The TechnoSponge

After years of thinking about this, I have come up with a term that can describe the thoughts I have had about the new, 'good' type of deflation that is evading the notice of almost all of the top economists in the world today.  This changes many of the most fundamental assumptions about economics, even as most economic thought is far behind the curve. 

First, let us review some events that transpired over the last 2 years.  To stave off the prospect of a deflationary spiral that could lead to a depression, the major governments of the world followed 20th-century textbook economics, and injected colossal amounts of liquidity into the financial system.  In the US, not only was the Fed Funds rate lowered to nearly zero (for now 18 months and counting), but an additional $1 Trillion was injected in. 

However, now that a depression has been averted, and the recession has ended, we were supposed to experience inflation even amidst high unemployment, just like we did in the 1970s, to minimize debt burdens.  But alas, there is still no inflation, despite a yield curve with more than 3% steepness, and a near-0% FF rate for so long.  How could this be?  What is absorbing all the liquidity?   

In The Impact of Computing, I discussed how 1.5% of World GDP today comprises of products where the same functionality can be purchased for a price that halves every 18 months.  'Moore's Law' applies to semiconductors, but storage, software, and some biotech are also on a similar exponential curve.  This force makes productivity gains higher, and inflation lower, than traditional 20th century economics would anticipate.  Furthermore, the second derivative is also increasing - the rate of productivity gains itself is accelerating.  1.5% of World GDP may be small, but what about when this percentage grows to 3% of World GDP?  5%?  We may only be a decade away from this, and the impact of this technological deflation will be more obvious. 

Most high-tech companies have a business model that incorporates a sort of 'bizarro force' that is completely the opposite of what old-economy companies operate under : The price of the products sold by a high-tech company decreases over time.  Any other company will manage inventory, pricing, and forecasts under an assumption of inflationary price increases, but a technology company exists under the reality that all inventory depreciates very quickly (at over 10% per quarter in many cases), and that price drops will shrink revenues unless unit sales rise enough to offset it (and assuming that enough unit inventory was even produced).  This results in the constant pressure to create new and improved products every few months just to occupy prime price points, without which revenues would plunge within just a year.  Yet, high-tech companies have built hugely profitable businesses around these peculiar challenges, and at least 8 such US companies have market capitalizations over $100 Billion.  6 of those 8 are headquartered in Silicon Valley. 

Now, here is the point to ponder : We have never had a significant technology sector while also facing the fears (warranted or otherwise) of high inflation.  When high inflation vanished in 1982, the technology sector was too tiny to be considered a significant contributor to macroeconomic statistics.  In an environment of high inflation combined with a large technology industry, however, major consumer retail pricepoints, such as $99.99 or $199.99, become more affordable.  The same also applies to enterprise-class customers.  Thus, demand creeps upwards even as cost to produce the products goes down on the same Impact of Computing curve.  This allows a technology company the ability to postpone price drops and expand margins, or to sell more volume at the same nominal dollar price.  Hence, higher inflation causes the revenues and/or margins of technology companies to rise, which means their earnings-per-share certainly surges.

So what we are seeing is the gigantic amount of liquidity created by the Federal Reserve is instead cycling through technology companies and increasing their earnings.  The products they sell, in turn, increase productivity and promptly push inflation back down.  Every uptick in inflation merely guarantees its own pushback, and the 1.5% of GDP that mops up all the liquidity and creates this form of 'good' deflation can be termed as the 'Technosponge'.  So how much liquidity can the Technosponge absorb before saturation? 

At this point, if the US prints another $1 Trillion, that will still merely halt deflation, and there will be no hint of inflation at all.  It would take a full $2 Trillion to saturate the techno-sponge, and temporarily push consumer inflation to even the less-than-terrifying level of 4% while also generating substantial jumps in productivity and tech company earnings.  In fact, the demographics of the US, with baby boomers reaching their geriatric years, are highly deflationary (and this is the bad type of deflation), so the US would have to print another $1 Trillion every year for the next 10 years just to offset demographic deflation, and keep the Technosponge saturated. 

A Technosponge that is 1.5% of GDP might be keeping CPI inflation at under 2%, but when the techno-sponge is 3% of GDP, even trillions of dollars of liquidity won't halt deflation.  Deflation may become normal, even as living standards and productivity rise at ever-increasing rates.  The people who will suffer are holders of debt, particularly mortgage debt.  Inflating away debt will no longer be a tool available to rescue people (and governments) from their errors.  The biggest beneficiaries will be technology companies, and those who are tied to them. 

But to keep prosperity rising, productivity has to rise at the maximum possible rate.  This requires the Technosponge to be kept full at all times - the 'new normal'.  Thus, the printing press has to start on the first $1 Trillion now, and printing has to continue until we see inflation.  Economists will be surprised at how much can be printed without seeing any inflation, and will not be able to draw the connection about why the printed money is boosting productivity. 

Related :

The Impact of Computing

Timing the Singularity

 

 

Comments

[Xamuel]

Brilliant... if only the U.S. Senate were as wise as you.

[Geoman]

hmmmm.

I'm not sure anything can halt deflation. When one man can run an entire factory, where does everyone else get the money to buy the widgets it produces?

Our capitalist system won't function properly in the future. It can't. I'm not sure what comes next - everyone becomes part owner of a company and lives from dividends I suspect. Look at Alaska Native Corporations.

[jeffolie]

Deflation is one of those words that economists argue about its meaning just as they argue about what the 'real' inflation rate is now. Let me define deflation as falling prices on a broad index of consumer expenditures while inflation will mean just the opposite, an increase in prices. Many will/can reasonably argue other meanings, but to the average American I think prices as shown on a broad index of 'personal consumer expenditures' [PCE] are the key.

PCE rose in certain segments of Americans lives at different times. For example, during the housing surge from 1990 to 2007 houses cost much more than from 1980 to 1990. In fact often house price tripled, 300% in heavily populated areas. Another example is gasoline. Americans can not much avoid housing and energy costs in PCE. Now for a little rant: the lying, corrupt government manipulated the calculations of these two unavoidable parts of PCE so much that lots of economists and commentators decried the government measurement of inflation, as do I.

Deflation in housing from the 2006 peak prices has been dramatic and not related to the technology sponge that increases productivity. Americans wages are little changed for those who have jobs over the last 10 years. During this 10 year period there has been a Technology Stock bubble and a housing bubble in America. Stagnant wages did not prevent nor cause these price bubbles. Americans can buy with cash and/or credit and buying is most of the American economy. Americans bid up Tech Stocks and houses not with cash, they used credit.

Credit use is the key variable to price inflation/deflation in these key parts of PCE.
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[jeffolie]

GK when you focus on a mere $1 Trillion of FED money this is not relevant to PCE. First, the FED money does not get into the consumers hands to spend thus the FED money can not bid up prices. Where is the FED money you may ask and even if you do not ask I will tell you that the FED publishs its balance sheet. Much of that money is out of circulation and does not turnover to increase what economists view as 'the velocity' of money. Secrets abound at the FED and CONgress recently demanded via passed legislation a 'limited audit' of the FED to reveal merely some of what the FED did with its money.

FED Trillions that are created but not circulated to consumers will not create inflation and not offset Deflation.

The Technology sponge of 1.5% has a small impact on money in consumers hands to bid up prices thus will not much impact inflation nor deflation significantly. A 3% sponge would be more important but not a lot. Consumers' available money in the form of cash and/or credit is much more important. Many factors such as total wages paid to all Americans, government benefits and transfers to Americans, taxation and/or fees demanded by government are more important than the Technology Sponge at a level of 1.5 to 3%.

I have been predicting deflation would start because I predict a sharp fall in consumer spending by the end of July. I have been predicting that for a lot of reasons that 'the feeling of hopelessness will be common by the end of October'. This has nothing to do with the Technology Sponge. By the summer of 2011 the EuroTrash will have intense deflation.

I am in no way belittling the Technology Sponge. You are correct about this over a period of years. I am a big believer in Creative Destructionism over long periods of time with the one caveat that the West's culture and politics will have to survive the coming Dollar crisis. Again, the Dollar will be strong enough and Treasuries will be safe haven investments while the EuroTrash collapse into the Summer of 2011.
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[GK]

Xamuel,

Thanks.

Geoman,

Our capitalist system won't function properly in the future.

A continually lowering barrier to entry is in fact the purest capitalism (rather than the high-barrier corporatism that passes for capitalism).

But agility and ingenuinty will trump sheer weight of capital in the future, i.e. there will be more instances of the person with $100,000 toppling the legacy incumbent with $10B to spend.

jeffolie,

The Technology sponge of 1.5% has a small impact on money in consumers hands to bid up prices

I think it is already significant that 1.5% of World GDP is experiencing ~59% annual productivity gains. That already gives the whole economy a 1%/year Productivity boost that did not exist a generation ago. That already distorts 20th-century economic paradigms a great deal.

When the Techno-sponge crosses 3% (2020-22), then things will start to become too fluid for the unsavvy to adjust to. At 6% (2030-32), life will start to become a blur. And at 50% (2060-65), what happens next might be incomprehensible to us.

[jeffolie]

GK

I do expect great technology advances longer term.

I do not understand how you can declare: "...World GDP is experiencing ~59% annual productivity gains...".

Please explain because the West is not showing this 59% gains in this year.

[GK]

jeffolie,

The 1.5% of the economy that is Impact of Computing/Techno-Sponge experiences ~59% productivity gains a year.

This affects the whole economy to an extent of (0.015)*(.59) = about 1% a year above what it might have been a couple of decades ago.

So only that 1.5% is rising by 59% a year. The other 98.5% is not. But that 1.5% is slowly growing larger and larger.

What percentage of your income is spent on high-tech (this includes 20% of the ASP of any new car)? Now apply that number to the fact that the same thing can be bought for much less each year (59% more can be bought for the same dollar amount each year i.e. a doubling per dollar every 18 months).

[Geoman]

GK,

What I'm saying is the ugly aspect of rising productivity, runaway deflation, and the technosponge, is chronic and worsening unemployment - by definition if you do more with less, the less is almost always less people.

Yes it has happened before. With agriculture. And computers. Less with more, displaced jobs, then prosperity, new industries. But does this apply to...everything all at once, continually? Can it work like that?

What do we all do for living in the bright shiny future? Blog? Become personal servants for each other? Do we devolve into Metropolis, where a few elite own and make everything, and the vast majority of us live on welfare? Or do we each have personal nanofactories making all the things we need to live. We could be like independent city states, wealthy, yet economically disconnected. Will the capitalistic system isolate us, impoverish us, bring us together, or enrich us? Maybe all of the above, depending on where and when...

I remember a long ago episode of Star Trek, where Kirk is offered a large plate of gems as a bribe. He laughs and says he can manufacture them by the shuttleload - they are relatively worthless. Yeah hokey sci-fi. But what happens when...? What do Federation officers get paid? What do they buy with that pay? What do they own? When you think about it...no answer we can think of makes any sense, other than they all own nothing, and work for free.

How will we trade goods and services in an economy were all goods and services have been fully devalued?

[Zyndryl]

When I hear the term 'holders of debt' I think of creditors, not debtors.

Geoman,

In 1900, about 50% of the working population was directly working in agriculture. When you throw in the all the agricultural support industries, the general figure goes up to 70%.

Now, 3% is the general figure with half that (1.5%) being comprised of people directly working on the farm. And we produce way, way more than we did in 1900, too.

What happened to all those freed up workers? They were able to do other things that there was either always a demand for labor to fill or new industries/services that were being created.

Same thing is happening in manufacturing. Despite losing jobs faster than Oprah can lose weight, we actually produce more year after year in manufacturing than we ever have before.

What is different between those two trends is just the pace they are taking over time. THAT can be very disruptive. It will become extremely disruptive in the near future until we adapt both as individuals and societies to live with it.

And the one major evolutionary advantage humans have over most other species isn't out intelligence, but our adaptability.

"Or do we each have personal nanofactories making all the things we need to live. We could be like independent city states, wealthy, yet economically disconnected."

That is my personal desire. 'Personal Autarky' technologies is what I call those enabling changes. Not all are technical, either. Social, religious, legal, etc.

Star Trek economics is an entirely different subject that has been mused upon quite a bit. My favorite 'explanation' is the one those who advocate PARECON (participatory economics) have put forward:

http://vanparecon.resist.ca/StarTrekEcon/

If you don't know what PARECON is, this 'Star Trek' scenario describes the basics of it pretty well.

PARECON is too collectivist for my taste. It is basically a revamped socialism as originally advocated by Marx -- w/strict controls to prevent totalitarianism under a class of planners that the 20th century communist systems became. But, unlike 20th century communism, I believe PARECON has real promise to actually work for those who want to practice it.

Other alternatives that can deal with the allocation of productive assets more 'democratically' within the capitalist system is a form of Binary Economics as proposed by the idea of 'Capital Homesteading': http://www.capitalhomestead.com/

Binary Econ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_economics

I suspect that these ideas will gain more traction as more and more economic disruption occurs within shorter and shorter cycles of time.

[GK]

Geoman,

It is possible that far too many people get left behind by the skill ladder.

Of course, the West would then regress to the state that many Asian countries are in, where a surplus of laborers drive down the price of labor a lot. In India, middle-class people hire deeply poor people as household servants.

So in America, when we see able bodied people offering to clean a house for just $30, or mow a sizable lawn for $10, that would be a signal.

A deflating price of haircuts, manual car washes, etc. would also be signs to look for. Illegals returning to Mexico because the US premium is eroding would be yet another.

[Paul]

Very interesting!

I've been thinking along these lines myself, but I never took it as far as you, or as clearly. Could be that IT productivity gains have been saving us from our bad policy decisions for quite some time now. The hidden produtivity gains from things like the internet and Google just make everything work better.

