Fantastic Progress
We ended last week wondering what had gone wrong: How come the 21st century has turned out to be such a dud?
Where are the jaw-dropping new inventions? Where are the rising incomes? Where is the dynamic, sizzling economy we expected?
Back in about 1963, we recall trying to picture ourselves in the 21st century. The rate of progress then was so fantastic we had to stretch to imagine it.
Every year, Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler put out a new and better automobile. In 50 more years, surely cars would be regularly flying through the air!
In 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It was just a matter of time before we had a colony there… from which we could explore the solar system.
Then in 1970, the pocket electronic calculator appeared. Half a century later, imagine the condensed knowledge and computing power we would be able to carry around.
The question should not be whether the government should or shouldn’t build and administer roads – the question should be: “Where the hell are our flying cars?”
Cartoon : Hanna / Barbera
Aging Economies
The only one of those things that realized its apparent potential was the increase in computing power. That has changed life on planet Earth. Now, instead of talking to your neighbors in the elevator, you can keep your head down and focus on your smartphone.
We’ve seen couples in restaurants who never talk among themselves – each fiddled with their iPhone through the whole meal. Is that progress or what?
Since the 21st century began, the average US household has lost income. Bummer. Why has this happened?
One answer we proposed to readers of our new monthly publication, The Bill Bonner Letter, was that three of the leading economic zones – the US, Europe and Japan – have come to be dominated by old people.
But that explains only a part of it… and probably not the major part.
Stopping the Future from Happening
The other reason is that government is always reactionary. It protects existing voters from those who haven’t been born yet… existing wealth businesses from entrepreneurs… and the past, generally, from the future. Much of the blame for this flop of a century can be put on government and its cronies in the private sector.
At this suggestion, apologists for big government point out that government spending, as a percentage of GDP, is scarcely higher now than it was in the 20th century. But today, much more of the private sector has been crony-ized.
Since 1960, the number of rules, regulations and taxes has soared. As we showed last week, far fewer new businesses are being started now than were in the 1960s. This is partly because a high wall of regulation, designed to keep out competitors, protects existing businesses.
Total pages of federal government regulations published since 1950, via regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/. They haven’t made the world any better – click to enlarge.
Chock-a-Block with Cronies
The “security” industry is obviously a government affair – dominated by large, entrenched cronies. But so are businesses in finance, health care, housing and education. They are not exactly married to the feds… but they are so close they spend almost every night in each other’s arms.
When you buy a house, for example, it is considered a private sector transaction.
Fannie Mae, Ginnie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages don’t show up as government spending.
But the US government created and operates them. And these three “government-sponsored enterprises” are responsible for about 95% of mortgages issued in the last three years.
Banking, medicine and schooling – even at the university level – are so dependent on government rules and government money. And they are so chock-a-block with cronies, that they might as well be government itself.
And take a company such as GE. It is supposed to be in the business of power generators and airplane engines and other major industrial innovations. But prior to the crisis of 2008, it worked fiddle and bow with the feds to play the government’s distorted yield curve… and then, when that gig was up … it was saved by more direct federal bailouts.
You can read the whole sordid story at David Stockman’s excellent website, Contra Corner. (Stockman was President Reagan’s budget adviser before quitting in disgust over the administration’s profligate spending).
In short, after 1960, the economy came to be more controlled by people who were more interested in protecting current wealth than in producing more of it. Central planning led to a decline in growth rates throughout the rest of the 20th century. The rate of innovation slowed.
What we are seeing in the 21st century is proof of our dictum: The real role of government is to look into the future and prevent it from happening.
The above article originally appeared as “This Is Why Your Wages Aren’t Rising…” at the Diary of a Rogue Economist originally written for Bonner & Partners. Bill Bonner founded Agora, Inc in 1978. It has since grown into one of the largest independent newsletter publishing companies in the world. He has also written three New York Times bestselling books, Financial Reckoning Day, Empire of Debt and Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.
Bottom line: GREED. Everything that has or has not happened in the last 40 years can be explained, quite literally, as GREED.
Instead of bettering themselves, people worry about what they don’t possess. A new TV, which isn’t a revolutionary technology bettering the lives of anyone, just a shinier way to watch the same old crap.
A faster sports car? A bigger car? A bigger house? Do any of these things “make” anyone better than anyone else? Nope.
Yet we are constantly bombarded with ads to induce us to get more “stuff”. Not go out and invent anything that will actually help anyone.
We are told if we don’t go get an expensive college education then we will be left to slave wages for entirety.
We are told a bigger house we can barely afford MUST be better than a 1000 sq foot ranch that is comfortable and affordable.
We are told a 10 or 15 year old car we own outright CANNOT be adequate, even though it drives just fine.
The masses have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. They focus on competing with the 1%, driven mad by wage jealousy and income inequality.
The blithely consume fake food, fake drinks, and pills by the pound.
Movie and sports stars are now the authority on every damn thing.
Family? Who gives a crap, you have hundreds, if not thousands of “friends” on FB. You must be awesome, right?
There is no sense of community. Everyone out for themselves, gonna get them some free Obama money, Obama phone, whatever.
If you take the power of ‘stuff’ away, the power of the makers of stuff goes away too.
You don’t need more stuff.
The concept of taxes and what their purpose is, is no longer operable.
So at one time you needed a tax to build the town hall, eventually employ a sheriff.
Then the scope of taxes exploded. In the software industry we call this creeping elegance.
Nobody knows what taxes are collected and where they are spent. I mean what portion of your Federal Income taxes go toward NASA sending a probe to Mars (better to send a probe up Obama’s ass), nor anything else.
Taxing is now an extracting mechanism, sorta like pressing grapes or olives.
