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This is an incredible analysis by an economist. Social media and new cell phones do not create prosperity like the inventions of the last century did. These so called "innovations" do not create jobs and productivity to improve society.
Had to do some serious downloading, so can't watch the video without hitting the Hughesnet FAP, but...
I am a history buff and have read extensively the publications from 1900 to the 1950s. The sheer level of innovation and invention from about 1910 to 1940 is staggering. I have to think that 1938/1939 was probably THE most innovative brief period in human history. Everything before and since pales in comparison. Another period was from about 1905 to 1914. The introduction of the automobile and beginning radio was far more of an event that computers and the internet.
Why bother to invent something when some Chinese company will sell it for pennies and put you out of business. Or our government will give some big corporation tax incentives to make it overseas. Either way you can't compete and the Feds are to busy squabbling about unimportant crap to care.
Phillip, you are correct. Another thing I find fascinating in reading the old periodicals is that there was an infatuation with military matters that never stopped after WW I. Many of the innovations had direct military uses, but many others were just independent inventors who suddenly had access to tools beyond the basic farm implements, and education in the masses that was greater than a learning of basic math and how to read the bible and a Shakespeare work or two.
I am to this day absolutely mind boggled that the US put a man on the moon five out of six times with nine years of effort (Kennedy's speech "..not because it is easy but because it is haawd..." and " one giant step....").
I work in aerospace and the amount of overhead and mismanagement and waste of time and other BS we have to go through just to get a measly change through....it takes two days to get a toner cartridge changed on a printer...How did they do it? Slides rules, no excel, no email, no word processing, It's beyond incredible or are we that much less efficient?
Oh, and during that period, the the US was involved in the Vietnam escalation which I would think would have provided stiff competition for engineers and scientists for the war effort.
There was an economic slowdown from the 1970's - 2000's.
- For the last decade, we channeled enormous resources into fictitious investments--i.e., the housing bubble.
- The two big industries of the last 20 years-- IT and the finance--haven't yielded much real economic growth. The financial sector is bloated and an economic drag. IT has delivered some growth, but not nothing game-changing like say, the interstate highway system in the 50's or electrification in the 30's.
That being said, we have reached an inflection point and are on the cusp of technological breakthroughs. The industrial revolution turned feudal societies on their heads. The coming waves of innovation will do the same with ours.
That being said, we have reached an inflection point and are on the cusp of technological breakthroughs. The industrial revolution turned feudal societies on their heads. The coming waves of innovation will do the same with ours.
This could be true, or it could be false, ir it could be somewhere in between.
We have no idea if this is based on five years of doctoral level economic research, or if it is a two minute comment made by a truck driver in between bites of his morning donut.
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