Comments by "Dean Schulze" (@deanschulze3129) on "10 Global Trends Every Person Should Know | Marian Tupy | EP 165" video.

  1. I was surprised that they didn't mention Robert Gordon's book "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" when they were talking about the hockey stick curve of economic growth. There are two reasons why economic growth took off during the late 1800s. The two biggest drivers were the internal combustion engine and the electric grid. Our economic growth started declining in the 1970s and now even an economic "recovery" can't even get back to our historic norm of 3% GDP growth per year. This year may be an exception due to the pandemic and the vaccine-driven recovery, but in normal times our economic growth is declining. Gordon is skeptical that we will ever see sustained economic growth like we saw from the 1870s to the 1970s again. Some of the drivers were one time events. Education levels rising from the 8th grade level to the college level. Women entering the work force. These are things that can't be repeated. There are no innovations happening today with the power to drive economic growth like the internal combustion engine or the electric grid did. There's nothing like those on the horizon. Sure there are technological and biotech miracles happening frequently, like the COVID vaccine, but nothing with the power to move the needle on the entire economy. We may soon find ourselves in a world of 1 percent average economic growth. Nearly a zero sum game. Not bad, but not what we had for a century.
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