The Lost Decade American Style
Posted By thestatedtruth.com on January 5, 2010
This chart speaks for itself…………..
Despite an abysmal 10-years of zero wealth creation and zero job growth, betting on a second consecutive Lost Decade seems like a bad wager.  And yet, it happened in Japan…
But let’s not dwell on the negatives so early in this promising New Year. Instead, let’s consider the potential positives – the upside of the downside. According to Patrick Cox, editor of The Breakthrough Technology Alert, adversity truly is the mother of invention:
“Historically, downturns have been enormously creative times technologically. Our current economic mess will be no exception. Economic pressures are forcing reassessments and hard, creative choices. The result will be an explosion of breakthrough technologies…
“In the early 1400s, German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press. This invention did far more than facilitate book production and increase the availability of knowledge. It started an information technology (IT) revolution that continues to accelerate even today.
“In Gutenberg’s era, his advances in lithography not only increased access to the world’s greatest thinkers, they also put practical business and technical knowledge in the hands of commoners. This seemingly insignificant invention smashed monopolies of thought and political power. The result was exponential growth in science, technology and democratic ideals. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment followed, on up to our present era.
“We’ve already seen a series of printed circuit lithography technologies revolutionize the electronics industry. Every electronic device you own – from your television to your mobile phone – contains a lithographically printed circuit board of one form or another. Like many of the transformational technologies of the last century, it was invented during the Great Depression. The timing was not a fluke.”
The Daily ReckoningÂ
Comments