When you consider the non-criminal laws on the books – how many of us have ever voted for them? How many of our Reps / Senators ever voted on them? How can you run a modern country with 100 year old laws that nobody alive has ever voted on?
The government will never sit down and review what’s out there – we’re fucked!
Olga: That’s fucked up. Why spread that shit around?
@Olga, thanks for sharing. From the link, “…But what if your own eyes and your innate (though suppressed) ability to think critically and independently tell you that what all the institutions of the State insist is true is actually a lie? What do you do then? Do you trust in your own cognitive abilities, or do you blindly follow authority and pretend as though everything can be explained away? If your worldview will not allow you to believe what you can see with your own eyes, then the problem, it would appear, is with your worldview. So do you change that worldview, or do you live in denial?…”
@Dutch, you are right, we should NEVER think for ourselves, be exposed to contrasting opinions, and never, EVER, EVER, should we question the narrative of our betters, leaders and all-seeing State.
Statism runs deep, even in “enlightened” circles.
Make sure to read the second page – I laughed until I had tears!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo2.html
We are also going to need to install a top-of-the-line heating and cooling system. Probably several of them, actually. Because the ‘weather’ on the Moon, so to speak, can be a bit unpleasant. According to the experts over at NASA, daytime highs average a balmy +260° F, but it cools off quite a bit at night, dropping to an average of -280° F. If you’re looking for anything between those two extremes, you won’t really find it on the Moon. It’s pretty much one or the other. If you’re in the sun, you’re going to be boiled alive, and if you’re out of the sun, you’re going to be flash frozen.
I’m not at all sure how the air conditioning system is going to work, come to think of it, since air conditioning requires a steady supply of – and please stop me if I am stating the obvious here – air. And the Moon doesn’t really have a lot of that.
While I think most of this space exploration is a waste of time. Are all the space flights, shuttle flights, international space station, Russian space flights, Mars landing, all these are fake. I wonder how the GPS works or the Weather sattelites work when they are all fake also.
But wait – It’s just that the moon landing is fake. The moon landing – 45 years ago – a pretty insignificant event. These people who are ‘fighting’ the moon landing – what a pathetic bunch of twits – caught in an insignificant event. Why don’t we go back to the moon? Cause there’s nothing there.
Having worked in the Defense industry, it’s a hell of a lot easier to land someone on the moon – than it is to build all these satellites that are in a geosynchronous orbit, 25,000 miles above earth.
I’m all for differing opinions – but I know a whack job when I see it. Only a fool listens to that crap.
@olga: Open your mouth and show us how really stupid you are!
“We are also going to need to install a top-of-the-line heating and cooling system. Probably several of them, actually. Because the ‘weather’ on the Moon, so to speak, can be a bit unpleasant. According to the experts over at NASA, daytime highs average a balmy +260° F, but it cools off quite a bit at night, dropping to an average of -280° F. If you’re looking for anything between those two extremes, you won’t really find it on the Moon. It’s pretty much one or the other. If you’re in the sun, you’re going to be boiled alive, and if you’re out of the sun, you’re going to be flash frozen.”
What do you think are the temps in space? On the space station, on the orbitor, on an astronaut doing a moon walk – the temps are the the same. The moon is no closer to the sun than the earth.
You know nothing!
I’m not sure I can ever “know” anything – but I do have perceptions that are always subject to change.
: )
I have worn a ‘pumpkin’ colored space suit. For flights at about 70,000 feet.
A space suit the astronauts wear has many layers – but the two most important are the Pressure Suit – this is next to you body and has heating and cooling distribution. Pressure is about 3.5 – 4.0 lbs. The next layer protects the astronaut from radiation. The outside of the suit is mylar – reflective so the astronaut doesn’t overheat.
There is no need for heat – the wearer’s body heat is completely enclosed in the suit. As you exercise you generate more heat. The suit has cooling / humidity control.
When I look at a NASA photo of the lunar module I think asking where they stored two-to-three days worth of oxygen for two grown men as well as the fuel necessary to leave the moon’s surface along with any food and water – and whatever was required to heat/cool the vehicle is a reasonable question.
Perhaps the 1969 suits were all that was required and heating/cooling the vehicle was unnecessary but to my eye it doesn’t look substantial enough.
I am not emotionally attached to whatever happened or didn’t happen up there – but really, with all the lies we are told on a daily basis what the hell is a few more.
Olga – I could steer you to tuber interesting rabbit holes about the moon landing but I have already had a bout with Dutchman this week.
Oops….that should be uber not tuber interesting.
I was 20 in 1969 – I don’t know any technical details of the Lunar Lander. I do know something about the Orbitior and the ISS (International space station).
Astronauts, do not use a ‘SCUBA” type aparatus. There are fuel cells to generate water and electricity. Through electrolosis you can seperate water into Oxygen and Hydrogen.
The gravity of the moon is 16% that of earth. The escape veloicity of the earth is 18,000 miles and hour. However the escape velocity of the moon is only about 2,800 miles an hour. Also, there in no atmosphere on the moon. The Lunar Lander only needs enough fuel to accelerate it to 2,800 mph – similiar to a fighter jet. Additionally most of the lander remainded on the moon. I would take a guess that the command module wasn’t much more than 3,000 lbs.
Olga, I realize you don’t know a lot about science – and that’s OK. But things are much different in space, all the things you want to ‘logically’ make it not so – have no basis in fact.
Olga- I think clueless just said you are dumb.
Government prevents reality from happening ?
LOL….
http://retailindustry.about.com/od/USRetailStoreClosingInfoFAQs/fl/All-2015-Store-Closings-Stores-Closed-by-US-Retail-Industry-Chains_2.htm
Run the numbers…