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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

#91

Post by saas_co_de »

maxxxxx wrote: post #67
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.

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

Money does trickle down but what it trickles down onto is a determining factor in economic growth.

When rich people put their money into employing people for non-productive servant type jobs, welfare for people (to not work), loans for people to go to college (to not work, at least in the short term), hand outs for their children and family members (to not work) then the end result is a lot of people not working and a lot fewer things being produced by the people who do work.

If a rich person buys a yacht or a private plane or a hundred million dollar mansion, that creates economic activity (people have to build that stuff) but it does not have the same secondary economic impact as investing that money into a factory, basic infrastructure, R&D, or some other productive use.

Money is trickling down, but far too much of it seems to be trickling down to a non-productive servant class and non-productive veblen goods.

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

#92

Post by prostoalex »

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’s assembly line required higher investment in worker training, so churn was more expensive for Ford than other autoworkers. Ford employees did not represent a major buying market for the company and did not own vehicles in higher proportion when compared to the rest of the population.

If we decide that we want to encourage companies whose final products workers can afford and discourage companes whose final products are unaffordable, we desperately need more manufacturers of pencils, plastic bags or napkins (single month’s salary buys one a lifetime supply) and need fewer companies like Boeing or SpaceX (even after a 100 year career the workers cannot afford the final product).

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

#93

Post by gdubs »

inciampati wrote: post #8

I have frequently wondered if the lag in productivity is partly due to the distracting power of the internet and social media. This isn't really paralleled by the other technical advances that the authors of the study this piece summarizes were examining. Also, AI? We don't have anything even approaching AI in play now nor on the immediate horizon. The energy costs it would have are still enormous, even if we really…

If you're willing to commit to a very long (and IMO enjoyable) read, Robert Gordon addresses these possibilities in The Rise and Fall of American Growth.

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

#94

Post by monksy »

When people talk about AI and Robotics, I don't believe there is na understanding about how complex those topics are and how difficult it is.

AI: There's a lot of active research, and there has been a lot of aggressive pushes to be buzzword compliance there. I think this has a lot of potential to make improvements, but with AI you have to understand what you're doing there. (To be effective) I think there would be a lot of value in having research institutions on AI (and a consultancy).

Robotics: We've seen a lot of improvements on this, but I'm not getting the feeling that it's a mature technology. We're still having difficulty getting this to be easier to implement and working with it. The algorithms behind navigation, and motor control are intense and have taken a lot of research.

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

#96

Post by monksy »

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…

I get the feeling that we're (the US) in a few bad ruts right now:

1. We have identity-based policies in place. People are attempting to blacklist others based on where they stand on politics/etc (non-money based discrimination). I've seeing this in the tech industry where the most passive-aggressive individuals succeed. (i.e. Tests we don't need them)

2. We're seeing lots of profit grabs and they're being ignored due to PR reasons. (I.e. Silicon Valley and workers rights.. oh wait, nevermind this startup isn't bad because they're "diverse")

3. Inflation, we're seeing a lot of inflation of prices, and decrease in value. (Go overseas to see how bad this is) Even Germany with a 20% vat on products is a cheaper COL.

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

#97

Post by QAPereo »

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-...

When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out... once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant... once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity...

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

#99

Post by andars »

DougHaber wrote: post #61
petegordon wrote: post #33

Anyone else questioning this, “The integrated circuit was commercialized in the 1960s yet 25 years later computers still represented just 5% of the value of all business equipment”? ICs are everywhere around us (in our phones, cars, refrigerators, coffee makers, weight scales, HVAC, etc.) and are rightfully invisible to us. Let alone all the major business equipment. Or, am I missing something?

As pointed out, 25 years later was in the 80s. I wonder if some of the delay in adoption was due to the relevant patents, which were filed around 1959. Maybe that gave a two decade monopoly to Texas Instruments making it hard for others to adopt or innovate around the technology?

TI definitely did not have a monopoly on ICs for those 25 years. Those first patents were on Kilby's process which was essentially abandoned. Fairchild and Intel did a tremendous amount of work getting ICs to be more useful over that timespan (see self-aligned gates).

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

#100

Post by xandar11 »

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…

When will people stop with that Henry Ford myth? You don't have to pay employees a high wage so they can afford to buy things that are produced.

You hear it when automation is mentioned: "Businesses are constantly automating production, so who is going to buy the output?". The answer is that other robot owners can buy it or the producer himself can consume it. The type of goods produced changes. Instead of cheap cars or pillows, you have more yachts, boats and other luxury items.

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