Routers and porn

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Almost all of the discussions I am hearing about economics and politics seems to center on the various kinds of "lever-pulling" the government can do: tax policy, money supply, interest rates, etc.

While I don't doubt that this lever-pulling has a real impact on economic activiity, it doesn't seem to me to be what the creation of wealth is really about.  We add money to the economy and stocks go up.  Big deal.  It's just an anticipation of inflation -- not the actual creation of actual value.

Conversely, we might reform healthcare and education more aggressively.  Sure.  But it doesn't help to educate people for jobs that don't exist.  And physical wellness, whether we like it or not, is a function of wealth.  Drugs would cost money even if we nationalized pharma.   

If we look back through history, in fact, we will see that wealth has always been created be actual stuff: spices and silk, slaves and cotton, war production and automobiles, highways and consumer goods, routers and porn.

So I'm wondering what it is that the U.S. economy is actually going to produce to create wealth, jobs, tax revenue and human delight.  What will a 24-year-old community college graduate living in Dayton, Ohio be doing for a living four years from now?  Anyone have any ideas?

And can anyone tell me why this is not a more central topic of discussion generally?

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Facebook, though, is really just the next generation of television. It's entertainment to draw us in, and ads to make money. Certainly it's an innovative way of doing that, but I don't think you can say that it produces real wealth in the same way that durable goods like cars, buildings, and electronics do. Of course then we've got the question of what "real wealth" is...

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Yup. Trading derivatives is hard effin' work. :P

Re: Can you tell I'm avoiding a paper?

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Very on-point. But my title is better.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I think the question is more about what is our next growth sector. There will always be the latent force of pure staple economies for a nation of 315 million people. The problem is that if we grow in population, we have to grow the available jobs to keep up, and if there is no growth sector to soak it in, you're going to have structural unemployment due to all number of things: increased efficiencies and technologies for one. We simply, IMO, will not have 4-5 percent unemployment for decades to come. This is the new reality. Our economy has a built-in section of unemployment and there is nothing to do about it. Everything else is people making promises they can't keep. When dealing with structural shift in the economy, the government can't just wave its wand and make things better. Tax cuts don't produce jobs that don't exist. Raising taxes just balances the books in the short-term.

My only comfort is that in 40 years, everything will be better, once the glut of baby-boomers passes on and we're not longer dragged down by all those oldsters!

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

So we can export enough IP to make up for all the food, plumbing supplies, consumer electronics, automobiles, fuel, and clothing we actually need to live?

Want to compare total GDIP to total domestic consumption?

Or are you saying we can create anough IP on both coasts to basically put everyone between Pittsburgh and Des Moines on welfare?

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

I think the question is more about what is our next growth sector.

Yes. Maybe I should have just posted this single question.

So what is our next growth sector?

we're not longer dragged down by all those oldsters!

I'm not dragging anyone down. I am the wind beneath your freaking wings. Don't ever forget it.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It's ok, in 40 years I'll be an oldster too. I won't be around to enjoy the newly lightened burden of a society without 40 billion hip replacements to perform.

As for our next growth sector, hell if I know. Whatever growth there is to be captured is being serviced by the global labor market. I think maybe junkyards will be the next big thing.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

The problem being that the profitability of social media is vastly overplayed except for a tiny fraction of the population — ask Twitter when they expect to finally start turning a profit.

Likewise, while this is an excellent topic for discussion, I was mildly amused by the OP's assertion that porn still constitutes a material good that can create wealth, when as Cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html) pointed out:

If I gave you a budget of zero dollars and said, "Get me as much Internet porn as you can for that amount of money," how much porn would you come back with?

I'm thinking the answer is, "All of the porn."

[...] There's more porn than air now. Literally — air is limited, but we have machines that can convert energy into .jpegs of titties from now until the heat death of the universe. Titties are post-scarcity.

That being said, his overall point holds — it's literally impossible to enforce artificial scarcity on anything that can be converted into digital data, which is pretty much the majority of the market now.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Why would you assume that? If someone in the US invents a cold fusion engine tomorrow, they'd export the manufacturing of said unit by the end of next week. We're just not that competitive in manufacturing these days and should turn our attention elsewhere.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

But the design, management, etc would be mostly done here.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Actually, the premise of the title is that routers and porn characterized a previous boom. We have to look beyond titties to the future.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Talk_Politics is comprised of people who are fed information from a variety of sources. If those sources never mention it--or mention it only in passing, then the people don't really think about it.