In "Millenium" by John Varley, the far future is plagued with unemployment and boredom. Nobody wants for anything, and there is no money. In that society, you are lucky to have a job because it gives you something useful to do. The machines put every last person out of work.

It is like we are getting our first glimpse into the effects of the coming intelligence explosion. The future is going to be mighty strange.

[jeffolie]

I want to throw out a twist in the discussion of deflation with looking a demographics. It appears that women are more likely to have fewer or no children when they complete college and/or are more educated. The EuroTrash, Japan, Russia all have falling birthrates and most likely declining long term populations. As these countries age into more retired level populations, the supply of workers available declines. This is often discussed but when you throw in advances in technology the picture changes somewhat. Japan's marketplace now includes simplistic 'robots' designed for the elderly. Cheap radio based telemetry will aid medical care for the elderly perhaps and reduce demands of human support for the elderly. The impact on technology on labor supply and demand for those able to pay for the elderly may be deflationary for the marketplace in caring for the elderly.

At a more personal level, when I took the family recently out to eat at our favorite Chinese buffet the price had declined to match a similar price decline at Hometown buffet. This may seem insignificant but it is a factoid that everyone can relate to that there is some current deflation.

[Zyndryl]

"The future is going to be mighty strange."

On that I believe that everyone posting here can at least agree on in principle, even if we have our own ideas on the specifics.

[paul]

Read the Culture books by Iain Banks if you want a good example of a positive future where technology pretty much reaches its ultimate conclusion.

Someone here mentioned that a socialist future could be the final result of this progression, and I would not find that surprising at all. Previous attempts at socialism in our times of scarcity have been rather... unfortunate. But a go with socialism in a time of true surplus may be quite different.

In the end, that is the purpose of all of this progress, isn't it? The machines do all the unwanted labor, everyone has everything they need or want, and people live long or even immortal lives of fulfillment. So at some point, capitalism has to turn control over to socialism, because there won't be any need for people to work at all, unless you really want to.

[GK]

paul,

So at some point, capitalism has to turn control over to socialism, because there won't be any need for people to work at all, unless you really want to.

I don't think that there will ever be a time where people don't work. Just like now, even people with $100M don't simply stop working if they are not at retirement age.

The struggle for status is a constant, and status, which is only somewhat corelated to wealth, determines how a person is treated by others. Status is also zero-sum by definition. Many people may feel they have enough wealth, but almost no one ever says they have enough status.

Socialism is merely a system where status is transferred away from businesspeople and toward bureaucrats and state agents. But it is a competition for status nonetheless.

[Paul Moore]

What am I missing here? Nanobots and one man factories may exist in some far flung future. In the here and now, the price of existing homes is falling, while the cost of building new becomes prohibitive. Resources are still finite, and skilled human labor is still required to make many things. That laptop is getting cheaper, but the hay I used to buy at 30 cents a bale is $2 now, and getting harder to find. The berries we used to buy by the lug and freeze are sold by the ounce like caviar. We used to pay off a car in three years, not six.

[Russ]

Indeed, and this runs into a certain Morlock/Eloi argument that's been making the rounds elsewhere lately... those who have the skills to make things happen have generally been at the mercy of those who make the pretty speeches.

With technological change and the "economic autarchy" thesis, that changes dramatically. If I am a "maker" and can provide specific solutions to problems (be it hay, berries, or a sharp new sickle for gardening in those spots where a weedwhacker is the wrong tool for the job), I will gain significant status compared to those who regard "entertainment" as an end in and of itself.

Certain sorts of arts and handicraft may also wind up being priveleged along with solid, serious blue-collar skills, particularly if combined with high-tech conveniences, as they allow for increasing diversity of high-demand low-volume niche markets.

One can already see this split in those who are "aged-out" of the workforce but go on to do other things, versus those who pick up an RV and join a retirement community. The latter are booming (ask any corporate real-estate guy), but the former are productive.

[jeffolie]

Technology dumbs our children.Parents dump kids into electronic babysitting and brainwashing of TV and other electronic media where they learn like sponges.

Eventually it's going to relegate reading of physical books to a intellectual elite who still retains the intellectual discipline and curiosity needed to read books.

And the minority aspect demonstrates without a doubt the more the time you spend watching TV and consuming electronic media, the dumber you get.

Kids are spending their waking hours mostly consuming TV via different platforms. White kids are in the many media platforms about 8 hours while blacks and hispanics about 13 hours. That is a 5 hour difference that White kids do not spend in the media. Guess what the heavier media users are minorities and less get good grades. Over 80% have internet at home and they spend over an hour on it.

See details in my thread for the link to Shocking Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds

http://www.phpbbplanet.com/damessageboard/viewtopic.php?t=19793&mforum=damessageboard

[GK]

Paul Moore,

I am not sure why hay should be more expensive. How long ago was the price 30 cents? Or are more of the customers now just the wealthy, who own their own horses?

Cars are definitely cheaper, relative to incomes, than 20 years ago. If people creep up to higher and higher models, that is a different matter. What was the mileage and horsepower of the car you used to pay off in 3 years? What features did it have vs. your latest car? The $20,000 car of today is much better than the $20,000 car of 20 years ago.

[jeffolie]

Tesla Shares Drop Below Initial Offering Price of $17

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-06/tesla-shares-drop-below-initial-offering-price-of-17.html

That was fast. I expected the price to drop within a year, not within a week.

[GK]

Tesla's market cap is only $122M. I think it will get acquired at some point, for cheap.

[Ajay]

jeffollie got it right in his second comment, inflation is being held down by the fact that the $1 trillion in extra money is being held in bank reserves and hasn't entered the economy, not because of any technological deflation. If anything, technology companies are seeing increased earnings only because their products have become necessities to most people, rather than just luxury items like they were in the past. I suggest you leave the money supply to the few people who understand it, like Bernanke or Hummel, though I will agree with you that most economists only have a fuzzy notion of it too, and stick to the tech topics that you know about.

[GK]

Ajay,

$1 Trillion will do nothing to create inflation, for the reasons explained. It is simply too little relative to $11 Trillion in US mortgage debt alone.

If anything, technology companies are seeing increased earnings only because their products have become necessities to most people, rather than just luxury items like they were in the past.

Far too simplistic, and certainly does not refute the techno-sponge concept.

and stick to the tech topics that you know about.

Condescending as always, Ajay.

You completely ignore the deflationary nature of technology, even if it is just 1.5% of the global economy. The hours of labor needed to purchase 1 GB of storage, 1 Teraflop of computing, 1 GB of RAM, etc. drops quickly. If the dollar itself is inflating, technology becomes more affordable sooner, boosting productivity and pushing inflation back down.

[Ajay]

GK, $1 trillion could have a large effect if it was actually released into the economy, but it doesn't only because it's sitting in reserves. Read up on the multiplier effect of fractional-reserve banking, $1 trillion in cash can be turned into $10 trillion in the banks, which is why some are forecasting massive inflation when the economy gets better. Better to have the simple answer about why tech companies are doing well and be right, than have an ignorant answer that is wrong. ;) The techno-sponge concept makes no sense if there's no inflation to be mopped up, so that was already refuted. :) I don't ignore the productivity increases from technology at all, I marvel at the fundamental changes that are going on, that you rightly trumpet. However, it's wrong to say that inflation makes tech more affordable as tech prices will simply rise to adjust. My ultimate point is that you're right about technology bringing great productivity increases, but your simplistic understanding of inflation and the money supply is leading you to economic conclusions that are unsupportable. Better to stick with tech is my suggestion.

[jeffolie]

Regarding deflation you would be better off examining technology's impact on the American Services Sector than manufacturing because services are the vast majority of the American economy. Manufacturing as a percentage of our economy has declined tremendously because of the policies/laws allowing 'free trade' and wage abitrage/cheap labor/avoidance of US labor & pollution laws.

Technology in the services sector is deflationary when combined with shipping service sector jobs overseas. The most publicized and irritating example is dealing with tech help centers now located in India. Other service jobs influencing deflation are Medical vacations, tax advice from Indians, tutoring from overseas tutors, etc.

Even now the Clerks in the City of Long Beach port are on strike to stop their jobs from being outsourced to overseas.

I do not percieve any significant political backlash yet to elect politicians that would promote tariffs/policies/regulations/laws to change this technology and 'free trade' driven deflationary trend now emerging in the services sector. Obama and CONgress must declare China a currency manipulator or not a manipulator in mid October. This isolated event forces the politicans to make a position that may set a backlash to this deflationary practice. I am not predicting an outcome for this event.

[GK]

Ajay,

which is why some are forecasting massive inflation when the economy gets better.

That ship has already sailed - inflation is a very distant prospect. 'Some' forecasting anything is meaningless.

than have an ignorant answer that is wrong. ;)

It isn't wrong. For starters, why is the fed about to undertake a 'monster amount of printing', if the Fed balance sheet could simply be used?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7857595/RBS-tells-clients-to-prepare-for-monster-money-printing-by-the-Federal-Reserve.html

You are not even addressing the main points about purchasing power rising greatly if measured in units of storage, processing, etc. As I said at the very start of the article, most economists have no clue about this second variety of deflation.

However, it's wrong to say that inflation makes tech more affordable as tech prices will simply rise to adjust.

The Moore's Law effect on semi process sizes is independent of CPI, even as the finished products drop. The pricepoints of elasticity ($99, $199, etc.) are reached sooner.

Ajay, I remind you that you are someone who thinks $300M net worth is middle class in Silicon Valley. I don't think you can tell others about an 'understanding of money'.

[Ajay]

GK, inflation may be a distant prospect, but that's mostly because Bernanke is not dumb enough to let that reserve money out into the economy. However, the people who think he will be tempted to do so make a much better argument for possible inflation than your silly argument that tech is mopping up money that hasn't even entered the economy yet. :) The editorial you link to is written by someone who wishes the Fed would print a lot, but nobody in the Fed has said that and frankly Bernanke is not that dumb. I clearly said you are right about the obvious point that the price of many computing units keeps falling, but while many economists may be ignorant of the consequences of these constant efficiency gains, all us techies know this obvious fact already. Moore's law isn't independent of CPI, because the prices of inputs will go up along with CPI. If there is broad inflation of 10% because of money supply expansion, tech prices will go up just like any other good, just less than other goods, something like 10% - 3% productivity increase of technology so 7%. As for price points, if you think every tech company is going to stick to some arbitrary price point like $99 or $199 when there's rampant inflation, you are fairly ignorant. Haha, hilarious how you keep bringing up your friend Elon and his silly companies, I suggest you read that nytimes article I linked you to last time that showed exactly what I said: that $300 million is nothing compared to the billionaires living in the valley these days.

[GK]

because the prices of inputs will go up along with CPI.

That is in fact far smaller than the end-user price impact.

if you think every tech company is going to stick to some arbitrary price point like $99 or $199 when there's rampant inflation, you are fairly ignorant.

What 'rampant inflation'? Where?

And you are effectively agreeing with the article by saying that if inflation does arrive, a company can keep prices at a given level longer, expanding margins.

Plus, you don't know how retail pricing works. New versions of Apple iPods will never launch at higher nominal prices than their preceding versions did. Even high inflation will not change that. Tell me when iPods actually rise in price.

that $300 million is nothing compared to the billionaires living in the valley these days.

There are only about 30 such billionaires in the Valley, and almost no new ones created in the last 5 years. A person with $300M is still well within the top 200 households in silicon valley. There is no place in the world where $300M is anything less than super-wealthy, let alone middle class.

I have met no other human being who thinks $300M is middle class in Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Hong Kong, Dubai, or anywhere else.

Ajay, I don't see anyone else agreeing with you here.

[Ajay]

The inputs to tech goods are mostly engineer wages, which are passed along exactly proportionately to the final price. Nobody said there is rampant inflation, only that your claim that tech goods become more affordable during inflation is silly because the prices of tech goods would go up proportionately just like everything else. I agree that prices would stay higher but I disagree that that expands margins, because in an inflationary environment, costs go up too. You don't seem to know how inflation works: if there is heavy inflation, the prices of iPods will go up just like everything else. You are just being dumb if you think Apple would try to fight that battle. Heh, it's funny how you have to keep defending your buddy Elon and his "success," which only came from luckily cashing out during the dot.com peak and has been followed by a bunch of troubled gambles like Tesla. There are always new billionaires being created, like Zuckerberg and Benioff in the last 5 years, though the valley has become a silly place where not much actual value creation has been going on for the last 10-15 years. However, there are still hundreds of centi-millionaires living there, mostly created by silly stock bubbles like the current Apple bubble, so I wouldn't be so sure that Elon makes the top 200. Hell, he can't even pay his bills right now. Again, try actually reading the previous nytimes article, it makes the same point.

[jeffolie]

I predicted and continue to predict very high inflation when the Dollar collapses. For now, I see deflation coming. If the Fed took actions to cause very rapid inflation then for a while America would get very rapid inflation but for now the money is locked up in committed reserves and Fed facilities. This money is not in circulation and not likely to get into circulation unless actions are taken by the Fed. Many have suggested for example that the Fed stop paying interest on reserves because this would motivate the Banks to seek a return on these monies by making loans thus putting these monies into circulation; this is merely one scenario that has been suggested by those expecting very rapid inflation soon. There are many scenarios, but I am not in this camp. I am in the deflationary camp now until policies change.

Longer term/intermediate term I do expect very rapid inflation because the Dollar will meet the same problem similar but not exactly the same as the Euro. Again I repeat, I predict the Euro troubles to stengthen the Dollar into the Summer of 2011.

