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Why Economic Growth Will Fall

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Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#51

Post by mrow84 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #45
skywhopper wrote: post #24

I agree that it's impossible for the rates of economic growth and lifestyle improvements we saw since the late 1800s to continue indefinitely, but the key to growth is investment. And from the late-1800s till the mid-1900s, there were huge government investments made in building new and innovative infrastructure in the US--railroads, the phone network, state universities and K-12 public education, electricity generat…

According to wikipedia, more people than ever before are getting educated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_Attainment_in... Spending on infrastructure is going up. https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/free/254109 The issue is not lack of investment, it's out of control costs.

The first bullet point in your second link is:

"Public investment in infrastructure sits at its lowest level since records have been kept because of underfunding across all levels of government."

And the lead into the second graph, which shows real-terms per-capita public investment is:

"On a per capita basis, real government spending on structures is the lowest it has been since at least 1950."

Given statements like that, I don't see how you can make the leap from "Spending on infrastructure is going up." to "The issue is not lack of investment, it's out of control costs."

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#53

Post by jsmith0295 »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #2

This. Finally. People on HN think that startups, technology and economic growth have unlimited potential. This is pure stupidity at its finest. Observations of the natural world show a general trend: that everything, from physical resources to energy has limits. It is a mistake to believe that this general observation does not apply to technology and the human imagination. While we can comprehend what a limit in oil…

Except that the technology itself can be used to create technology. That's the whole point. If we were talking about raw human creativity, we already surpassed that capability a long time ago. And it seems likely that we can get the technology to a place where it can improve itself with little enough human effort that growth can be kept up for longer than any of our life times.

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#54

Post by mac01021 »

nabla9 wrote: post #29
gggggg11111 wrote: post #7

Considering we live in an infinite universe I do not see why economic growth can not continue even accelerate. Especially seeing that sometime this century we will get cheap space travel (getting there) and AI (getting there) and transition from fossil fuels to renewables and fusion (getting there) Tho' yes seeing how some of our best and brightest are working on how to serve more ads and how to get people spend thei…

Economic growth of 1% per year is exponential growth. Light of speeds puts limit to the economic growth and it's less than exponential. Maximum sustainable economic growth in infinite static flat universe is f(t)/dt where f(t) = 4/3×π×t^3.

You assume economic growth is at most proportional to the rate at which we occupy previously unoccupied space.

That may be true, but it is not obvious to me.

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#55

Post by bluetomcat »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #45
skywhopper wrote: post #24

I agree that it's impossible for the rates of economic growth and lifestyle improvements we saw since the late 1800s to continue indefinitely, but the key to growth is investment. And from the late-1800s till the mid-1900s, there were huge government investments made in building new and innovative infrastructure in the US--railroads, the phone network, state universities and K-12 public education, electricity generat…

According to wikipedia, more people than ever before are getting educated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_Attainment_in... Spending on infrastructure is going up. https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/free/254109 The issue is not lack of investment, it's out of control costs.

Getting educated in what? Corporate law, advertising and marketing, journalism, HR, French literature...

If most of these jobs are replaced by proper blue-collar occupations, we would see far more tangible results – most importantly, cheaper construction and housing.

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#56

Post by georgeecollins »

Thomas Piketty is so important about this because he shows how exceptional America was in that it had plentiful capital in terms of land, so that labor was unusually valuable vs capital when compared to Europe. It shapes American's thinking in a positive way, but we need to acknowledge things have changed. Formerly, almost anyone who was willing to work hard and take a risk could build a homestead. Now the conditions for opportunity are available but more restricted.

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#57

Post by cheriot »

collyw wrote: post #42
cheriot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we can produce what was considered enough back then without working so much. People just keep want more, more, more.

Most people under 40 can't afford a house in many western countries. Compared to 20 years ago, most people could (at least in the two countries I am familiar with - the UK or Spain). The very rich seem to be doing OK though.

The more, more, more does seem to wind up with fewer people.

I'm skeptical of the unaffordable housing arguments, though. People only talk about a handful of cities. At least in the US, there's plenty of cheap places to live. They just aren't trendy.

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#58

Post by yummyfajitas »

mrow84 wrote: post #51
yummyfajitas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to wikipedia, more people than ever before are getting educated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Educational_Attainment_in... Spending on infrastructure is going up. https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/free/254109 The issue is not lack of investment, it's out of control costs.

The first bullet point in your second link is: "Public investment in infrastructure sits at its lowest level since records have been kept because of underfunding across all levels of government." And the lead into the second graph, which shows real-terms per-capita public investment is: "On a per capita basis, real government spending on structures is the lowest it has been since at least 1950." Given statements like…

That is the mood affiliation of the post - it is in fact the only position on infrastructure that is within the overton window.

But I'm citing the graphs, not the mood affiliation. The graphs show a large increase in spending on transit/water infrastructure and a large increase in costs.

There is also relatively flat per-capita government investment in structures (a broader category which includes buildings/similar things, and is not the typical power/transit/water cited by the parent).

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#59

Post by thomasfoster96 »

Qantourisc wrote: post #28
gggggg11111 wrote: post #7

Considering we live in an infinite universe I do not see why economic growth can not continue even accelerate. Especially seeing that sometime this century we will get cheap space travel (getting there) and AI (getting there) and transition from fossil fuels to renewables and fusion (getting there) Tho' yes seeing how some of our best and brightest are working on how to serve more ads and how to get people spend thei…

Because we haven't gotten a way to get fuel outside earth yet (that I know of), or a solution to long travel times. As such we are practically still bound to earth, which is finite.

> or a solution to long travel times.

This is a bit of a non-issue. Expecting to be able to travel anywhere within a matter of a few dozen hours is a recent phenomenon.

Re: Why Economic Growth Will Fall

#60

Post by gutnor »

eru wrote: post #13
crimsonalucard wrote: post #2

This. Finally. People on HN think that startups, technology and economic growth have unlimited potential. This is pure stupidity at its finest. Observations of the natural world show a general trend: that everything, from physical resources to energy has limits. It is a mistake to believe that this general observation does not apply to technology and the human imagination. While we can comprehend what a limit in oil…

Oh, there are some very simple adjustments we could make right now (without even any new technology) to get a great amount of real growth. Just open some pretty standard economics textbooks: On the demand side: target nominal GDP to all but eliminate recessions. (Or at least target the long term growth of the price level instead of letting bygones be bygones.) On the supply side: completely shift the tax burden from…

> start with silly zoning laws perhaps

Why not keep them and invest in remote working instead of packing even more people in major cities. You probably work most of your time with remote people anyway and tech is definitively there.

Also it is a lot easier to organise plenty of small towns (think hospital, school, road infrastructure, ...) rather than a megacity where you can have literally thousands of people per block.

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