Surfing With Kondratiev: A New Golden Age?
Very interesting article. There is a lot to be said for Kondratiev Theory. There are, however, a lot of differing interpretations on how they work and where we are in the cycle. See my notes below.
A New Golden Age... When People Least Expect It
Since the late 1700s, there have been five great waves of economic and technological development, each lasting about half a century. Each one produced a surge of new products, new employment, whole industries, and strong economic growth. They also resulted in the development of new means for transporting energy, information, goods, and people more rapidly, inexpensively, and across farther distances than ever before.
These five “60-year cycles of capital” are typically referred to as the Kondratieff Waves, named after Russian theorist Nikolai Kondratieff, who first identified them. Kondratieff observed that capitalist economies move through recurring cycles of boom and bust. Austrian-American economist Joseph Schumpeter later coined the term “creative destruction” to describe the necessary contractions and expansions within these cycles that result in long-term growth.
Perhaps nowhere are the cycles explained and analyzed better than in the book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages,1by economic historian Carlota Perez, a senior research fellow at Cambridge University.
Small Steps, Big Results
April 4, 2010
NYTimes
Start-Ups, Not Bailouts
By Tom Freidman
Here’s my fun fact for the day, provided courtesy of Robert Litan, who directs research at the Kauffman Foundation, which specializes in promoting innovation in America: “Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less,” said Litan. “That is about 40 million jobs. That means the established firms created no new net jobs during that period.”
Message: If we want to bring down unemployment in a sustainable way, neither rescuing General Motors nor funding more road construction will do it. We need to create a big bushel of new companies — fast. We’ve got to get more Americans working again for their own dignity — and to generate the rising incomes and wealth we need to pay for existing entitlements, as well as all the new investments we’ll need to make. It was just reported that Social Security this year will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes — a red line we were not expected to cross until at least 2016.
[ Read original article ]
NYTimes
Start-Ups, Not Bailouts
By Tom Freidman
Here’s my fun fact for the day, provided courtesy of Robert Litan, who directs research at the Kauffman Foundation, which specializes in promoting innovation in America: “Between 1980 and 2005, virtually all net new jobs created in the U.S. were created by firms that were 5 years old or less,” said Litan. “That is about 40 million jobs. That means the established firms created no new net jobs during that period.”
Message: If we want to bring down unemployment in a sustainable way, neither rescuing General Motors nor funding more road construction will do it. We need to create a big bushel of new companies — fast. We’ve got to get more Americans working again for their own dignity — and to generate the rising incomes and wealth we need to pay for existing entitlements, as well as all the new investments we’ll need to make. It was just reported that Social Security this year will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes — a red line we were not expected to cross until at least 2016.
[ Read original article ]
How Green is Green?
NYTimes
April 04 2010
How Green is My iPad
By Daniel Goleman and Greggory Norris
With e-readers like Apple’s new iPad and Amazon’s Kindle touting their vast libraries of digital titles, some bookworms are bound to wonder if tomes-on-paper will one day become quaint relics. But the question also arises, which is more environmentally friendly: an e-reader or an old-fashioned book?
[ Read original article ]
April 04 2010
How Green is My iPad
By Daniel Goleman and Greggory Norris
With e-readers like Apple’s new iPad and Amazon’s Kindle touting their vast libraries of digital titles, some bookworms are bound to wonder if tomes-on-paper will one day become quaint relics. But the question also arises, which is more environmentally friendly: an e-reader or an old-fashioned book?
[ Read original article ]
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