained to ever narrow areas by regulation. Take housing. Building codes mean we have essentially the same buildings and houses today that we had in the late 1970s. Cars have hardly changed. Airplanes still fly subsonic and on and on.
Good review of major points that are verifiable and quantifiable.
Technological stagnation... while it may be more difficult to pinpoint exactly what-where-when, it is highly probable that this too has occurred. The U.S. has been lagging behind in almost everything for years now. I agree that the Government juggernaut of over-regulation has strangled American businesses which has drastically curtailed their initiative towards funding research, delaying investing in higher/advanced technology and resisting expansion which implies the use of all the above stated.
If we are to see a recovery that is both solid and healthy then, as db states, we must create technological advancements and regain what was once the crowning glory of the U.S.
I think I understand your (and Thiel's) view of the problem. He gives no real solution. What is your solution?
The government cant force feed the entire economy in the long term. Whatever it does to prime the pump in the beginning results in a slowdown later to probably a bit less than what it would have been if the government stayed out of it.
I think technology can improve living standards, but I still think its not the only thing, and sometimes it improves the living of some and reduces it for others.