ElM, not if you go by value: <Application of technology -the sacred cow of the past 100 years- is trivial, if you compare with the search for materials. >
I spend a LOT less on cyberspace per month than I do on cars, but the value to me is a LOT more.
Food costs these days are mostly labour costs and taxes at restaurants rather than the cost for home consumption of bags of peas, corn, rice, cabbage, bananas, onions, carrots, beans, olive oil, grape-seed oil, eggs, milk powder, garlic, basil, grapefruit [grown on my own tree], feijoas [same], lemons [same], plums [same], pumpkin soup [Watties canned], kumaras, fish, etc.
Materials are low on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Raw materials are almost free these days thanks to the application of technology. Once upon a time, steel was expensive and aluminium a luxury. Now titanium is more desirable and people are going upmarket to platinum. More and more people are moving off the subsistence line, bordering on famine, and into salary and wage increases, as employers compete for diminishing proportions of low-priced people.
Eastern Europe has been busted open for 15 years. China has been on a roll for decades. South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan have been wealthy for decades. India has ditched the worst of their Marxist ways.
Then, in 2037, Peak People will turbocharge the demand for people. Message 23436618
Mqurice |