GK

The Technology Sponge is deflationary. But, it is insignificant compared to much bigger actions in the Euro and money created by the Fed and Treasury. If the value of the Euro and Dollar were to remain stable, then the impact of the Technology sponge would be noticeable to deflation/inflation over the intermediate/longer term. I just expect very big financial events to overwhelm the Technology Sponge impact over the next 1 to 3 years.

[Zyndryl]

"I suggest you leave the money supply to the few people who understand it, like Bernanke..."

Uh, Bernanke doesn't know jack about it, from what I can tell.

[Zyndryl]

Ajay -

"Read up on the multiplier effect of fractional-reserve banking, $1 trillion in cash can be turned into $10 trillion in the banks.."

The 'multiplier effect' has been disproven so many times it is amazing people still buy into it.

Banks do not create money, period. They create C-R-E-D-I-T. And that is not the same as money. Increased credit, in turn, can increase the velocity (or 'churn') of money as more and more debt-slaves need to hustle to (a) pay back the principle) and (b) interest on top of that, compounded multiple times through the live of the debt. But it does not create money itself. Only the FED does.

And it is only the increase in actual money that leads to inflation, not the increase of transactions that the money is used for.

"My ultimate point is that you're right about technology bringing great productivity increases, but your simplistic understanding of inflation and the money supply is leading you to economic conclusions that are unsupportable. Better to stick with tech is my suggestion."

Since you yourself have proven by your own statements that you only know how to parrot the buzzwords but do not understand the fundamentals of what you are writing about, it seems to be that you have quite a bit of gall to be lecturing The Futurist on what he should or should not write about.

Inflation is coming simply because all the classic FORWARD indicators for it have been saying so...like gold. Other items, like a men's suit for example, will take a while before their prices catches up with inflation. Labor price increases will be squelched as well...any real increase in the future driven mostly by the looming demographic-based labor shortages we will be experiencing after enough 'critical mass' of boomer retirements happen.

And still others -- like real estate, which is usually a classic inflationary hedge -- are sitting this one out for reasons I am sure I don't have to elucidate on.

When economic growth starts to rise again, then that inflation caused by Bernanke's rampant devaluation of the dollar will come roaring right in like the Atlantic did into the Mediterranean Basin when the Strait of Gibralter broke some 11,000 or so years ago.

The dollar and all other fiat currencies like it are all heading for an extinction-level event, much like Jeffolie says (if not for the same reasons I give). This is because history has proven so for each and every other valueless currencies in the past that were like them. It is a historical rarity for a fiat currency to be competently managed for more than 50 years. The Futurist's TechnoSponge has helped push out that day of reckoning, I believe.

[GK]

Ajay,

You continue to move the goalposts, and quite clumsily.

I didn't bring up Elon Musk at all. You did. Whether Elon Musk happens to now be below his peak of $300M is irrelevant. Your claim is that the number, $300 Million, makes an individual 'middle class' in Silicon Valley.

That claim is so funny that I still can't tell if you are serious. You are orders of magnitude off. Your inability to defend the claim that $300M is 'middle class' results in all sorts of bizarre acrobatics.

However, there are still hundreds of centi-millionaires living there

Wait, if there are only 'hundreds', how can a $300M net worth be 'middle class'? Unless you think Silicon Valley's population is only 1000 households....

Or is your position actually : "Elon Musk is middle class, no matter what, whether his wealth rises or plummets. I will continue to define 'middle class' as a zone that always, always includes Elon Musk"? Is that a more accurate description of your position? Seems like it.

Stick to the number, $300 Million, not a person, and defend your fantastic claim.

Better yet, tell us what net worth range defines middle class, upper middle class, rich, super-rich, etc. in Silicon Valley. I want to see what numbers you come up with.

[Ajay]

Zyndryl says "Bernanke doesn't know jack about" the money supply, ok, then explain why he doesn't. Oh, that's right, you're one of those dummies the internet is filled with, who simply make flat assertions and cannot back them up with a single argument. :) Haha, the multiplier effect has been disproven? That's hilarious, please expound, that should be even funnier. :D I see, so the $8 trillion in M2 - M0, ie bank created money minus Fed created money, does not cause inflation? It's only the $400 billion in cash held in the US, as half of it is held abroad, that causes inflation? Wow, you are ignorant about the money supply, I challenge you to find a single credible economist who would agree with that. "Since you yourself have proven by your own statements that you only know how to parrot the buzzwords but do not understand the fundamentals of what you are writing about, it seems to be that you have quite a bit of gall to be lecturing GK on what he should or should not write about." Haha, that's hilarious, it's a never-ending source of hilarity to me how dummies will inevitably make such outlandish accusations that are actually perfectly applied to them. XD You use the term "velocity" but do not understand that velocity IS actually one of the drivers of inflation, perfectly exemplifying your bizzare statements using "buzzwords" that show your fundamental ignorance. As for supposed forward indicators like gold prices, they call inflation five times for every time it actually happens. As for what happens when the economy starts improving, it could lead to heavy inflation but it likely won't because Bernanke will just mop up reserves, a distinction I'm not sure you understand. If fiat currencies go away, it'll be because we find something even better, not because they're "valueless" and we certainly won't go backwards to something dumb like the gold standard. So the TechnoSponge has pushed back "the day of reckoning" despite Bernanke's $1 trillion in reserves not having entered the economy? That's some magic sponge, that can sponge up something that isn't there. :)

GK, I see, Elon is the person I originally made the claim about and yet "I'm" moving the goalposts by pointing that out. :) Funny how you claim "bizarre acrobatics," yet cannot back that up with a single example of said acrobatics. :D Hilarious how you keep repeatedly change the subject here and in other threads to a tongue-in-cheek mild exaggeration that I made one year ago, because you cannot ever defend the ignorant statements you keep making in your actual posts and comments. Why would I stick to a net worth number that you made up for a fairly arbitrary label that I gave a year ago? Hilarious how you demand "numbers" for the classes of Silicon Valley, as though there existed any agreed-upon way to define those. Nice try continuing to change the subject to something I said one year ago, but every time you do so, it just shows how ignorant you are about the actual subject at hand, in this case your ignorance of how the money supply actually works, that you keep trying to create some silly argument about a vague label like "middle class" from a year ago. :)

[GK]

Ajay,

You are just backing away from your claim that '$300M net worth is middle class in Silicon Valley' since you have been pressed on it. You cannot tout a NYT article to unsuccessfully defend your claim, and later say you were only 'tongue in cheek'.

You could simply say "I didn't really mean that", but instead have defended that for a long time, including in comments here.

Hilarious how you demand "numbers" for the classes of Silicon Valley, as though there existed any agreed-upon way to define those.

Asking for someone's opinion is quite normal. Why not state a range, however wide, of what YOU think?

While there is not any exact 'agreed upon' way, it will be universally agreed that $300 Million is ultra-wealthy, not 'middle class'. Your NYT article discusses people who have $2M, not three hundred million.

And yes, I think someone who defends a claim that $300M is middle class has to be pressed on that before he can be considered credible on M1, inflation, how many zeroes are in a trillion, etc.

Now, on the matter at hand about money supply, it is not just me, but Zyndryl as well who has explained to you why you are wrong. The Bernanke $1 Trillion point is debunked. I already stated that it is a pittance compared to $10.5 Trillion in mortgage debt. California mortgages alone are underwater by more than $1 Trillion, so it would not cause inflation, especially due to the existence of the Technosponge.

Ajay, frankly, anyone who peppers terms like 'ignorant', 'dumb', 'dummies', and 'stick to what you know' right off the bat into their opening comments, usually is not very sure of their points, and is not much fun to interact with in any case. You don't see others writing with such a lack of decorum.

I do, however, encourage you to use your diplomatic talents to argue with feminists. You could be a valuable ally as a hatchet-man, in that war.

[Ajay]

GK, I linked above to my actual claim, that Elon is just a middling success in the valley, that you keep twisting into something else. It is obvious why you keep doing so in multiple threads: you are completely ignorant of the real issues that have come up, like the money supply, so every time you cannot back up your statements, you fabricate this "issue" from a year ago to distract from your ignorance. Keep pointing to that irrelevant issue and I'll keep pointing to how you have no understanding of real issues like the money supply. It's hilarious how you think the definition of "middle class" has any connection to the money supply, particularly given how you do not even understand that Bernanke's $1 trillion in reserves has not entered the economy, as jeffollie and I both corrected you about. Did you read up on the money multiplier effect of fractional-reserve banking and how that means that $1 trillion in Fed notes entering the economy would lead to trillions more in bank money? You must not have because you still keep making the same silly arguments, which is even more ridiculous given how we've already pointed out to you exactly how you're wrong. But since you both don't know anything about the money supply and are uninterested in actually learning about it, you keep repeating the same dumb claims.

As for the language I use, I choose to label accurately someone who makes crazy claims like Zyndryl or the repeated displays of ignorance on your part precisely because I'm sure of your mistakes. Decorum? Ha, the last refuge of someone who has lost are whines that the winner didn't win graciously. :) I see nothing decorous about the way you and and Zyndryl keep making dumb and blatantly ignorant statements and then accuse others of not knowing what they're talking about. As for feminists, anyone who reads your misandry bubble post just sees a pathetic divorcee who's lashing out with crazy theories as a result, not any worthwhile "war" to take part in. Whatever else you think, your silly longings for women who have had less sexual partners before marriage or marry earlier before they hit "peak beauty" are even loonier. I prefer women who have had a large number of sexual partners. I'm sorry for whatever you're going through but turning it into some broader "war" against women or whatever is just misguided rage on your part.

[Neil]

Can I briefly stick my head in here and say that this blog is ridiculous. GK, I return to this blog because I find your articles incisive and generally thought-provoking. You are obviously a thoughtful chap with an eclectic academic sensibility.

HOWEVER, I find you to be a massive egoist. Do you know how ridiculous and childish your posts can be to people who don't agree with you. I've never read somebody as defensive and insecure. I can't think of any 'Futurist' posts I've read that haven't ended in a "my dick is bigger than yours" pissing contest between you and an adversary. Your posts are great, like I said, but you cultivate this smug / superior tone, which is obviously born out of some kind of insecurity.

A wiser man questions his own ideas. You seem to post your blog and then do not shift your position, regardless how salient another poster's argument may be.

Stop behaving like so autistic (or better yet, like a big baby) and being so hostile to anybody that challenges your proposition. I know that this blog is your little sanctuary away from the world, but shouldn't it be about SHARING ideas - not competing.

And no, I am not "Ajay". I'm a long time reader that has grown tired of your childish behavior.

For somebody who prides themselves on being so "intelligent", you sure act like a damn imbecile.

[jeffolie]

GK

The velocity of money is very important to the economy and inflation. Money that does not get spent contributes nothing to inflation nor the economy. The velocity has crashed, see chart :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M2VelocityEMratioUS052009.png

The Fed provides a good chart and now the number is less than one at .786. This IS BAD, DEFLATIONARY.

"Since January 2009, the M1 Money Multiplier has crashed further, to .786 in the U.S. as of February 24, 2010:
That means that – for every $1 increase in the monetary base – the money supply only increases by 79 cents.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/03/guest-post-m1-money-multiplier-still-crashing-each-1-increase-in-monetary-base-results-in-only-79-cent-increase-in-money-supply.html

In monetary economics, a money multiplier is one of various closely related ratios of commercial bank money to central bank money under a fractional-reserve banking system.[1] Most often, it measures the maximum amount of commercial bank money that can be created by a given unit of central bank money. That is, in a fractional-reserve banking system, the total amount of loans that commercial banks are allowed to extend (the commercial bank money that they can legally create) is a multiple of reserves; this multiple is the reciprocal of the reserve ratio, and it is an economic multiplier.[2]

If banks lend out close to the maximum allowed by their reserves, then the inequality becomes an approximate equality, and commercial bank money is central bank money times the multiplier. If banks instead lend less than the maximum, accumulating excess reserves, then commercial bank money will be less than central bank money times the multiplier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_multiplier

[GK]

Neil,

So your first post in a very long time is merely to conduct some shaming language. Let's see why that may be :

Remember what I say often - anyone who makes a waaaay off-base accusation is partaking in projection. That appears to be the case with you.

I notice you haven't said a word about the subject at hand, and conveniently ignore Ajay's very improper tone, relative to my far more appropriate one.

At the same time, I have may long-time commenters who may disagree with me, but know how to maintain a sane tone, so we never become incordial with one another.

Your waaaay off-base analysis does not impress me, Neil.

Are you the same Neil who, in late 2008, kept insisting that the Surge in Iraq was not working, and the Iraq War is lost? If you are still sulking over that, that would explain a lot.

[GK]

Ajay,

You are quite inhinged at this point.

For starters, you have not understood even the basic concepts of the Misandry Bubble, which was the most widely read article here.

The fact that you are now taking the 'throw the kitchen sink approach' because you can't address my points or Zyndryl's, says a lot. It is not common to see someone get so viscerally angry over a topic like money supply.

[Ajay]

GK, you are a card, :) Haha, I'm throwing the kitchen sink? You are the one who brought up your "war" against feminists and then when I addressed it, you now accuse me of changing the subject, even thought it was you who changed the subject. Your "tactics" are patently transparent for anyone to see: you cannot make real, informed comments on the rate of technical progress or the money supply, so you constantly change the subject to silly, irrelevant issues like a "war" against feminism, that are fairly subjective and can have no real conclusion. What's breathtaking is that you then accuse others of changing the subject, though that's perfectly in keeping with what I said earlier about Zyndryl: dummies inevitably level accusations that are actually perfectly applied to them.