There's a sort of top-down effect like that.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

lol

Re: Can you tell I'm avoiding a paper?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

But when the economy is global, any one country doesn't have to do the actual manufacturing to be successful. Just moving money around and/or providing the tools to assist the manufacturing and/or providing the innovation and direction for the manufacturing is just as good.

[ccr1138.livejournal.com]

I think this SHOULD be talked about more, but perhaps the media doesn't want to address it because what it really comes down to is this:

Government very rarely contributes to the creation of wealth. Almost all wealth (except infrastructure) is created by the private sector. You can't have growth in wealth by moving little green pieces of paper around; you have to create something new, using resources and labor, that adds to the general pool of "stuff" on the earth.

Conservatives want to move more money back into the private sector which creates wealth. Liberals want to take money out of the private sector and redistribute it, which not only creates NO wealth, it actually stifles wealth creation, because it takes the most from the very people who are in the best position to employ labor, buy resources, and make "stuff."

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The problem being that the profitability of social media is vastly overplayed except for a tiny fraction of the population — ask Twitter when they expect to finally start turning a profit.

Facebook is just one of many examples of how the world is rapidly changing. That's all I meant by it.

That being said, his overall point holds — it's literally impossible to enforce artificial scarcity on anything that can be converted into digital data, which is pretty much the majority of the market now.

That's only because we're trying to create artificial scarcity. The market is still new and volatile.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So we can export enough IP to make up for all the food, plumbing supplies, consumer electronics, automobiles, fuel, and clothing we actually need to live?

Clearly, yes.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, right. I thin kthe idea of "real wealth" has changed, too. Mark Cuban has "Real wealth," but from what? Tech stocks, mostly.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

The problem being that, in the digital marketplace, artificial scarcity is the ONLY type of scarcity that exists, because as the linked article points out, anything that exists solely as digital data is not something that anyone needs to pay any amount of money for. It's like charging people money to breathe oxygen, and then attempting to enforce it by law. It's going to fail so hard that it'll actually make Prohibition look like a raging success by comparison. You're talking about "the market," but any such market still relies on CONSUMERS. I can watch any movie or TV show that I want, and listen to all the music that I want, online for free, and while I do make an effort to pay money for the ones that I enjoy, the only reasons I have for doing so are a) my own ethics and b) RIAA threats, which I find so onerous that I'm sorely tempted to "steal" media, even when I WANT to pay for it, simply out of SPITE, which means that the RIAA is actually CREATING media theft among many would-be consumers. Once you have a system that's based on unenforceable mandates and the honor system, there is no "market" anymore, because that's what COMMUNISM relied upon to keep itself running — presumptions of good faith and oppressive threats — and that's why it FAILED.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Hoo boy...

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who works in the media, the reason is much simpler and more self-serving — the media knows very well that artificially enforced scarcity is the only type of scarcity that exists for most of the market anymore (http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html), and that's more true of the media itself than anybody, and the problem with artificially enforced scarcity is that it's ultimately unenforceable, and if scarcity is unenforceable, then the free market is permanently fucked forever, for the very simple reason that a nigh-infinite supply creates a virtually nonexistent demand.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Trust me, I'm not saying this is good news — as a consumer of media, I love it, because I pay nothing for my entertainment and news media now, but as a PRODUCER of media, I'm shitting my pants over this, because this is where my income comes from.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, you're choosing the theft route. No one's forcing you down that line.

Yes, the balance hasn't been struck yet, but you're frankly not helping.

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

There are dozens of professions and skill sets on BA/BS level that are not going anywhere, but where the majority of workers are earning mediocre wages, so if the future college grad wants basic stability, he can go towards one of these. Examples: nursing, clerical, technicians of all sorts, processing accountants, restaurant managers, etc.

Then there are jobs that require constant work and study from the worker. Most IT jobs fall into this category. If worker falls behind the trend, the job will be gone.

Another level up are jobs that require extensive training before doing anything. Usually coming near those jobs with a bachelor's degree is impossible. But a college student with passion can explore those routes into medicine, law, etc.

But the best jobs are the unknowns, they revolve around new trends and technologies and the workers earning their money at these jobs distinguish themselves by the ability to learn something very different fast. These kind of workers are by all means universal and often they will have completely "meaningless" degrees in stuff like philosophy or mathematics.

As to creation of wealth by widget production, it is long gone. Quality and efficiency of automated robotic labor is much higher and workers are needed to design, maintain and run the machines rather than hammer out the widgets.

[redheadrat.livejournal.com]

The only real viable solutions would not be environmentally good and/or will come from biotechnology, where they will really employ only the top scientists and not grunts.