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A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

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Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#81

Post by idrios »

drdrey wrote: post #76
at-fates-hands wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were 500,000 new millionaires in the US alone in 2015: The study, from market research and consulting firm Spectrem Group, found that there are now 10.1 million households in the U.S. with $1 million or more in investable assets, excluding the value of their primary residence. That's up from about 9.6 million in 2013, and tops the prerecession peak of 9.2 million in 2007. It's the highest number since Spectrem…

> more people are working to get into the top 1% I don't think that's how the top 1% works

He's not wrong. In 2010 there were 6.93 billion people in the world. In 2015 there were 7.35 billion. By that calculation, 4.2 million people moved into the top 1% in the span of just 5 years!

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#84

Post by yomly »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #66
vannevar wrote: post #62

Income for the top 1% of the population is up over 400% over the past 30 years, while remaining largely flat for the rest of the workforce. The tech boom is well underway, it's just that only a tiny fraction of the population is capturing the vast majority of the benefits. The boom is not just about efficiencies, it's also about centralization and winner-take-all market dynamics.

Global absolute poverty has plummeted from 40% in 1985 to less than 10% in 2015: https://ourworldindata.org/slides/world-poverty/#/declining-...

I see this fact touted around a lot, often in the context of stagnating/eroding wages.

It 100% goes without saying that global poverty decreasing is cause for celebration, but eroding quality of life for a economic bracket of people should not be ignored.

If you look at both facts together however (global poverty is down, wealth has concentrated at the top) then it would suggest that the wealth of the non-wealthy has merely been redistributed. Indeed, this is intuitive if you consider the trend of moving your labour to a cheaper country.

Having travelled to many developing nations, it also (admittedly anecdotally) feels evident that most the wealth reaching developing nations is concentrating with the already wealthy / those in power.

So what it feels to me is like that local inequality is increasing while global inequality is decreasing - the rich are getting richer everywhere while the working and middle classes are slowly converging everywhere.

Unfortunately, as history has so far told, the notion that the erosion of the quality of life has led to improvements of life to someone very far away is a hard sell.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#85

Post by fishcolorbrick »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #21
aristidb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: Berkshire Hathaway (Buffett's company) now has a huge stake in Apple. So it's not really true anymore that he avoids IT.

It's not because of the IT dominance per say, it this: "Apple's mound of cash and cash equivalents continued to scrape the cloudline this quarter, coming in at $268.9 billion in the company's quarterly earnings report." ( https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/how-much-cash-does-apple-hav... ) He is betting that in some shape or form, they will put that cash to work or issue a nice dividend.

"Apple's mound of cash and cash equivalents continued to scrape the cloudline..."

Cloudline is being modest... a stack of a trillion dollars in singles will take you 25% of the way to the Earth's moon.

https://www.wired.com/2011/09/stacking-one-trillion-dollars/

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#86

Post by tomjen3 »

decebalus1 wrote: post #79
vannevar wrote: post #62

Income for the top 1% of the population is up over 400% over the past 30 years, while remaining largely flat for the rest of the workforce. The tech boom is well underway, it's just that only a tiny fraction of the population is capturing the vast majority of the benefits. The boom is not just about efficiencies, it's also about centralization and winner-take-all market dynamics.

I'm waiting for the common folks to start hoarding money too and decrease consumption. Ford figured this problem out at the start of the 20th century but apparently everyone forgot about it (if my employees aren't well off enough to buy my product, I'm screwed). I personally believe that what we're going through right now isn't going to scale and it will collapse. It's probably one of the very few times in agree with…

Ford famously raised the wages he offered, resulting in much better employees; however the only way he could make it so that his employees could afford to buy his cars was to make the cars affordable for the average family, since if he raised the wages to a level that meant they could afford his cars, he would only sell to his own employees and then he would have made no profit.

I won't comment on your assertion, except to say that Marx predicted the same, and yet it hasen't happened yet.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#87

Post by prostoalex »

yomly wrote: post #84
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global absolute poverty has plummeted from 40% in 1985 to less than 10% in 2015: https://ourworldindata.org/slides/world-poverty/#/declining-...

I see this fact touted around a lot, often in the context of stagnating/eroding wages. It 100% goes without saying that global poverty decreasing is cause for celebration, but eroding quality of life for a economic bracket of people should not be ignored. If you look at both facts together however (global poverty is down, wealth has concentrated at the top) then it would suggest that the wealth of the non-wealthy has…

The wages are a proxy for buying power.

Starting at the bottom of the Maslow’s pyramid and moving up, do today’s wages buy less of food, shelter, water, clothing, transportation, etc. than someone receiving wages 30/50/100/200 years ago?

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#88

Post by decebalus1 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #86
decebalus1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm waiting for the common folks to start hoarding money too and decrease consumption. Ford figured this problem out at the start of the 20th century but apparently everyone forgot about it (if my employees aren't well off enough to buy my product, I'm screwed). I personally believe that what we're going through right now isn't going to scale and it will collapse. It's probably one of the very few times in agree with…

Ford famously raised the wages he offered, resulting in much better employees; however the only way he could make it so that his employees could afford to buy his cars was to make the cars affordable for the average family, since if he raised the wages to a level that meant they could afford his cars, he would only sell to his own employees and then he would have made no profit. I won't comment on your assertion, exc…

Haven't read Marx.. I guess the speculations are going full-circle. Hopefully only the speculations.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#89

Post by pm90 »

yomly wrote: post #84
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global absolute poverty has plummeted from 40% in 1985 to less than 10% in 2015: https://ourworldindata.org/slides/world-poverty/#/declining-...

I see this fact touted around a lot, often in the context of stagnating/eroding wages. It 100% goes without saying that global poverty decreasing is cause for celebration, but eroding quality of life for a economic bracket of people should not be ignored. If you look at both facts together however (global poverty is down, wealth has concentrated at the top) then it would suggest that the wealth of the non-wealthy has…

I don't think we have seen anything like this in history before, and it will be interesting, to say the least, at how all the millions of people elevated from destitution will contribute to the world and change it.

Re: A Tech-Driven Boom Is Coming; Please Be Patient

#90

Post by pm90 »

DougWebb wrote: post #68
maxxxxx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The money will soon start to trickle down from the top 1% especially with the latest tax cuts. Be patient just a little more.

Sarcastic, or do you have some reason to believe that'll actually happen this time?

It will NOT happen. It has never happened that way, and there is nothing especially unique or different about the economy today that would make it happen.
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