Haha, hilarious how you and Zyndryl make such dumb statements that you cannot back up, while I pepper my comments with actual arguments, facts, and links, then you flatly assert that it's the opposite. :) Reminds me of a kid saying "No, you are!" Haha, I'm angry? XD Where in my repeated uses of the terms "hilarious" or "funny" or smiley-faces do you see anger? Nah, I actually like to read about and know stuff so it's funny to me when I see half-wits like you or Zyndryl make grandiose statements that cannot be backed up by any actual facts or analysis, and then I enjoy bashing you over the head with some real knowledge. I find that inevitably doesn't take and more hilariously ignorant accusations follow, as you've just demonstrated. :) Perhaps a childish pursuit on my part, to keep poking at such dummies, but we all have our vices. ;)

[GK]

Ajay,

and then claim everyone else is unhinged.

Not 'everyone'. Just you.

because you can't address my points or Zyndryl's, says a lot.

Wait, now you claim Zyndryl agrees with you? Where?

Keep talking. At this point your self-immolation has its own momentum.

A meltdown of someone triggered by a discussion of a subject as dry as money supply and liquidity is a sight to behold. Imagine your behavior if we actually discussed a sensitive subject.

[Dave]

Interesting subject, and a great observation. I have thought about the same thing, but never put it into focus like this.

The earlier comments were good, but then as I got lower into the thread, this 'Ajay' nutjob showed up.

Ajay, even if your point about the 'multiplier effect' might have had some merit, your tone is that of an insecure, angry, unloved, lonely lunatic. You don't win people over by trumpeting how 'dumb' you think they are, both before and after they have made counterpoints.

There is a book called 'How to Win Friends and Influence People', by Dale Carnegie, that teach you how to interact with humans.

If you are so smart, Ajay, where is your blog?

GK, keep up the good work, and don't let lunatics distract you. You have more patience with them then I would have.

[Ajay]

GK, Haha, I just realized where your crazy claims of self-immolation or meltdown or that I'm "angry" come from, took me a minute because they seemed to come out of left field and have no connection to what I actually wrote. I see now that you are simply throwing back at me the same accusations I made about your loony claims in the misandry post or the rage I saw seething out of it, which is particularly hilarious because I actually stated exactly the reasons for those labels while you cannot back up your silly accusations with a single argument or example. Par for the course with your typically silly comments, I suppose. :). You would learn a lot from the stardust of someone as brilliant as I am.

[The Futurist]

jeffolie,

Money that does not get spent contributes nothing to inflation nor the economy.

Yes, this is true. Mortgage payments, however, are a big current flow. Tech company revenues are also at an all-time high.

the number is less than one at .786. This IS BAD, DEFLATIONARY.

Yes. But I think technology is some level of contributor to this. We have high productivity growth even amidst deflation, which usually is not a feature of deflation.

It is pretty hard to separate out the two types of deflation.

I just expect very big financial events to overwhelm the Technology Sponge impact over the next 1 to 3 years.

I agree. The Techno-sponge today is just big enough to take in $2 Trillion at most. Inflation spikes can overwhelm it in the short term, but those periods, which itself increase the size of the Techno-sponge, are brief. I don't think the CPI will go much higher than 4-5% for any given year, even then.

[Zyndryl]

Ajay -

"Oh, that's right, you're one of those dummies the internet is filled with, who simply make flat assertions and cannot back them up with a single argument."

No, Ajay. That's your job.

They call Bernanke 'Helicopter Ben' for a reason, Ajay. And it is not a very flattering one with regards to his 'expertise'.

"so the $8 trillion in M2 - M0, ie bank created money minus Fed created money, does not cause inflation?"

There is no such thing as 'bank created money'. Again, you didn't even read what I wrote...you just push the buzzwords while exposing your true ignorance in the process.

"It's only the $400 billion in cash held in the US, as half of it is held abroad, that causes inflation? Wow, you are ignorant about the money supply, I challenge you to find a single credible economist who would agree with that."

WHAT are you talking about? The FED has created TRILLIONS in Fed funds. You ARE aware that 97% of all money created by the FED is in the form of electronic Fed Funds, right? Wow! Looks like you aren't! Big surprise!

"As for what happens when the economy starts improving, it could lead to heavy inflation but it likely won't because Bernanke will just mop up reserves, a distinction I'm not sure you understand."

Oh do tell us then the EXACT mechanics of how he will 'mop it up' then. Especially since a lot of that money created was used to buy crap assets that can't be offloaded for the same value...do please explain that.

" If fiat currencies go away, it'll be because we find something even better, not because they're "valueless" and we certainly won't go backwards to something dumb like the gold standard."

Yeah, something WITH value. Right now no currency is backed up that way, so we are forced to live in a sea of mediocre currencies. And gold pegged currencies performed far, far better than fiat ones have, hands down. The historical data is irrefutable.

Oh! Pop-quiz time for Ajay! Here we go:

How did the modern day gold standard of currency management operate, as pioneered by the Bank of England in the mid 1800s up until Nixon abolished it in the 1970s? Please...I'd like to hear your BS so the rest of the folks on here can see what you DON'T know.

"So the TechnoSponge has pushed back "the day of reckoning" despite Bernanke's $1 trillion in reserves not having entered the economy? That's some magic sponge, that can sponge up something that isn't there. :)"

Who claimed that? Wasn't me. How about you, GK?

"Ha, the last refuge of someone who has lost are whines that the winner didn't win graciously. :)"

Not our last refuge, but certainly your FIRST one.

Another pop-quiz for Ajay! Hey Ajay! True of false: In order to run a gold standard currency today, some reserves of gold need to be maintained in order to do it...or not?

C'mon Ajay! Prove with specific examples of knowledge on this subject that you know even a shred of what you are talking about.

Jeffolie -

"In monetary economics, a money multiplier is one of various closely related ratios of commercial bank money to central bank money under a fractional-reserve banking system."

Yes, but Ajay keeps EXPLICITLY clinging to the notion that banks are creating MONEY and not CREDIT with those loans. Fractional reserve banking only creates more credit and it can exist -- because it did exist before -- central banking ever did. I am almost certain that Ajay doesn't even know what he's talking about and actually believe that banks create MONEY when in fact, only the Fed does.

Nice response, btw. You are doing better than I am in exposing this charade.

Neil - Dunno what to say simply because I don't know where you are coming from, unlike I do with regards to Ajay, Jeffolie and GK. But you decided to pipe up and rant anyway. What gives?

[Ajay]

Dave, hilarious how you come in slinging crazy accusations about me then tell me how I shouldn't use any pejoratives. :) It must be some kind of rule for morons that they have no logical ability to see that they break their own rules while they're stating them. XD Haha, "If you are so smart, Ajay, where is your blog?" that's just priceless. Please keep going, the unintentional comedy you're dropping is just comedy gold. :)

Zyndryl leads off with the classic dummy response, "No, you are!" Classic start. :) I already gave my numbers of how $800-900 billion of Fed-created money is in paper Fed Notes, with half of it held abroad, and another $1 trillion is in electronic reserves, and I linked to charts and graphs above that show this. That leads me to a calculation of 55% of Fed funds that are electronic, 70% if you don't count the cash held abroad. So no, 97% of Fed money is definitely NOT electronic. Now please put the hyperventilating question marks and exclamation marks away and provide some actual data. Oh that's right, you can't, because your claim is just crazy. :D As for mopping up reserves, easy, the Fed will simply sell those crap assets, mostly MBS as shown in the link above, back at whatever price they can get for them, likely taking some loss on the book value they bought them for. What's so hard about that? The gold standard was a mixed bag that was accompanied by wild swings in inflation and deflation, but you don't know anything about actual business so that's lost on you. Suffice it to say that fractional-reserve banking has accompanied the gold standard for centuries, allowing bankers to create private money and expand the money supply the whole time, a point you gold bugs never seem to understand. I'm supposed to give you a history lesson of the evolution of the gold standard over the centuries? Please, try making a semblance of a connection to the actual points we were discussing, rather than going off on your favorite, silly tangent about how the gold standard was some magic panacea.

Let me quote you, "It is a historical rarity for a fiat currency to be competently managed for more than 50 years. GK's TechnoSponge has helped push out that day of reckoning." Either you believe that this "technosponge" mopped up Bernanke's reserves or you don't really believe in the sponge, as GK's whole point was that this sponge was driven by inflation to magically transmute the extra money into accelerating deflation. Although, I suppose it doesn't matter what you really believe about the "technosponge" as it's a patently stupid idea to begin with. Haha, yet again, "Not our last refuge, but certainly your FIRST one" = "No, you are!" particularly hilarious given GK's constant and duplicitous whining about decorum. :) Obviously you need to maintain gold reserves to run a gold standard, that's what makes it so dumb an idea in the first place. I've answered your dumb questions, now try backing up your loony claims: that would be the funniest thing you could do. :D What you don't understand is that banks essentially create private money, which some may call credit. It is the hallmark of a moron that he will obsess over such basic definitional issues because he cannot actually reason about anything else. Haha, you think jeffollie was contradicting me? XD Wow, you don't even understand basic english, jeff basically supported everything I said, countering the dumb claims made by you and GK. Zyndryl, I think I've encountered an authentic loon with these outlandish claims you keep making, I'll have to stop wasting time on your logical vacuums for comments if you cannot even string two rational sentences together.

[Eman policarpio]

nice..history names Kings not the soldier right?

[Ray Manta]

Interesting article Futurist. I believe that much of what we're seeing now is due to the characteristics of complex systems. Attempts to interfere with or game them often have results far afield of what you would intuitively expect. Robert Rood and James Trefil touched upon this in their book Are We Alone? at http://www.amazon.com/Are-Alone-Possibility-Extraterrestrial-Civilizations/dp/0684178427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278691113&sr=8-1
The example given was dumping extra hydrogen into a star (makes it dimmer, not brighter) but it obviously applies to other systems too.

[Ray Manta]

Geoman wrote:

Yes it has happened before. With agriculture. And computers. Less with more, displaced jobs, then prosperity, new industries. But does this apply to...everything all at once, continually? Can it work like that?

The short answer is if we eliminate scarcity, we'd all be rich.
Of course, it's not going to be that simple.

What do we all do for living in the bright shiny future? Blog? Become personal servants for each other?

That will only last until personal servants are replaced by robotic ones.

Or do we each have personal nanofactories making all the things we need to live. We could be like independent city states, wealthy, yet economically disconnected.

That sounds like a plan to me - transition to a bunch of independent autarchies. The only possible downside to that is that if there are any disagreements between those city-states, they may get bloody without any economic bonds to keep them together. That might not be an entirely bad thing though - it would give those entities an incentive to be highly mobile and able to disperse. Perhaps Gerard O'Neill's dream of space colonization will be realized by the need for people to get the hell away from each other.

How will we trade goods and services in an economy were all goods and services have been fully devalued?

Marshall Brain had a few good ideas at his website - he suggested a basic monthly income for everyone whether they worked or not. They would be financially secure, but if they came up with something new, such as a best-seller, novel, computer application, or invention they would be well-rewarded for it. I think what he's suggesting is that we're reaching the end of an era where it's economically efficient to keep people fully employed. Instead, always make sure they have enough to meet their needs but allow capitalistic incentives.

There are parallels elsewhere. 50 years ago, it was economically important to keep computer processing time constantly busy. Now the computer I'm typing on is millions of times more powerful than the expensive processors of yesteryear but spends most of its time waiting for human input.

[jeffolie]

Politics and wars are important. Consider wars, politics, religious movements as 'black swans' that always happen but are not predictable for timing purposes. Currently the rise of Islam is like a technology wet blanket. Countries rule by Sharia are not doing research nor development in technology.

War may happen very soon because politicians like to have wars during austerity to increase their popularity. Many currently refer to how Thatcher's popularity declined, though economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support and she was re-elected in 1983. In addition, political leaders and heros are sought after by poor, depressed masses willing to rally around radical change.

Beyond the next year, I expect some type of 'black swan' development as austerity that hold first in EuroTrashLand and by the end of 2013 in America. When the 'black swan' will happen is uncertain, but certainlys as history tends to rhyme (Twain) the chances of a 'black swan' technology wet blank increases significantly in China, India, America and Europe.

[Big Jay]

This is an interesting post, and I have enjoyed reading through the comments as well.

I've got a couple of knee jerk responses that I want to just throw out there, and get anybody's response.

1 - Increasing productivity, and deflation have been big problems for the corporatists for over 100 years. Back in the 1890's they were grappling with this. Pricing signals have been warped by creating artificial barriers to entry, and giving/receiving political favors for a long time. Semiconductors are maybe an exception because the free market has reigned most of the time.

2 - The question in my mind is how to maintain correct pricing signals, productivity, and innovation while smoothly transitioning to the next system.

2a - Maybe this transition involves capital homesteading like one of the commenters above linked to, or maybe it would be something like the monetary reform act (http://www.themoneymasters.com/monetary-reform-act/) - both involve dialing up reserve requirements of banks, and ceasing to back our currency with debt, and putting the currency into circulation through the citizens.

3 - Maybe the impact of computing will handle this on its own by having some online entity start out-competing the large banks.

[Big Jay]

@ Ray Manta - It was Marshall Brain's blog and cross links to the futurist that first brought me to this site. His article talked about the impact of computing, specifically through robots - which was a great set of articles. I think we should definitely be talking about making a transition away from the current system. We don't have to wait for our robot overlords first. We have excessive productive capacity right now.

The way I currently see the problem is that whenever there is a change, there is a set of winners, and a set of losers from the change. Who wins and who loses. When I look at consequences of change from that angle, it seems that change is unlikely.

[Ray Manta]

Big Jay wrote:

We don't have to wait for our robot overlords first.

If we do we'll be waiting a long time. I have my doubts that human level AI will come about much before mid-century.

We have excessive productive capacity right now.

