For all its problems, the long 20th century granted enormous prosperity to billions of people: cellphones, white-collar jobs, the birth-control pill, penicillin, space exploration, home appliances, electric grids, the internet. If, as DeLong claims, a remarkable period of prosperity has ended, then governments face the enormous task of strengthening representative democracy, reallocating the world’s immense resources more equitably, and reigniting productivity growth.
Even when someone explains how Capitalism – by which we mean free market versions thereof – is the hero we still end up with the answer that now it isn’t and everything must change.
The problem with this being that we could have said that in 1871, 1921, 1951 and so on. And, in fact, many people did in all those years and many others. And all of them were wrong. So there’s a certain burden of extraordinary proof required for it to be 2022 when it actually is so.
BTW, DeLong isn’t stupid enough to think that the prosperity has ended. He’s arguing that it’s not going to get better as fast as it used to. That’s the journalist’s mistake there.
See https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2021/3/28/extreme-poverty-isnt-natural-it-is-created
I agree with the question guy above:
An era of remarkable prosperity has ended.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE FOLX, PROSPERITY JUST ‘ENDED’ ALL BY ITSELF… UNLIKE GLOBAL WEATHER PATTERNS 100 YEARS IN THE FUTURE, THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOVERNMENT ACTIVITY (pulls collar, nervously scanning the horizon for lions)
I agree Steve!!!!!
Things which are natural phenomena and have nothing at all to do with the government:
Inflation
Fuel prices
Immigration
Pub closures
Food shortages
Cont. pg 94
“For all its problems, the long 20th century granted enormous prosperity to billions of people: cellphones, white-collar jobs, the birth-control pill, penicillin, space exploration, home appliances, electric grids, the internet. If, as DeLong claims, a remarkable period of prosperity has ended…”
Just in the areas that I know, there are at least two innovations that haven’t fully played out: Starlink and remote work.
I predict that 20 years from now, countries like the UK and the USA are going to be a lot different. People might still live in London for the hooking up (maybe) but my guess is that more people will then find a cheap place to live far from it. When they have kids, they’ll move near their parents for free babysitting. What’s the value of that? Trillions.
To some extent, I feel like software is kinda done. It’ll keep me going past retirement age, but how much better does Amazon or the iPhone have to be? But I think the next big thing that’s going to get disrupted in all sorts of ways is medicine.
More than likely.
If we only get to “see” our GPs via Zoom, why not just use Indian GPs in India at Indian salaries and costs?
BiW,
Better still: distil the knowledge of the very best medical people into apps, make use of sensors from watches, AI analysis of imagery, and we all get diagnosed for pennies per week (and probably better than most of those overrated charlatans).
An era of remarkable prosperity has ended.
You should get a sign and wonder the streets, though you might have to précis it a bit.
The End is Nigh
That works.
(bloody doomsday cultists)
Funnily enough I was talking to a company recently that is doing AI analysis on x-rays. With portable x-ray device (much smaller than I expected) and internet connection (which could include starlink) you can extend imaging capacity with the AI acting as triage and flagging x-rays for doctors to review. One advantage is to cut down on people having to travel to large central hospitals which is less of an issue in U.K. as opposed to other larger countries.
Access to healthcare is a major factor when looking at different health stats for different regions in some places. Local health centres could be able to offer much better capability for diagnostics, testing and imaging allowing larger hospitals to be more focused on treatment or even have mobile units for people with mobility issues that come to your house.
Lots of innovation going on in the ehealth field
Health is a big area and, given gerontology, the place to bet on. Annoyingly there is an ETF based on ageing economies but it lacks focus.