Saturday, August 25, 2012

The Next Great Growth Cycle

Today’s techno-pessimists say technology and America have plateaued. Such naysayers flourish during economic recessions. They have been wrong in every one of the 19 economic downturns we have experienced since 1912. They’re wrong again.
Apple went public in December 1980, before today’s 50 million millennials were born. And there followed the longest run of economic growth in modern history, spanning five presidencies from Reagan through Clinton. Apple grew to become the world’s largest market cap company and a tech icon.
That was then. This is now. According to today’s techno-pessimists, nothing like that can happen again because technology and America have plateaued. Such naysayers, who flourish like mushrooms in the depths of economic recessions, have been wrong in every one of the 19 economic downturns we have experienced since 1912. And they’re wrong again.
Let’s quote a few prominent examples:
“We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau.” — Tyler Cowen, economist, popular blogger, and author of The Great Stagnation.
“The harsh reality … is that the next 25 years (2013-2038) are highly unlikely to see more dramatic changes than science and technology produced in the last 25 (1987-2012).” — Niall Ferguson, uber-historian, Harvard professor, and widely read author.
“No more fundamental innovations are likely to be introduced to change the structure of [today’s] society .... Like every previous civilization, we have reached a technological plateau.” — Jean Gimpel, technology historian, professor, and author.

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