Right. Aiming lower and focusing on near-term trends will yield game-changing breakthroughs. Most technical advances are incremental improvements - the black swan aspect is largely a result of several technologies interacting with each other and social trends in unpredictable ways.

[jeffolie]

Deflation and technology are changing the fabic of the human race. We are social creatures. Facebook is the most popular website and over 80% of 8 to 18 year olds in America have access to the internet. Cell phones are so cheap (cheaper than a computer) that the worldwide society has them.

More than a billion mobile phone connections have been added to the global tally in just 18 months, according to Wireless Intelligence...There are now more than five billion connections worldwide...In many regions, penetration exceeds 100%, where there is more than one connection per person in the country...the mobile phone may be "the most prolific consumer device on the planet".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10569081.stm

[Dave]

@Ajay,

You are clearly a very unhappy, angry, lonely, and frustrated person.

It appears that GK wrote just one sentence to you, sort of praising you for having at least one talent and seeking to recruit you into a worthy cause. That ONE sentence alone caused you to gush out all your own frustrations and loserisms.

I can attest that GK has a long track record across many blogs, of being an expert in the subjects of seduction and female psychology. Ajay is probably at the opposite extreme, which explains how little it took for him to fly off the handle.

There is a book called 'How to Win Friends and Influence People', by Dale Carnegie, that can teach you how to interact with humans. You desperately need some coaching.

So you don't have a blog of your own, despite your self-proclaimed brilliance. I am not surprised.

[Ajay]

Dave, heh, there's nothing funnier than someone silly like you attempting psychoanalysis over the internet. :) Haha, hilarious how you attempt to fabricate some sort of claimed outburst, supposedly because of GK's comment. If anything, it's the other way around: GK got pissed because when I corrected him, I told him to stick to tech, as though that's some big insult. Hahaha, I knew your next comment would be laden with more comedy gold, "GK has a long track record across many blogs, of being an expert in the subjects of seduction and female psychology." I think that may be one of the funniest lines typed in the history of the internet. :D

I see, so if you doesn't understand those topics, you fly off the handle at a moment's notice? Yes, you would read a silly 75-year old how-to manual to know how to interact with people, but please don't assume that we are all similarly challenged. It would be nice if any one us had a clue why you weren't surprised about someone not having a blog. :)

[Dave]

@Ajay,

Your response was highly predictable. It bears repeating : You are clearly a very unhappy, angry, lonely, and frustrated person.

I became a reader of The Futurist after reading The Misandry Bubble, which is probably the best article I have ever read. It covers a lot more than just divorce laws. It covers seduction and female psychology as well, and has taught me and others a lot.

I at least thought you knew how to read, Ajay.

Now fly off the handle again, projecting your own tormented life outwards for our entertainment. Come on, I need entertainment.

A book from the 1930s still has lessons for people like you. It is not too late for you to actually make friends in your life, if you work hard at becoming a normal person.

And you don't have a blog, because you ain't too smart. That is why you think someone can't write a few blog posts a year and seduce women in the afterhours. So all seduction bloggers are losers, in your envious opinion??? No one who gets action would have time to write a blog about it (*cough* Roissy, Mystery, Savoy, Eric Disco, Roosh *cough*)?

Ajay = Loser.

[Ray Manta]

Dave wrote:

I became a reader of The Futurist after reading The Misandry Bubble, which is probably the best article I have ever read.

It's one of the few articles that does forecasting from a men's issues/male-friendly point of view. Almost all the other futurists either ignore the gender dynamic completely or do a "It's a woman's nation now" type of screed. As snart as Ray Kurzweil is, I have trouble taking someone who wants to recreate himself as a female pop singer too seriously.

It amazes me that so many intelligent people would just brush off the most fundamental human division like this. Political correctness sure has a lot to answer for.

[Ajay]

Dave, if anything, someone who believes that GK's post "covers seduction and female psychology as well, and has taught me and others a lot" is clearly "a very unhappy, angry, lonely, and frustrated person." :) If I don't know how to read, please lay out exactly what you learned about "seduction and female psychology" from that misandry post. I can't wait, that would be pure unadulterated comedy gold. :) Precisely what has been projected about my life? I admit that I do not do well with women. Should I be making friends or buying some other book to learn how to seduce women, perhaps one of the many stocked in your library? XD Haha, your comments about who can have a blog continue the comedy: let me guess, you tried to open a blog once but couldn't figure out how to do it? :D Writing a few blog posts a year is completely different from writing long diatribes about "misandry" or about various technology trends. The type of guys who are getting laid enjoy that far too much to spend all the time GK does on his blogs and comments. Yes, seduction bloggers are losers, I'm sure there exists someone with a strange name like Roosh, who blogs about how many women he's bedded or whatever, but I guarantee he isn't writing about technology or misandry. ;) Dave, it's clear you aren't that bright, so I think I'll stop engaging you, despite the 24-karat unintentional comedy gold of your responses. :)

[Apollo]

Let's see what Ajay wrote :

who treat "seduction" like some "science" that they can "learn" about.
Yes, seduction bloggers are losers,

So seduction cannot be learned? That is the typical, textbook reaction of a frustrated mangina who has never gotten laid. I've seen it a million times once the subject of Game comes up.

Ajay thus exhibits the telltale traits of a misfit nerd.

You see, Ajay has spent his whole life rationalizing away why women don't want him, and has created such an elaborate system of denial to believe that he is just out of luck. He then becomes hostile when exposed to the fact that thousands of guys are applying themselves to self-betterment, which Ajay isn't man enough to do. Ajay knows he has been left behind, and has become self-loathing.

The notion that men who study Game cannot also be Men's Rights Activists is also a common fallacy of the self-loathing mangina.

GK's one mistake was to assume that someone so angry could have his one skill be made useful by fighting feminists. In reality, such bitter manginas are the tools of feminists, since they aspire to get a pat on the arm from a feminist (which is why Ajay exposed his own lonely, bitter life so readily with no provocation).

GK, only recruit high-quality thinkers, not mangina garbage like Ajay. Quality, not quantity, will win.

[jeffolie]

GK has a great site and presents great subject matter.

[Ajay]

Apollo, if someone could actually define what they mean by such a vague term as "seduction," I'd tell you if it could be "learned." Of course there are stupid chicks who will occasionally fall for some "strategies," just as there are stupid guys who will go for fake breasts and bottle blondes. There are elements of truth in the two posts you link to, for example, the part about nerds very often being herd conformists themselves. But so is practically every other group, including you dumb seduction bloggers, so those few facts are already obvious to most people. The only thing remarkable about nerds often succumbing to herd conformism is that they aren't that different in that regard as they'd like to think. It was funny reading the part about nerds going nuclear over perceived slights, as that's what GK did when I simply counseled him to stick to what he knows. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :) But allowing for those few obvious truths, those posts are mostly filled with raving nonsense.

Haha, nice try at further idiotic psychoanalysis, but I was mostly unaware of you dumb seduction bloggers until this thread. Now that they've been pointed out to me, I mostly pity the dummies who fall for this shit, just like the dummies who think buying gold is some great investment. I bet most of these "seduction artists" spend all their time at some club living out a Night at the Roxbury sketch, bopping their heads away to techno all night and not getting anywhere. But since there's no way to actually measure and verify "results" for this supposed science of "seduction," you losers make up shit about how successful you were anyway. Who said "men who study Game" can't be "Men's Rights Activists"? The only person I see saying that is you. XD I don't think I've ever even met anyone who claims to be a feminist, so I certainly don't aspire for a pat from anyone. I'm a libertarian and it has always been a pet theory of mine that one of the main reasons why otherwise smart dudes like Kucinich or Krugman embrace crazy leftist ideology is because of all the leftie chicks they're hoping to impress. Hilarious how you claim I've exposed my life when I've basically said nothing about myself, while you losers are constantly exposing your lonely, frustated lives by spouting this seduction nonsense. But then morons like yourself always make flat, idiotic claims and are clearly too stupid to ever provide any evidence. :)

[Nirav]

Add me to the list of people telling Ajay to shut up.

He has derailed the thread with his own masturbation of his fragile ego. His original point on the actual topic was corrected by Zyndryl.

After that, I agree with everyone else that Ajay has an unhealthy amount of anger, frustration, and bitterness under the surface. Just look at him - he measures his intelligence by the number of times he can hurl a hostility.

Ajay, perhaps you should consider yoga and meditation. Your blood pressure is probably at least 150/100, and you are at risk of a heart attack or stroke before long, if you keep up your current ways. God is watching.

[Ajay]

Nirav, that's quite an imaginary list, considering nobody has said "shut up" till you just did. :) My masturbation? Haha, that's too damn funny, considering the rest of you in this thread are the ones circle jerking and herd conforming in ignorance (with the exception of jeffollie, who supported all my points about the money supply and backed them up with further facts and links). Yet again, another moron that simply asserts that I was corrected, even though anyone who knows anything about the money supply knows that I was the one correcting the idiotic blathering by Zyndryl. Hilarious how you don't even understand the subject and yet will make such an idiotic claim. :D Please stop trying to look under my surface: you are the one whose entry into this thread is blatantly signaled by anger and hostility, whereas all I do is laugh at the dummies posturing in this thread. I measure my intelligence by the quality of facts and analysis at my fingertips, I measure your stupidity by your inability to summon either. Heh, nice try mirroring your health problems on me, if anything, the comedy gold constantly gushing from this thread keeps me laughing, fit, and hale. :) Nobody is watching, no matter how fervent your childlike wish for an all-seeing parent to look out for you.

[wunsacon]

Geoman +1000.

[Geoman]

Ajay, you seem to laugh, preen, and crow over your own imaginary cleverness. Nice to see someone like themselves so much, and at least someone is enjoying your seemingly endless stream of blather. So far I find you tedious, and the vast intelligence you credit yourself with doesn't seem all that apparent. But perhaps you are just a smarter and more ironic hipster than me. That must be it.

"Childlike wish for an all-seeing parent"? Hmmm. I'd counter that most atheists seem to have a child-like wish there isn't a God, so they can steal from the cookie jar with impunity. The same impulse makes them hostile and intolerant of the beliefs of others.

I'd say someone may or may not be watching, but we are all much better off when we behave as if someone is.

[Ajay]

Geoman, it's only imaginary cleverness that isn't "apparent" to you because it's beyond your grasp, as demonstrated by your silly hand-wringing about "what will we all do when there are no factory jobs!?" 8o As pointed out to you by others in this thread, even including a well-written response by Zyndryl before he went off the deep end, that's the same dumb, short-sighted thinking people had 100 years ago: "oh no, what will we do once machines are doing all the farming? All we can do is plant seeds and till the land, we're no good for anything else!" Technology allows us to do other, better, more interesting things- yes, like blogging- and the US is already primarily a service economy. Your breathless questions about gems and what constitutes value are as silly as people a couple hundred years ago who couldn't have imagined our current system where gold plays almost no part as money. Hilarious how you assert that atheists, who don't have such a childlike worldview of parents watching over cookie jars, are themselves childlike simply because they don't share your silly paradigm, what? Intolerance is a universal human flaw, no group is exempt, but I suspect you are probably simply relabeling atheists' warranted indignation for religious stupidities like anti-gay marriage laws or fatwas as "intolerance." I agree that we can't say without a doubt that noone is watching, only because it's impossible to prove a negative such as "there are no black swans," although the vast preponderance of evidence is against divinity, but I completely disagree that continuing to treat people like children well into their adult lives, by telling them some bearded dude in sandals is watching and will slap their hands, is the path to better behavior. You can't sacrifice reason and skepticism at the altar of better behavior, that historical compromise won't stand much longer.

[Tax Lawyer]

Interesting analysis. But what about employment or lack thereof? Deflation means lower wages, less demand, spiraling layoffs, etc. If we had full, or close to full employment, deflation would be a blessing, up to the point where businesses were earning less, and began to terminate workers to reduce operating costs. You cannot have it both ways: inflation helps the common man-employees and borrowers, while deflation helps the weatlhy--as creditors, they gain from the low cost of money and high coat of past debts.

Basically, the only way to fix this system is the historical way out of this mess--violence and revolution. My take is, unfortunately and sadly, bring it on now, before it gets totally out of hand.

[Tax Lawyer]

Ajay, get a grip. As a fellow atheist, I understand you concerns. But gold has been, and always will be, a medium of exchange superior to printed paper. $100 invesated in gold in 2000 vs. $100 in anything else--well look up the numbers. Over the past 20 years, gold has outperformed the Dow, NASDQ, any index fund, treasuries of any maturity, even commodities such as oil or silver.

Call us "gold bugs" nuts if you want, but when our returns outsize everything else, we might be deemed just a little bit more aware than the rest of the population.

[Ajay]

Tax Lawyer, it is always you gold bugs who need to get a grip, never the other way around. Take out the recent gold bubble, where gold prices tripled in just the last 4 years, and gold has been flat for decades: practically any market index trounced gold. Even using the metric you chose, I find that the Russell 3000 outgained gold over the last 20 years, 222% to 150%, so yet again the data doesn't back you up. Gold hasn't been a superior medium of exchange in hundreds of years, when people started carrying bank notes and other coinage instead. Rather, it has been claimed to be a good store of value, which is questionable. If you're going to use the recent obvious gold bubble to claim outsized returns, so could have the hucksters pushing the dot.com and real estate bubbles. Gold rose very fast just like those bubbles, after decades of stagnation, and it will crash just like those other bubbles. The only thing gold bugs are aware of is ancient history incorrectly understood.

[jeffolie]

My prediction that consumer spending topped by the end of July is true: auto sales tanked, sentiment dived, hours worked declined, home sales down.

I repeat: 'The feeling of hopelessness will be common by the end of October'.

