Ben, I'll have to become a fully-paid member of the Abbey Cohen fan club. But she's a wimp here: <She said the Dow Jones Industrial Average, now at 10,031, will likely reach 13,000 by the end of 2001.> For over half a decade [since mid 1995] I've had my prediction in of 16,000 by Feb 2002. That's a natural consequence of money supply long term trends, technology long term trends, world demographic, political and economic long term trends. It could be a bit above or below that, but that should be the average of the fluctuations around the 3 year moving average. One should not bet against the tsunami of humanity which is crowding in multitudes into the 21st century armed with the most amazing technology and political and other successful human mutual self-defence and enhancement achievements which make all previous human developments look trivial.
...
<``We are in the midst of the most structurally sound economy that the United States has
ever seen and most likely the most structurally sound economy the world has ever seen,''she said. >
Not only is it structurally sound, the development facts are simply stupendous. Sure the Model T and RCA were big deal for the 1920s, but those were, in the broad context of humanity, trivial.
What is happening now across 6 billion people is amazing and a person listening to a radio or driving a Model T in Noo Yawk was important for them and the USA, but it was of no consequence in Africa, South America or Asia. Now, a new bit of software or an ASIC can spread around the world in seconds in the case of software and weeks in the case of ASICs with a marginal cost near zero.
Not only is the world structurally sound, all the usual glitches and problems such as Russia's notwithstanding, the technology, demographic, political and other developments are solid and rapidly expanding in their importance. Even extreme problems such as in Russia are trivial in historical context. Russia and China used to have 10 million people in a decade murdered or starved while living a rural life of penury.
India is still struggling against their colonial legacy of government edict and socialism. But they have English, a civilized rule of law, with some rough street justice to avoid clogging the courts - the police carry big sticks and use them rather than mess around with boring arrest and bureaucratic processing of misbehaving people; it seems to work well and a billion youngish people, full of energy and a wish to do better for themselves. Turned loose or lose, they could make China look trivial. For example they would have instant access to the internet's riches, which are predominantly in English - or American, which is a passable substitute. International companies can easily set up shop there because huge numbers of people use English. In China it's more difficult.
India also has a long, democratic, legal framework based on habeas corpus and all that stuff which made England great and the USA greater. They just need to ditch the socialism and trying to milk anyone who does anything, while festooning them in red tape.
Okay, I better go and see if the markets are down some more ... people obviously don't believe me [or Abbey].
Mqurice |
