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

[dwer.livejournal.com]

well, I'd hoped that there would be a breakthrough in several types of renewable energy technologies. That could have created lots of manufacturing jobs.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

It does seem odd that these technologies remain sort of a footnote in our discussion of this country's economic future, doesn't it? Why is that?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

because we're too beholden to the petrochemical lobby. And by "we" I mean "congress".

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

I dunno if that's the whole answer, though. You think the cable news outlets are similarly beholden? How about talk_politics?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think the cable news outlets are similarly beholden because they belong to the same large multinational conglomerates that the petro lobby does.

I think Americans are trained to mildly ignore it. "Oh, that boondoggle, that'll never work."

[dwer.livejournal.com]

uh... I don't know why we didn't mandate electronic medical records in the 1970s.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I understand it. I simply didn't know the reason.

[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.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Well, some of us might be getting it in the form of a revelation (divine or not, I dunno).

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Because it takes lots of money to revamp production and infrastructure, which is seen as a gamble for companies that they don't want to make. You have lobbies from all sorts of companies pushing against it. The fact that it's got as far as it has is testament to its importance.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Because it's not viable, and may never be viable.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

lol

[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.

[http://users.livejournal.com/-wanderer-/]

If renewable energy will never be viable, aren't we just watching the clock until we revert back to the middle ages? Have a little optimism.

[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.