The Baltic Dry Index declined below support and it is crashing, falling like a waterfall. .

http://investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index.htm#bdi

[Palm]

What do you think about this article: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

[jeffolie]

Palm

The decline in creativity in children comes from children being emmersed in media 13 hours per day. Computer and game consoles plus hand held gaming creates a type of ADD, short attention span. Children watch TV content in various platforms such as online, DVR, DVDs and live TV over 6 hours per day. Interestingly, cell phones are used merely about 33 minutes per day.

See this thread: Shocking Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds

http://unlawflcombatnt.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=noneconomic&action=display&thread=7311

[Geoman]

Ajay,

"Silly hand-wringing about..." Um. Actually, I didn't say what you represent, and clarified that in my second post.

"Your breathless questions about gems.." I assure you I am in fact quite "breath-full". My observation was that in a world of plenty, "value" may become an increasingly debased concept. You noodle around with this idea, but don't accomplish much. If the singularity is a fundamental break with what has come before, why assume our previous experience, say transitioning from a farm economy to a factory economy, or from a factory economy to a service economy, applies? Your faith here is quite comforting.

"Atheists don't share your silly paradigm." What paradigm would that be? My point is that the same argument you use to dismiss believers applies equally to most atheists. While it is perfectly acceptable for atheists to be indignant over selected issues, my objection is when they screech and pull up their skirts at the mere mention of the word "God." It is an oddly...childish response.

My preference is that people behave well not because they think they might get caught, but because they think the alternative is wrong. We can debate the best means of accomplishing that.

Treating people like children is not a religious issue - much of the liberal social agenda does exactly the same thing, yet oddly enough, few aethists seem to object on those grounds. Just look at the Internet - anonymity has been both a boon and a curse. When some people think they are unaccountable for their words they seem to lose all self control. Looking over your posts, you talk down to people, treat them like children, insult and heckle, primp and preen. When you think no one is watching...anything goes.

Reversing your argument, there is no reason to sacrifice good behavior on the alter of reason and skepticism. I see no reason why we have both.

[Ajay]

Geoman, you did say pretty much what I say you did about unemployment, especially in your second post. Where did I "noodle around" with the idea that value becomes a "debased concept"? Value never gets debased because we always come up with new things to value: before it was food, which isn't worth much these days, today it's leisure and medicine and education. I don't have any "faith" about the singularity because I think it's a stupid concept. The religious paradigm is obvious from the sentence you paraphrase, "you assert that atheists, who don't have such a childlike worldview of parents watching over cookie jars, are themselves childlike simply because they don't share your silly paradigm," not sure why I have to repeat it for you.

Now I have to ask you, what argument "applies equally to most atheists"? Hilarious how you make such disconnected arguments, but are confused about something I wrote in the same sentence. :) Of course atheists screech when you mention God, because they're making actual arguments and you respond "God says gay marriage isn't allowed." That's the same argument one expects from a child, "Mommy says I can't have cookies," at which point there's no arguing because one knows that the child has no understanding of why the rule is there. The only thing childish about all this is how you keep labeling the perfectly rational responses of atheists as childish. It appears that your childish response to being called childish is to call everyone else childish, without being able to give a single reason. I think knowing the consequences of their actions and the possibility of getting caught is the only way to get people to behave well.

You do raise a valid point that in place of religion treating people like children, liberals would rather the state treat people like children, because atheists who are liberals have substituted the state as their god. Since I mentioned before that I'm a libertarian, obviously I reject that paternalism also. Why do I think "no one is watching" my comments? Obviously you are. ;) The wonderful thing about anonymity on the internet is that people can say what they really feel without fear of repercussion in their daily lives. You and others can keep making the dumb arguments you make without looking stupid in front of your family and friends, while I can destroy those "arguments" without having to soften my statements to allow people to save face. As for sacrificing good behavior for reason, that would make sense if you could provide a single argument or example but you clearly can't. No reason "why we have both" or can't have both? If the latter, you are the one asserting that, I said we haven't had both under religion.

[jeffolie]

Facebook: 500m users, tripled in 18 months
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/21/facebook-crosses-half-billion-user-mark/

a billion mobile phone connections have been added to the global tally in just 18 months
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10569081.stm

[Geoman]

Ajay,

What an interesting basket of arrogance and ignorance you weave.

"you did say pretty much..." means I didn't actually say it, but you choose to interpret it that way to "win" the argument. Whatever makes you happy.

"Value never gets debased?" Then you proceed to give an example (food) where exactly that has happened. Hard to follow that line of thought. I can think of....about a thousand other things that were once very valuable and are now nearly worthless. As technology progresses I can think of thousands more that will follow the same trend. Which goes to the question of what will retain value?

I think you try to give a couple of examples, leisure and medicine, that I assume you think will retain value indefinitely. Leisure only has value because we are allowed to do what we like, rather than what we don't. People who love their jobs never take time off - their leisure is their work. What we understand as leisure does not have value to them. What if we were all able to do what we wanted, all the time? Wouldn't leisure become devalued for everyone? It would just be the way of things, not something we hunger or dream about, or strive to have in our lives. Not something we would need to "buy" with our work? It would be...like sleep. It is only valuable when you can't get enough of it.

Medicine? Let's see - we could develop a cheap immortality drug, nannobots to fix every wrong, prenatal genetic manipulation to perfect our bodies, or download our minds into some sort of artificial being. In all cases medicine as we understand might be permanently and completely devalued.

I'd ask you simply - what product or service cannot be devalued by the development and application of the appropriate technology?

The Singularity is stupid? Well you can agree or disagree with the idea, but when you say it is "stupid" I think you are just displaying your own ignorance. Outside of GK, some pretty important scientists and philosophers seem to think there is something to it. But...you're smarter than all of them, right?

My religious paradigm is agnostic, so most of your post is meaningless assumptions and pointless arguments. My posts were based on your lack of respect for other theists, not myself. I know it seems weird to you that someone might defend beliefs they don't happen to share. I should have realized that a malignant narcissist such as yourself would be confused by such an argument. I apologize.

Why am I an agnostic and not an atheist? As a rational human and a scientist, I can't prove or disprove the existence of God. You made the same case in one of your posts. Therefore both rabid theism or atheism appears to be illogical. While theists often struggle to believe, I have seen little such introspection amongst atheists. Why is that?

In general, when people believe in things that are not rational, there must be some sort of irrational motivation. For theists the answer is simple - fear of death, a desire for justice, a desire for rules, daddy issues, whatever. For atheists...perhaps you can illuminate us on the irrational underpinnings for your atheism? I suspect it is something simplistic along the lines of "I don't like anyone telling me what to do." which is really just narcissism on stilts. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. Illuminate us.

The argument that applies to most atheists? Simply that they are childish and irrational in their beliefs. That they are emotional, easily upset, and generate endless vacuous and self referential arguments supporting their desired belief system. The bottom line is you believe there isn't a god because that is what you desire to be true. Rational thought never enters into it.

Getting caught and suffering consequences is the only way to get people to behave well? Why am I not surprised you would say that? All I can say is...what a sad little world you live in. I assure you that many of us humans, perhaps most, behave well for reasons having nothing to do with the potential for getting caught and punished. One reason that has probably eluded you - many people behave well because it brings joy to others. Even people they have never met. How weird is that?

I wonder...does it ever occur to you that my arguments seem disconnected, childish, whatever, to you because...you just aren't capable of following them either intellectually or emotionally? That you consider anything you don't understand to be stupid? Or perhaps that we are not agreeing with you because you are presenting your arguments poorly or irrationally? Or perhaps there is simply room for disagreement between rational adults? There are many possibilities you might consider other than you are simply too smart for us.

I'm sure you love the Internet - no rules, no consequences. Plus you get to engage in a bit of role-playing.

Thank you for your time - I've learned a lot here.

[Ajay]

Geoman, Haha, pretty funny when someone so ignorant as you starts calling other people ignorant. :) Nobody has to "interpret" anything to know what you said: you could try making a case for how you said otherwise, but the evidence is obviously against you which is why you don't even try. When I said value never gets debased, I was obviously referring to "the concept of value," refuting your dumb statement that value "may become an increasingly debased concept." Since I already noted that food has lost value, my argument is blatantly obvious, implying that you are either deeply stupid or cherrypicking statements because you have lost. I lean towards the latter but since most of your arguments are so stupid, I'm not sure it's not the former. Nobody said anything will retain value indefinitely, further underlining the simplistic thinking that you only seem capable of. In referring to leisure, I was talking about the generally accepted term for all the entertainment and sports and myriad other economic activities that people take part in during their down time, that are growth markets right now. The fact that a few people are workaholics is neither here nor there. As for whether leisure becomes devalued, I could explain how it doesn't, but I don't think you really understand what the term "value" means, so it would just fly over your head. I suggest you read some actual economics before making such ignorant statements.

As for medicine, yes, we could create a magic car that takes you wherever you want to go in a second too: until then, these medical and transportation activities have plenty of value. I made the case for why the singularity is stupid in the linked thread, which you clearly either did not read or it flew over your head, since, as usual, you cannot make a single argument either for or against the singularity. :) There are also plenty of scientists who ignore the Singularity bunkum, let me guess, they're stupid, right? ;) Oh I see, you cannot defend the dumb arguments of theists in any way so then you back off and disclaim association with them, then continue making stupid claims of intolerance. You really see little introspection among atheists, or that's some argument fabricated in your fantasy world that has no connection to reality? Where did I say I was an atheist? Who is it that's confused by others' arguments now? It is not illogical or irrational to be an atheist, that's simply the obvious conclusion from properly considering the evidence. It is only incorrect to ever claim that you can definitely prove that such a silly concept as "god" is right or wrong, clearly a logical distinction lost on a simpleton like you. Haha, hilarious for you to accuse others of "endless vacuous and self referential arguments supporting their desired belief system" given how you perfectly exemplify that yourself. :) The lack of introspection of dummies such as yourself is a never-ending source of mirth. :D I'm glad there exist people who behave well because it "brings joy to others," whatever that means- clearly you're not one of them- but if we had to rely on the small fraction of people who did that, as you appear to in your fantasy world, we'd never get anywhere.

Haha, has it ever occurred to you that your arguments seem disconnected and childish because they are disconnected and childish? :) It is precisely because I understand stupid arguments that I call them stupid, otherwise I label them as disconnected when they make no sense like yours. ;) I would consider that my arguments are poor or irrational if presented any evidence of such, but clearly you are too stupid to do so. Of course, there is room for disagreement between rational adults, but that would involve two sides who make actual arguments, but since you clearly can't, I don't think you've quite made it to the level of "rational adult." Precisely what rules or consequences am I evading on the internet? Yet again, silly assertions without a single concrete claim or example to back them up. Role-playing? Who is it who keeps arguing for theists but then when unable to defend a single criticism about them, backs off, claims agnosticism, and cries "intolerance"? Clearly you've learned nothing, as evidenced by your continued disconnected, flat assertions that can never be backed up by anything approaching evidence or examples or even a concrete argument. Always the sign of someone who has lost the argument, that they retreat into vagueness and start slinging strange accusations of "intolerance." I'll just claim my victory and move on. :)

[jeffolie]

This is the problem with using cycles and expecting them to repeat:

=============================

George Santayana was good: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

But Mark Twain was better: "“History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes”.

“History doesn't repeat itself - at best it sometimes rhymes”.

Oh well, sometimes I repeat..

[Dave]

Well lookee here.....

I come back after 3 weeks, only to find that Ajay is behaving just as I predicted he would. Ajay is still doing his best to use projection to deal with his own inner unhappiness, anger, and frustration.

Ajay seems to be reloading this page several times a day, hoping that Geoman, Nirav, Zyndryl, Tax Lawyer, or anyone else replied to him. By his own twisted logic, the more time spent on the Internet means the less a man gets laid. What a perfect example of absolute projection.

Let me predict Ajay's response. Ajay will write a full page of text that can be condensed to :
"Dumb, dummie, ignorant, fool, stupid, dumb!"

That is probably what Ajay said to the last woman who took pity on him and made the mistake of going on a date with him. She later told her girlfriends "what the hell was I thinking???".

Ajay, I gave you many sources that could help you correct your social problems. Only you can take the next step.

[jeffolie]

This has always been one of my 'big deal' predictions. I did not think America would exactly repeat the 1929 decline because the FED/govenment would take actions sufficient to make an exact repeat impossible. I was right.

I predicted the politics would create a decline in spending leading to a failed recovery just like 1937. This is happening now in Europe as Austerity and will happen here seriously in America starting next year. I called this in 2008 'the politics of the backlash' that would unseat Democrats in 2010, economically and politically gridlock the federal government in 2011 & 2012 and limit Obama to one term.

I predicted in 2008 that America would repeat the collapse of 1937. In early 2010 I refined my prediction timing to state that 'by the end of October America will renew its general economic decline'.

jeffolie predicts again....repeating 1937 collapse is dead ahead

The below piece echos my predictions:

"....eerily similar to 1937... alarmingly similar economic backdrops between the two periods.

....raising reserve requirements
...new taxes
...cut government spending
... antibusiness rhetoric and regulation.

"...We're repeating some of the same mistakes right now, even as fears of a "double dip" recession mount. Antibusiness rhetoric from the Obama administration is at toxic levels, and the pending Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is the harshest regulatory initiative in a generation. Taxes are set to rise, to support new social spending such as health-care reform, and if for no other reason because no one will stop the expiration at the end of this year of the 2003 Bush tax cuts...."

==========================================================

Why This Isn't Like 1938-At Least Not Yet

by Donald L. Luskin

The stock market tells us that last year we avoided a new Great Depression—barely. It was a close call, but we're not headed for 1932. Now, as stocks correct from their April highs and fears of a "double dip" recession mount, should we be worried about an economic relapse like 1938?

