Thank you very much. I just deleted my comment. I will have to purchase those soon.

oh, yes, and I hope that the 'nam vets can overlook
the 2nd level reference to the viet cong. -- j

typo. thanks VC(venture capitalist)

"VS investment" = voluntary sector? . I wonder... -- j

Yes what growth in technology and therefore wealth that has occurred has been stolen by the political class.

well it was a factor. Because the US chose to guarantee those loans , of course banks saw less risk and money naturally flowed there. However, if certain perfect storm of regulations (which dried up VS investment) and weakening of the Patent system (why invent if I can't get a patent)-the tech market would have continued booming through the 2000s and that would have off-set the mortgage crisis. new technology is wealth creation, but the real estate market has some wealth creation but they make their money off the same banking and fed central banking we all complain about.

Jolene, Thanks for your request. First I must ask you to edit your comment and remove your email address (admin's rules). You can find our novel (db and I are co-authors) Pendulum of Justice by clicking the Marketplace link above and looking under Books. If you would like a signed copy of the novel, you can get one in the Gulch store, click the "Store" link above and look under Books. Db's non fiction, "The Decline and Fall of the American Entrepreneur..." can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Decline-Fall-Ameri...
We will shortly have our second book in the Hank Rangar thriller series out and as well db's 2nd non-fiction: "The Source of Economic Growth" Wwe'll keep you posted and I'll PM when those are ready

our tech growth was not strong enough to support
the politicians' giving homes to people who could
not afford them??? -- j

yes, of course you make the best decisions for your business that are available.

I can't tell you why but I don't fear change. In my current business I use the Chinese for what can do cheaper but I fill in the gaps in what they can't do , at least yet. I could make most everything I buy from them, but it's cheaper to just buy from them (mostly because of high employee costs here)

term, I'm checking which website you are on. Yes, some jobs become obsolete. They are the lower skilled jobs because your economy is getting technologically savvy. However, If you disrupt enough to turn your city into a higher percentage of skilled workers, earning more, they buy stuff. They remodel. They build new homes, get high end toys, hopefully they have more time to study philosophy or go up their science degree one notch. You are arguing against moving into an information age and letting 2nd and 3rd world countries concentrate on an earlier evolution of the US-manufacturing. But we don't stop manufacturing. We figure out how to do it better, with higher quality materials-and get it to be done in your house on your table-one offs. You have lots of fear about tech for being an engineer.

You are assuming that all the disruptive technologies create more jobs than they make obsolete. Some do, and others don't. I could argue that in the end many of them just make people work harder to stay even. The computer doesnt made me any more money that I did before- it just forced me to use it in order to compete effectively now. Same thing with email. I send many more communications than I used to when snail mail was the only way, and again I have to do that to stay competitive, and without a secretary. Automation is a lot more common now than earlier and the advances robots will replace a lot more workers in the future than it will take to build them (mostly will be built by other robots). If total wealth is the sum of the wealth of individuals, wouldnt you say that Russia is more wealthy than it used to be because of the oil its now selling- maybe not forever, but now. Its citizens dont have the wealth because its been stolen from them in the form of the ruble, but the wealth is there in the government coffers.

I think technology can improve living standards, but I still think its not the only thing, and sometimes it improves the living of some and reduces it for others.

well, if you had every government and the general population not understanding that we need oxygen to survive-then it's a pretty useful big deal.

The internet, transistor, micro processor, PC-all of these is disruptive invention. -Overnight (not really) these concepts go across all industries-create jobs which did not exist before (which are skilled and highly skilled jobs) like a patch of mushrooms coming up. That is true creation of wealth. What's happening in China-they are using our technology (often stealing it) and right now they are pulling up working class and poor into a thriving middle class. It's to be applauded. It's the technology created earlier. They are replicating-they are not creating disruptive innovation.

I suppose that's true if you count things such as teaching workers better skills as new technology.

I don't think it's useful, though. It's like saying that all deaths are caused by lack of oxygen to the brain.

Yes, because they are using the technology that 1st world countries that had strong patent systems built. They can only do this so long. This is the way historically 2nd and third world companies advance. Off of the technological disruption of an economically free country. This is big picture looking.

You are right I have a small ranch and have not the most advanced machinery while the Amish only a few miles away use actual horse power work harder than I can imagine. I would still like to see most city dwellers come and spend the day with me. I have found most people are fools for thinking they work hard. It's the thinkers of yesteryear that has made life so easy today. We need thinkers now to progress or we run a risk of going back to the 1600s. It will be those Amish down the road from me that will survive.

While you are right, db, that inventors are not inventing, I disagree with your dismissal of jnnrd54's description of the crony mortgage business as being details. The crony mortgage business was actually a major reason for inventors not getting financial backing. Why should they invest in inventors where this is a risk when they can financially enslave millions with no fear of risk? After all, they are too big to fail! When the financial incentives of free enterprise and invention are removed, free enterprise and invention disappear.

China hasnt really invented anything new, but their per capita income is soaring, because it was so low and is now coming up to world standards while our per capita income is falling.

Thanks, dbhalling and khalling. It is just as I had imagined. Right out of AS, just a few decades ahead of the US.

but isnt the living standard that you talk about just the aggregate of all the individual living standards. I would increase mine and the people I used the money to buy things from.

Increasing levels of technology are the only way to increase real per capita incomes. All the other problems are the result of things that impede it.

You might be wealthier but the world will not. You will not have raised the living standard at all.

An invention (technology) is any human creation that has an objective result. The only way we can get wealthier on a per capita basis is to create new inventions. When the rate of new technologies slows, so will income.

Those are all details. The real problem is the US is not creating new technologies at the rate they use to.