35 sats \ 4 replies \ @tomlaies 24 Aug 2022 \ parent \ on: Millennials Only Want This One Thing: Home Ownership bitcoin
I'd be interested if we use less because of efficiency gains or if we actually consume less. My bet is that it's the first.
It's absolutely in large part due to efficiency gains... just two of the examples in the article:
"In 1956, the ENIAC computer weighed 27 tons, consumed 150 kW, ran about 100,000 operations per second and cost the equivalent of $6 million today. Today, a new Macbook weighs 3.5lbs, consumes around 40 watts, and cranks out 3.2 billion operations per second — all for $2,000.
Airliners have increased their fuel efficiency at a compound rate of 1.3% between 1968 and 2014."
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Which poses the question...if our energy efficiency has increased so much, why does the same output - denominated in energy - cost so much more (fiat) in 2022 compared with previous years?
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Easy: because the benefits of production output doubling since the 90s and improvements in efficiency have not been distributed fairly through the economy. The rich increased their net worths and the middle class barely got the benefits of technological progress but none of the growth.
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I agree with you on all of the front of economic gains being captured in an outsized manner by those with more money - the data seems to support this (https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/)
But I'm not sure I follow the correlation or causation with who owns the majority of the economy and the price impact on something like land or other commodities?
I would argue that all price inflation, especially in land and commodities, is the result of money creation, the benefits of which is most captured in an outsized manner by the rich
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