First, the good news. An important milestone was passed last week for stocks. Friday, July 2, was the 997th day since the all-time high in October 2007. That's how many days the bear market in the Great Depression lasted, starting at the high several weeks before the Great Crash of 1929 and ending on June 1, 1932, one month before Franklin Delano Roosevelt was nominated to run for president.

At the bottom in 1932, stocks (as measured by the S&P 500) had lost 86.2% from the 1929 top. Last Friday, stocks were only off 34.7% from the 2007 top. "Only"? To be sure, losing 34.7% is no buggy-ride. But to match the devastation in the Great Depression, the S&P 500 would have to fall 806 points from Friday's level, or 78.8%.

This comparison is no idle thought experiment. In 2008 and 2009, based on what the stock market was indicating, we really were headed for a new Great Depression. At two crucial junctures in 2008 and 2009, stocks had fallen further than they did in the Great Depression the same number of days after the 1929 top.

The climax came in early March 2009. Then, with the banking system still feared to be insolvent, the hasty passage of a massive deficit-busting "stimulus" bill sent the message that an all-powerful new president and Congress would just as quickly enact their strident antibusiness agenda. At the worst, stocks plunged to show a loss of 56.8% from the 2007 highs. At the comparable point in the Great Depression, stocks were off only 49%.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the new Great Depression. Chairman Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve announced a massive program to buy Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities to pump liquidity into the banking system. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner deftly executed "stress tests" enabling the largest banks to be recapitalized in public markets. And one agenda item at a time—socialized health-care, cap-and-trade energy tax, unionization "card check," mortgage "cramdown"—got diluted, slowed down or stopped.

From there, as the economy embarked on recovery, instead of following the path of history to massive further losses, stocks embarked on an upside run. In 14 months, the S&P 500 surged 79.9%. That still leaves us 34.7% from the 2007 highs. But consider the alternative. After the June 1, 1932, bottom in the Great Depression, stocks rallied more than twice that, 177.3%, over a similar period—for all that, they were still down 61.7% from the 1929 peak.

In fact, it took 25 years before stocks clawed their way back. We probably don't have to be quite that patient today, because in the recent bear market we simply didn't lose as much. But we shouldn't have illusions about how easy it is for stocks to recover from severe bear markets, especially those associated with systemic credit crises. After the bear market in the banking panic of 1907—which was very similar to the recent bear market in magnitude and duration—it took 10.5 years for stocks to get back to the old highs.

The most worrisome analogue is the great bear market that began in March 1937. From the top stocks lost 60% of their value, making it the second worst bear market in history. Not ending until April 1942, it was the longest ever.

That's worrisome because, as the nearby chart demonstrates, over the last year the stock market has followed a path eerily similar to 1937. First, a strong, rapid run to a recovery high—same pace, same magnitude. Then a correction—again, the same. Will we continue on the path that led the correction of 1937 into a collapse in 1938? This question would be nothing more than a technical curiosity for chartists if it weren't for alarmingly similar economic backdrops between the two periods.

In 1937 the economy was in a strong recovery from a severe crisis, and there was complacency that the worst was over—much like the exuberance about a "V-shaped' recovery this April. But after 1937 the economy relapsed into what historians call "the recession within the Depression," a downturn so severe that in any other context it would qualify as a depression itself.

It was triggered by a set of very specific policy mistakes. The Fed tightened by raising reserve requirements. Consumers were hit with new taxes to pay for the then-new Social Security program. Worried about excessive deficits, Roosevelt cut government spending. At the same time, his administration accelerated antibusiness rhetoric and regulation.

Sound familiar? We're repeating some of the same mistakes right now, even as fears of a "double dip" recession mount. Antibusiness rhetoric from the Obama administration is at toxic levels, and the pending Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is the harshest regulatory initiative in a generation. Taxes are set to rise, to support new social spending such as health-care reform, and if for no other reason because no one will stop the expiration at the end of this year of the 2003 Bush tax cuts.

It's not clear whether cutting government spending at this point would help or hurt—most debates about that are political, not economic. We'll find out soon enough. For now, half of last year's $862 billion stimulus package has yet to be spent, but there won't likely be much more after that.

At least there's not the slightest sign that the Fed is going to tighten any time soon. Dodd-Frank would effectively raise reserve requirements, but Chairman Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression and has learned its lessons, even if no one else has.

The stock market, that great self-organizing supercomputer that weighs all possible futures, is telling us to be very careful here. Pro-growth tax and regulatory policies that encourage business confidence and job creation can keep our fragile recovery alive. But make no mistake about it, stocks are warning that we're still in a fragile state. We avoided 1932. Now let's avoid 1938..

Mr. Luskin is chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeti....3&asset=&ccode=

[jeffolie]

My prediction for a 1937 styled retrenchment starting by the end of October includes deflation, government spending less, less public spending, European Austerity, lower stock prices and China being less profitable. Often, I have stated that other countries such as India, other Asian countries, Mexico and Europe with a less valued Euro will compete strongly against China.

I predicted that China will collapse when the Dollar crisis comes. China will lose some of its competitive edge well before it collapses.

I stand by my 1937 retrenchment point of view that government is putting less money into the economy and takes more money out of the hands of the public that is one part of many parts leading to a general economic decline starting by the end of October. For example, Republicans held up support for the jobless for weeks and I just read in today's paper where a Small Business stimulus program was blocked by Republicans and bailouts for States and Local governments did not happen. These are examples of less government spending now which will increase significantly as Republicans unseat some Democrats in the Fall and take more power in 2011 & 2012.

[Steve]

Just wanted to drop a quick note saying that I really like your homepage...

Steve
common cents
http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com

[jeffolie]

Technology bubble ten years later: The money’s not back

Good news, bad news, and another word of caution for the housing bubble hopeful

I started iTulip.com in 1998 to warn readers that the technology bubble was not just an investor “party” or a neat way to force technology onto the market but was instead an efficient way to savage the heart and soul of the American economy. In 2005, five years after the bubble collapsed, I was at a Stanford investment conference moderating a VC panel hopefully titled “The Money’s Back.” It wasn’t.

Five years later it still isn’t.

Investment by Development Stage

First the good news. In 2010, investment in pre-product or “seed stage” start-up technology companies is on track to return to 70% of 2000 levels and above 1999 levels.

Definitions

•Venture Capital - Money supplied by individuals or institutions that finances the losses of innovative new companies
•Seed Stage - Pre-product, pre-revenue
•Early Stage - Product but pre-revenue or minimal revenue
•Expansion Stage - Product and some revenue growth track record
•Late Stage - Rapid revenue growth but pre-profit

The bad news is that this growth reflects the desire by angel investors to avoid deals that require follow-on financing by venture capital firms. After two economic crashes in ten years that produced cram-down follow-on financings that reduced seed stage investors’ ownership in a company by as much as 95% in some cases, the chickens are no longer keen to dance with elephants. That means few capital-intensive start-ups are starting up. Further bad news is that Early Stage and Expansion Stage financing remains at 47% and 32% of 2000 levels respectively. Early Stage and Expansion Stage financing is finally back to levels first reached 11 years ago in 1999. Late stage start-ups are attracting twice as much capital in 2010 as in 1999, reflecting a tendency of VC investors to harvest investments made in the early 2000s rather than invest in newer and more risky ventures.

Capital-intensive start-ups are still finding it tough to locate the financing they need to get to the next stage of development, depending on the industry segment they occupy.

Investment by Industry

The good news is that if you are a Biotech, Medical Devices and Equipment, Electronics/Instrumentation, or Energy – who could have known? – start-up company, 50% of the funds invested in 2010 are going into your industries.

The bad news is that if you are in Networking and Equipment, Retailing/Distribution, Telecommunications, Healthcare Services, Business Products and Services, Media and Entertainment, Software, Consumer Products and Services, IT Services, or Financial Services, investment is still off more than 90% from year 2000 levels. Take particular note of the level of investment in Networking and Equipment and Retailing/Distribution companies, off 98% and 97% since 2000.

A comparison to 1999 levels is less dramatic, and produces a three areas of growth over 1999: Biotech, IT Services, and Medical Devices and Equipment.

At more than 90% off 1999 levels, the first five industry segments shown above are for all practical purposes dead. Still 70% or more off 1999 levels nearly a dozen years ago, the Semiconductor, Telco, and Networking industries are victims of industry consolidation that collapsed bubbles cause. Cisco now has 70% market share. Intel has virtually no competition. Media and Entertainment is dominated by two main players as is Financial Services. No one wants to fund new companies to compete with these behemoths. While start-ups represent only 3% of the job market they provide nearly 100% of job growth. The aftermath of asset bubbles is stifled competition and reduced innovation in the medium term and higher unemployment and falling productivity in the long-term.

If only a few industries are showing growth compared to 11 years ago the year before the tech bubble peaked, venture financing is also even more regionally concentrated than before the bubble.

Investment by Region

The good news for Silicon Valley and the Northeast, former hotbeds of venture financing from the year 2000 era, is that these regions are on track to put up $9 billion and $2.8 billion respectively in 2010, a far cry from the $32.3 billion and $11.4 billion invested a decade ago but far better than the $2 billion and $711 million invested in the dark days of 2003 when the Iraq War began.

The bad news is that if you live in Colorado, Texas, the Southeast, South Central, or Midwest U.S., or in the Philadelphia Metro, DC/Metroplex, Sacramento/N.Cal, NY Metro regions, and venture financing appears to have dried up in 2001 and stayed that way, that’s because it has.

While a comparison between 2010 and 1999 is less dire, all regions remain in the red by 31% to 89% over 1999 investment levels.

The lasting damage bubbles leave

Ten years after the collapse of the tech bubble, the market for venture capital technology investment remains troubled. The implications for the housing market are obvious.

During the tech bubble too many VC firms chased too few good companies with cheap capital and brought them to the public market where stock prices were driven to absurd levels with hype. During the housing bubble too many mortgage brokers sold cheap mortgages to risky borrowers.

The key difference between these two bubbles is that after the tech bubble collapsed in 2000, the equity financed VC industry never got a government bailout. Scores of VC firms and start-up companies went out of business. But after the housing bubble collapsed, the Fed removed $1.2 trillion in unmarketable asset-backed securities from the balances sheets of commercial banks via the miracle of double-entry bookkeeping: they were added to the Fed's balance sheet as "deposits" and "liabilities" that net to zero. The debt financed mortgage industry was nationalized as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were made wards of the state. Today 90% of all mortgages are purchased by the government through these two banks. The only way to re-privatize them is to allow mortgage rates to rise to compensate investors for the real level of risk in the housing market. That means 10% plus mortgage rates. Today the National Association of Realtors announced that "its seasonally adjusted index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes dipped 2.6 percent to a reading of 75.7. That was the lowest on records dating back to 2001 and down nearly 19 percent from the same month a year earlier. The index has fallen more than 40 percent from its peak in April 2005. May's reading was revised slightly downward to 77.7." That's will the lowest mortgage rates in history, thanks to government subsidies.

Without ongoing multi-trillion dollar subsidies, by 2016, ten years from 2006 when the housing bubble started to collapse, the U.S. mortgage market will look like the technology financing market does today. Financing activity in some regions and markets will be off 90% or more and home prices will fall an additional 20% to 50% depending on the region. That's how markets operate. The long-term cost of the housing bubble has not yet started to be felt.

See also:
Yes. It's a housing bubble. August 2002
Housing bubbles are not like stock market bubbles, January 2004
Housing Bubble Correction, Fifteen Years to Revert to the Mean, January 2005
Housing bubble has peaked, June 2006
Housing bubble bust recession by Q4 2007, October 2006

iTulip Select: The Investment Thesis for the Next Cycle™
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http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.....3 02#post170302

[jeffolie]

Dig out your old RED 'power ties'.

============================================================

Women More Attracted When Men Wear Red: Study

It's the color of power, status, researchers say

TUESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Men looking to attract the opposite sex may want to add red to their wardrobe, a new study finds.

Researchers found that women are more drawn to males wearing the color.

"We found that women view men in red as higher in status, more likely to make money and more likely to climb the social ladder," lead author Andrew Elliot, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, said in a university news release. "And it's this high-status judgment that leads to the attraction."

He and his colleagues asked 288 female and 25 males undergraduates to look at photos of a man in which his shirt was digitally colored either red or another color. Women said the red shirt made the man appear more powerful, attractive and sexually desirable. However, it didn't make him seem more likeable, kind or sociable.

The women had the same responses when looking at a man's photo that was framed by a border of either red or white.

The study included undergraduates in the United States, England, Germany and China, and the effect in women was consistent across cultures. But the women were unaware of the reaction.

The color of the photo border or the man's shirt had no effect on males.

In many societies worldwide, red has long been associated with the rich and powerful, as evidenced by rolling out the "red carpet" at high-profile events, Elliot noted in the release. And in non-human primates, such as mandrills and gelada baboons, red is an indicator of male dominance and is expressed more intensely in alpha males. Females of these species are more likely to mate with alpha males.

"When women see red it triggers something deep and probably biologically engrained," Elliot said. "We say in our culture that men act like animals in the sexual realm. It looks like women may be acting like animals as well in the same sort of way."

The study is published in the Aug. 2 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more on sexual attraction.

-- Robert Preidt

SOURCE: University of Rochester, news release, Aug. 2, 2010

Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/co....=rss_topStories

[Geoman]

Dave,

So you think Ajay is the product of sexual dysfunction? I didn't participate in the misandry thread, so you would know better than I. I don't think he projects. He genuinely believes most of what he says. My own diagnosis is narcissistic personality disorder, bordering on full blown sociopath. Consider the symptoms:

1)He disagrees with everything posted by everyone. His sole purpose in being here – to get attention.

