>"the last three decades income has not kept up with the cost of living despite all the new gadgets we have now. So what's going to change this trend going forward?"
Good point, a disparity that will increase no doubt, among those on the information bus and those who aren't. The concern IMO isn't the disparity itself, i.e., who cares (except Jim Clark!) if Gates is worth $5b or $500b, but the general prosperity, as measured by cost of living, working hours, lifestyle.
By that measure we're getting more done w. same dollars, using gadgets, if you appreciate information management.
But the Nirvana Economy to some from the 1950's would be housing and healthcare taking less than 1/3 of income, and 40hr or less workweeks. To some from the 1960's it's hanging out with no money and a lot of friends.
To me, it's 30hr-40hr workweeks, 3% unemployment, 15% tax rate, 1/3 income going for health and housing, and the rest fairly discretionary. Any honest politician seeking that would get my vote, but imo we'll get there w/in 10 years anyway. Call that a matter of faith, based on trends in cost-reductions and performance-improvements in tech and healthcare that eventually seep to the consumer.
Financial manipulation will continue to create tremendous paper wealth, as it creates exponential demand for communicating and processing information. That's not like "real wealth", but imo is a good thing, creating voracious maniacs who die an early death following up every impacting news item to find out the truth behind the rumors. If you're a wacko like me, you might view this parasitic financial activity as the corpus collosum of the collective intelligence, attempting to pass massive quantities of clean data between hemispheres of arts and commerce. Or something like that....
Damn, must.... try... to... be.... brief .... |
