5 ms·

If instead of talking about progress , we start to talk about change, things may look quite different than Gordon's view: We live in a surveillance society(bot

by petra 11y ago

If instead of talking about progress , we start to talk about change, things may look quite different than Gordon's view: We live in a surveillance society(both governmental and commercial). We are glued to screens, having much less human interactions than before(and some psychologists think it greatly harms our empathy). Boredom is non existent. Something like addiction is everywhere. The variety and quality of our media and maybe experiences in general(think foodie culture) have greatly improved. For many jobs , the rate of learning, and the demand for creativity have greatly improved. Of course this is good and bad. And as for business: Business today looks totally different than before the internet. So yes, the internet is a life changing technology if you look deeply. And there are many other life changing technologies in the work. As for gdp growth - well isn't it more complex than - great new technology -> a lot of growth ?

dredmorbius 11y ago
Economists define growth as increase in GDP -- either nationally or per capita. Gordon's premise is that this is nearing an end for the United States, if not over. There are numerous ways you can respond to this. 1. You can look to alternative measures of growth. Ecologists and anthropologists use the principle of total energy throughput. Seems that's starting to trail off as well. 2. You can look at re-allocating the fruits of the economy. The popular name for this would be "re-distribution", if it were popular, though generally in the US it isn't. That speaks to one of many reasons growth is popular: it allows offering (or perhaps only promising) more pie, by growing the pie, rather than reducing the share given any one person or group. That's also presented problems of late. 3. You can advocate for "virtual growth". More arts, more movies, more music, more creative activities. We're entering a post-scarcity period of abundance. This poses problems of price-discovery given zero-marginal-cost goods, which gets you back to distribution of purchasing power, and of how high up Maslow's Pyramid you can base the foundations of your economy. More to the point, change, for its own sake, isn't progress. Re-shaking a salt-and-pepper mix may change the distribution. It's unlikely to re-sort it.
- branchless 11y ago
  GDP growth is "more money". Money is created when people borrow against land. Most borrowing is against land. The boomers+ have stopped borrowing because they are going to die soon. Ergo end of "growth". GDP is a very bad thing. Also 10% of GDP is "imputed rent" - the rent you would pay to yourself for your home if you were to rent it out. Ten percent. Yet again all tied into land lending/prices.
  - seizethecheese 11y ago
    > GDP growth is "more money" This is not true. A measure of the amount of money in the economy, as tracked by the Fed, has risen around 50% since 2008 [0] while GDP has only grown a few percent per year. [0]: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2 https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2
    - branchless 11y ago
      ok it's also velocity, but in general once a boom starts and the taps come on it's both. Now I agree they are pushing on a string. If velocity is held as a constant then creating more => "growth".
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      While it's true that money supply's grown and GDP hasn't by nearly as much, that's not the correct response -- OP mis-defined GDP.
      - branchless 11y ago
        I went on to qualify that I'm assuming velocity holds constant. I really think GDP is a terrible measure. We need something that reflects the actual amount of "good stuff" getting done, not the amount of fiat created by banks to ramp the same pile of bricks.
        dredmorbius 11y ago

by petra 11y ago

dredmorbius 11y ago

Economists define growth as increase in GDP -- either nationally or per capita. Gordon's premise is that this is nearing an end for the United States, if not over. There are numerous ways you can respond to this. 1. You can look to alternative measures of growth. Ecologists and anthropologists use the principle of total energy throughput. Seems that's starting to trail off as well. 2. You can look at re-allocating the fruits of the economy. The popular name for this would be "re-distribution", if it were popular, though generally in the US it isn't. That speaks to one of many reasons growth is popular: it allows offering (or perhaps only promising) more pie, by growing the pie, rather than reducing the share given any one person or group. That's also presented problems of late. 3. You can advocate for "virtual growth". More arts, more movies, more music, more creative activities. We're entering a post-scarcity period of abundance. This poses problems of price-discovery given zero-marginal-cost goods, which gets you back to distribution of purchasing power, and of how high up Maslow's Pyramid you can base the foundations of your economy. More to the point, change, for its own sake, isn't progress. Re-shaking a salt-and-pepper mix may change the distribution. It's unlikely to re-sort it.

branchless 11y ago
GDP growth is "more money". Money is created when people borrow against land. Most borrowing is against land. The boomers+ have stopped borrowing because they are going to die soon. Ergo end of "growth". GDP is a very bad thing. Also 10% of GDP is "imputed rent" - the rent you would pay to yourself for your home if you were to rent it out. Ten percent. Yet again all tied into land lending/prices.
- seizethecheese 11y ago
  > GDP growth is "more money" This is not true. A measure of the amount of money in the economy, as tracked by the Fed, has risen around 50% since 2008 [0] while GDP has only grown a few percent per year. [0]: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2 https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2
  - branchless 11y ago
    ok it's also velocity, but in general once a boom starts and the taps come on it's both. Now I agree they are pushing on a string. If velocity is held as a constant then creating more => "growth".
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    While it's true that money supply's grown and GDP hasn't by nearly as much, that's not the correct response -- OP mis-defined GDP.
    - branchless 11y ago
      I went on to qualify that I'm assuming velocity holds constant. I really think GDP is a terrible measure. We need something that reflects the actual amount of "good stuff" getting done, not the amount of fiat created by banks to ramp the same pile of bricks.
      - dredmorbius 11y ago