From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Wed Apr 26 2000 - 07:59:52 MDT
Michael S. Lorrey <retroman@turbont.net> Wrote:
>When its not foreseen (as Moore's Law helps us to do), then excessive
>productivity growth causes overcapacity, overstocked inventories
So, what do you do if you're making more stuff than you need? You gave the answer
yourself "and then a slowdown in production". That's exactly what should happen,
things worked differently in the old USSR, somebody would just set manufacturing
quotas that seemed nice, the result was they'd have 10 times as much of one
product as they needed an a tenth as much as another they needed.
>and a layoff of employees
Why layoff people? If I find an improved method of making fiberglass underwear
so that only a few manufacturing people can satisfy the entire world demand then
the thousands of people that had been making this wonderful product can now
make something else that we need more. Any large change in the economy or
large change in anything else for that matter, will be bad for some people, but in
general people should always make things that other people want the most,
it's good for most workers and good for most consumers.
>which reduces purchasing,
Why would purchasing decline when prices fall?
>if cheap and easy nuclear fusion magically became possible
>today, and within a few months most everybody had a fusion plant in
>their back yard, what do you think would happen to the economy?
Then the current economic expansion would accelerate. Of course.
>How about if nanotech became magically possible today? I'll tell you:
>the economy would go into a major depression for a good 3-10 years.
Well, that's a rather silly thing to say now isn't it.
>You are talking about making obsolete a whole economy almost overnight.
Yes, but you almost make that sound like a bad thing.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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