2) He behaves like a genius surrounded by contemptible inferiors. He frequently posts on how smart and funny he is (I've never met someone who was either who had to keep reminding me of the fact). He genuinely doesn't understand how others cannot be in awe of his witticisms and daunting intellect.

3)He sees nothing wrong with lying as long as he is not caught. He thinks the truth is subjective, malleable.

4)In real life he has to pretend to be sympathetic, kind. He does not naturally possess these feelings – he emulates them to get by in the world. Coming here, insulting people, it is his great relief from the pretense of his life. He gets to be the true self no one would accept or tolerate in person.

5)The creepy part - he thinks that every one else is just like him – that they when they act humble or admit mistakes they are dirty liars, they are trying to “trick” him.

6)Everyone here exists as an abstraction to him. Insulting people on-line is the same to him as killing orcs in World of Warcraft. We are not “real” in any sense. Because of that, he never feels “bad” about insulting someone, and in fact, like a video game, he judges success based on the harm done.

7) Anything he doesn't understand is “stupid”. His level of understanding is quite limited. Hence his proclivity to write "stupid stupid stupid" in response to every argument.

8)If proven wrong he will do his best to forget, or better yet, misrepresent the entire exchange. He will intentionally sow confusion to “win” arguments he has lost.

It will be interesting to read his next post here. Yes he will read this and respond - he has to since it is about him, his favorite topic. Let me guess at what he will write:

"Your post just shows how stupid you are ;) You can't even begin to understand a superior intellect such as myself! Comedy gold! You can't make an argument so you attack my character Ha ha! Straw Man argument! Ad hominem! You are soooo funny and pathetic! Epic fail!"

Eh. I can't quite capture the essence of the crazy, but you get the idea.

Anyhow I think I'll just back away slowly with comments like “You’re so great!” “Wow! I never thought of that! Thanks!” Now that I'm sure he's pathological, I actually feel kinda sorry for the guy.

[Apollo]

Geoman,

Your list is probably correct, and this matches point for point the article I posted earlier about how Ajay fits the description of a misfit nerd.

I agree with Dave, Ajay is all about projection (which is the dominant trait of a sociopath).

The Futurist assumed that someone so angry could have his one skill be made useful by fighting feminists, and wrote just one line to Ajay encouraging him to do so. This set Ajay off into a multi-page rant, since his own insecurities are on a hair-trigger. Ajay exposed his own lonely, bitter life so readily.

Imagine how he might behave on a date.

[Robert]

As someone involved in the development of AI/Automation technologies, I've been concerned about the potential impact on unemployment for some time.

For an excellent overview of this problem, please check out this book (available as a free PDF): The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future. (http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com).

If there were a textbook on this issue of technological unemployment and where it will lead, this book is it. I wish every economist would take a break from data analysis and READ THIS BOOK.

Hope you will give this some thought and perhaps do something to make people aware of this book. I really think this is an issue we need to confront as a society.

Also, please see this post:

Structural Unemployment: The Economists Just Don't Get It
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-ford/unemployment-the-economis_b_670004.html

Thank you,

Robert

[jeffolie]

FOMC Statement - FED to buy Long Treasuries

The FED showed its hand today. Quantative Easing has expanded to all level of the yield curve by starting to buy LONG TREASURIES. The federal government will not default with the Fed buying all levels of Treasuries. The Fed is manipulating the fundamentals of the market by increasing Demand for Treasuries. As the tax collections shrink, the Fed will buy all the Treasuries it wants to suppress interest rates. This is NOT A FREE MARKET.

Immediately the 10 Treasury yield declined. As I write this : 2.75%

I have long predicted the 10 year yield would decline from 4% to 2.2% by the end of the summer of 2011. This new FED policy makes my prediction look highly probable.

Eventually, sooner rather than later, the suppressed lower Treasury yields will weaken the Dollar as other alternative yields are higher unless they also get suppressed.

Gold and to some degree silver will be more attractive as a store of value now that Treasuries yields are clearly suppressed for all to see.

I am less certain how supportive the Treasuries Yields SUPPRESSION will be for Oil.

Oil is sometimes used as an alternative store of value to hide from a falling Dollar. When this happens, often speculation takes over to accelerate a rise in oil prices. Such sudden, accelerations eventually returns the price downward from its speculative run up to a peak as the fundamentals of supply vs demand takes over; thus, washing out the speculation. I expect a general fundamental decline in the demand for oil in the next months as the economy declines severely, but this fundamental decline may be ignored if oil finds bidding as a place for hiding from a declining Dollar that yields less from Treasury Yields suppression.

UPDATE: concentrate its purchases in the 2- to 10-year

This narrows the buying and defines the long term to mere intermediate term. The consequences were immediately obvious in the pricing of all Treasuries.

[Reader]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-comes-next

[Reader]

http://www.technologyreview.com/TR35/index.aspx

[Russ]

Your blog is really fascinating. Where do you get your information from. I wish you'd post more.

[Dr. Dave]

Have we been here before? Maybe. From something like the 1930's to the oil shock of 1973 improving technologies and economies of scale pushed chemical prices down. They didn't halve every 18 months, but they did drift down. It was a fun time to be in the bulk chemical industry because we got to try new things. Are there parallels that economists can look at from that time to draw conclusions about this time?

[Basil Ransom]

I just read Lights in The Tunnel. It is good at diagnosing the challenges of automation, but has some fatal flaws.

The critical assumption in his book is the mass market. In his analysis, he says that businesses would rather serve 1000 potential customers than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, because one can't sell 100 cell phones to two people, no matter how rich they are.

But the products that those billionaires demand will be more resource and labor intensive, and they will demand more supplementary products. And Ford predicts that this precise sort of people is going to become more numerous, due to rising income inequality. Instead of just a phone, they buy a smartphone, an ipad, a GPS, a large TV, etc. Alternatively, a bespoke suit calls for a lot more labor and materials than a t-shirt.

Perhaps more importantly, if say 50% of people are rendered unemployed by automation, and can find no other employment, that means they can offer nothing of value to earn the money of others. That alone is improbable. But his solutions consist of saying, hey business owners, you need to give people money so that they can give your money back to you, AND get something in return for it, like a slick new phone. In a word, no. Businesses will change their model to cater to the people who still have money, absent some leviathan confiscatory tax scheme. They don't need to sell 300 million phones to be profitable. The luxury goods market, current recession aside, is a testament to that. The productivity increases will make our total absolute wealth and output greater.

The book also gets hijacked by the author's desires for greater government, although the limit on corporate tax deductions for incomes above say, $400k is a fascinating idea.

[Val]

GDP growth is, ultimately, driven by productivity growth. Productivity growth can be disinflationary when it happens rapidly enough, but is not deflationary. What you are seeing now has zero to do with tech companies and everything to do with a massive credit bubble popping (larger even than the one that precipitated the Great Depression). The trillions that have been expended so far in 'stimulus' or 'stabilization' are nothing more than a drop in the bucket, and only a phantom one at that. There will be no inflation in the near term future...

[jeffolie]

Val

Productivity in America is insignificant because America produces/manufactures very little. 'Services' productivity is hard to measure, quantitfy or describe. Government work is included in 'Services' along with attorneys, etc. See how hard it is to value 'productivity growth'.

GDP often refers to consumer spending. 1 in 6 now get American government assistance which is part of 'consumer spending'. Less than half of income/salaries comes from private enterprise. GDP is thus complicated by the government transfers such as to the Financial industry and needy people (about half the federal fiscal budget is devoted to seniors as in SS & medical services).

Japan's central government and bank has been supporting Japan's GDP with twice as much borrow and quantitative easing=printing than America. Japan produces/manufactures more than America and exports much in a Merchantile strategy which Obama voiced a desire to export more from America like Japan. America is not Japan, there are significant differences, but Japan is declining and has been for 21 years without 'growth'.

GDP and productivity growth should be well correlated in an objective economic world, but there is no such objective economic world. Politics and cultural dominate over economic theories.

[Reader]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/20/innovation-grows-among-older-workers.print.html

[jeffolie]

Once again, this provides more evidence that increased productivity does NOT increase wages.

The myth that productivity increases leads to wage increases has been completely disproven over the last decade. It was one of many economic fairy tales foisted on us by the professional Economics community and big business.

Productivity leads of lower costs. What gets done with the costs savings is an entirely different story. Often the lower costs do filter down to the bottom line of increased profits.

Bonuses and mismangement often absorb increased profits without stimulating more hiring or even passing along a portion of the profits to increased wages. Without unions and effective collective bargaining households never see increased incomes from either higher wages or higher stock portfolios (most householders have not stock portfolios, but even if they did have stocks the mismanagement and bonuses do not result in higher stock prices).

In theory the lower costs should result in higher profits, lower priced goods and services etc. But, reality bites hard today.

Men's wages fall=Mancession, not women

I rant about women finding men's wages as unreliable and the growth of 'the American Family Gone Viral'. Women only temporarily attach to men, not permanently, just like viruses. Rarely does a child rear 18 with the child's biological father as the husband.

Manufacturing jobs were men's good paying jobs. Globalization dissappeared men's blue collar jobs.

Women are going to college, not men. Over 66% of college students are now women. This results in men getting less income than women.

======================================================

Recession slams workers' pay

Men's wages are falling faster than women's, Economic Policy Institute

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Wage growth among middle- and low-income U.S. workers has been shaky, at best, for a decade, but in the last three years it collapsed, with wages growing at less than half the rate they had in the period right before the recession, and some workers' pay decreasing, according to a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.

Median weekly earnings for full-time workers 25 and older grew at a rate of 0.5% in the year ending in the second quarter, down from 1.3% in 2009, 3.4% in 2008 and 4.3% in 2007, according to the EPI report, which measured year-over-year changes in growth from second quarter to second quarter. The figures are not adjusted for inflation. EPI is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that focuses on low- and middle-income workers.

Reuters

Men have lost more ground as U.S. wage growth has contracted than women, according to the Economic Policy Institute. But some workers actually lost ground, with men's paychecks, in particular, hit hard. Men's median wages fell 1.3% in the year ending in the second quarter, down from a growth rate of 5.3% in the comparable period ending in mid-2008, the first year of the recession. Women's wage growth dropped to 3.7% from 5.2% over the same period. The data looked at adults 25 and older.

The median weekly wage for a man 25 or older was $861 in the second quarter. For a woman in that age group, the median wage was $704, according to EPI.

Men who didn't have a high-school diploma saw median wages drop 3.6%, but men with a bachelor's degree didn't fare much better, with a decline of 3.1%. Men with high-school diplomas had wage growth of zero, as did men with advanced degrees.

Women without a high-school diploma lost ground too, with median pay falling 2.6%, while wages for women with just a high-school diploma dropped 1.5%.

But women college graduates drew pay hikes. Those with a B.A. saw median wages grow 4.3%, and those with advanced degrees got a 0.8% pay boost.

EPI did not adjust wage-growth rates for inflation in part because inflation has been volatile since the recession started, mainly due to steeply fluctuating energy prices. Energy prices rose more than 19% in 2008's second quarter, compared with prices a year earlier, then fell 26% in the same period in 2009, then rose almost 12% in 2010, EPI said.

When adjusted for inflation, various measures of wage growth land in the zero-to-negative-1.4% range in 2010, EPI said. See the full EPI report.

"That's what we will see going forward, as we continue with persistent high unemployment," said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at EPI. "We will continue to see real [inflation-adjusted] wages just hovering around zero or negative."

Disconnect between productivity and income
But median income has been falling for a while, EPI said.

Double-dip avoidanceA growing number of commentators expect the current U.S. slowdown to translate into a double-dip recession. But if, as many of them believe, the U.S. is repeating Japan's so-called lost decade, a more likely situation involves stubbornly slow growth.

Even as workers' productivity grew 11% from 2002 through 2007, income was losing ground. The inflation-adjusted median income for working-age households dropped to $58,718 in 2007, down from $60,804 in 2000, according to EPI. Unlike measures of weekly wages, income includes investment income and other sources.

Economic models tend to assume that rising productivity will lead to rising wages, Shierholz said. The assumption, she said, has been that "productivity -- that's the amount of goods and services the average worker produces in an hour -- as that goes up, wages will rise in lockstep, so workers reap the gains of their increased productivity," she said.

But that had changed as far back as the mid-1970s, Shierholz said. "We started to see this break. Productivity kept rising, [but] wages really flattened off," she said. "Essentially it's an inequality story. You can talk about productivity as being a measure of the growth of the riches of the country. If it's not going to the typical worker ... it's going to the top."

Fast-growing jobs are low paid

Another problem for future prospects for pay growth: Of the five fastest-growing occupations between 2006 and 2009, four of them paid less than the median wage, according to a separate EPI analysis.

Food preparers and servers, home health aides, warehouse stock clerks, medical assistants and registered nurses find themselves in the five fastest-growing occupations, according to EPI's analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those, though, only registered nurses make more than $15.95 an hour, which was the median wage in May 2009. The median wage for a registered nurse is $30.65 an hour.

Food prep and serving jobs pay a median $8.28 per hour, home health aides collect $9.85 an hour, warehouse stock clerks earn $10.08 an hour, and medical assistants $13.77 per hour.

For food-prep and food-service workers, the median wage of $8.28 per hour translates into an annual salary of $16,560, based on working a typical year of 2,000 hours

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/men-los....?dist=countdown

[Zyndryl]

Zyndryl

Hey, Futurist.

Can't fine a 'contact me' link on this site so I am afraid I'll have to post this here.

I recommend this article: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/09/28/chitty-chitty-bang-bang-the-electric-car-industry-isnt-going-to-save-us/

It's right up your alley with regards to what you've written on the topic it is about.