Why are interest rates so low?

>>Growth and technology are actually reducing the difference between rich and poor in almost every aspect of life.

It seriously annoys me when people say this, because it's so incredibly short-sighted. It's only in terms of physical, tangible standard of living factors. Travel, as you noted, is one of those. And yeah, everyone has refrigerators in their homes nowadays. Yay!

But being ultra-rich gives a tremendous amount of intangible perks, such as the ability to greatly influence public policy and the ability to afford top-notch legal representation, which lets them get away with serious crimes that would put normal people like you and I in jail for decades. There's also inter-generational perks. For example, children of ultra-rich parents can afford excellent education and are much more likely to get into the top schools.

I can go on. The fact is, the differences between the haves and the have-nots today are vast, and they are getting bigger every day as wealth inequality increases. Yes, it is good that we have the basics covered for most people but beyond those basics things look pretty grim.

The US had its own currency long before it had a central bank.

The comments I see in this thread make me so upset.

HN has always been about making the world a better place. Doing things that matter. Making lives better. We look forward to self driving cars, solving heathcare, etc etc et.

Yet I read these comments and apparently HN isn't as concerned about progress anymore. "Why do we need growth", "I'll take peace over growth at this point."

Are you crazy? When did we stop caring about growth? Making things better? More efficient? Improving lives?

What a depressing comment thread.

edit: Some people are saying, but economic growth does not necessarily imply tech progress. yes, economic progress does not have to come from technology growth. You're right.

tldr: but it would be incredibly incredibly difficult (and perhaps provably impossible in a free-ish society) to grow the economy without also encouraging and making technological growth (also finding oil deposits, other discoveries, etc)

Growth comes from a few things. 1, operating at max utilization. Full employment. Going from 50% to 90% will grow the GDP. 2, saving. Saving what we already have. Building bridges, long lasting homes, etc to that we can be more efficient and focus on other problems in the future. Note, this does not increase yearly GDP but it increases overall wealth per capita. For example, many europeans live and benefit from homes that were built for them hundreds of years ago. They're free to worry less about building homes and more on improving other aspects of their lives. 3, technological progress.

While it's true gorwth != tech progress, its also certain that growing the economy by #1 and #2 above will allow more room for people to work on #3. #2 is important. We can't work on nuclear physics before we build homes from physicists to live in. Likewise #1 is important. for every person that becomes employed, their handwork allows other people to focus on other things, research. We need enough farmers to feed researchers. The more farmers, the more researchers. So in a sense, you can, but it would be incredibly difficult to grow the economy without also encouraging and making technological growth.

Also because growth improves lives. In 1800 if your child contracted polio he would die, now they live. If you don't think technology and growth make lives better, then HN might not be the most like minded community for you.

It's not clear that economic growth is a good marker for technological or societal growth.

In fact, I'd suggest that technological growth benefits from economically lean periods, when people have to strive to make things less bloated and more efficient - exactly as you say.

Is this a good thing? It's not as clear-cut as you claim.

I would personally take peace over growth, any time.