Future Economy Survey

By | December 13, 2010
2 Comments

Continuing our exploration of what accelerating technological development (especially increasing automation) means for the job market and the future economy, here’s a survey that addresses some of the possible scenarios we have been talking about:

  • A largely stagnant economy not too unlike what we’ve seen over the past decade
  • A huge welfare state wherein the government pays us all to keep consuming.
  • A booming corporate economy in which the vast majority of us work completely made-up and meaningless jobs which the companies all support just to keep consumer activity alive.
  • A massive depression in which rampant automation kills the majority of jobs and destroys the economy in the process
  • A “maker” economy in which we eke out a living through micro business opportunities online and actually producing our own stuff
  • A super prosumer economy in which automation enables massive empowerment and enrichment the workforce through our own creativity and initiative.

Which of these scenarios sounds most likely to you for the near and long term? Or describe your own if none of these sound right.

Results are here.

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  • damndirtyape.myopenid.com

    Great questions. Love the recent topics pertaining to macro economics.

    Seems basically unavoidable at this point that we will see major deflation/money supply contraction followed by nasty, nasty inflation and or stagflation further down the line.

    This is based on such inconvenient facts as the crushing US foreign debt, official Fed Reserve inflationary monetary policies, declining baby-boomer population trends, gutted American manufacturing base, large trade imbalances, worldwide bubble fiat currencies, huge disparities in living standards etc.

    We still have an enormous multi-trillion US debt bubble that has to pop – as all bubble eventually do – and then we will go through a period of basing where things seem bleak indeed. The trillions of fake dollars that vanished during the dot.com bust and now the current real estate bust have all gone to money heaven, and real estate will continue to fall much much further until it ultimately reverts to appropriate valuations again.

    Hopefully around 2020 or so, the secular bear market we have been in since 2000 will turn around, and the remnants of the debt bubbles will have cleared. This could serve as the base upon which the next real economically prosperous phase might build moving into the mid century.

    Trying to re-inflate the consumer debt based economy that produces nothing but internet mania and complex financial derivative securities will only kick the can father down the road so its hard to say when exactly things will finally wash out of the system.

    Unfortunately, at this point I don’t see anything that will allow us to outproduce and out-compete with emerging markets in Asia and India. America has been at an apex since the 60′s and we are witnissing the decline now.

    Not saying we are going to go from a first world to a third world country right away (or ever), nor will we never see large booms and bull markets again, but we will surely see a decline in the average actual standard of living in the next century as Asia/India see large rises.

    In fact we have not seen wage increases in most US labor markets since the 70′s once you adjust for inflation. Hopefully that change someday, but I’m not crossing my fingers.

    Bu such is the inevitable life cycle of overextended, complacent, and diminished empires that engage in endless foreign wars and currency fiat debasements. Witness Athens, Rome, France, Britain, and now America, among others.

    Revolutionary breakthroughs in nano-tech or something that rewrites all the rules of history are wishful thinking I feel. And nothing we could do would change the major demographic trends the world is now undergoing.

    I feel technology will continue to evolve and change our lives us in the coming century, but these will always occur within the larger context of demographic and economic frameworks which exist regardless of time and place. I’m confident that at least until 2050 or so the familiar framework of cultures and society we know will continue to dominate the US and the world at large.

  • twistedone151

    The penultimate question here, “Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better”, in being true-false, misses a third option. That being things are going to get a lot worse, period; the perspective that we have just passed our peak as a species, and that all our future holds is a permanent collapse or decay into a pre-industrial society from which we cannot rebuild.