I often say to folks, “What if they gave a depression and nobody came?”
In the ’30s there were a few hundred large firms and 20 major cities. A glitch had extreme impact. The ’60s, our Cold War between NATO and COMECON, was pulling 25 outpost nations like taffy. By the end of the ’70s there were 18 buzzing banking centers, 75 huge global ports and 250 fused metropolis. Don’t check my count, get my point. Now it’s 900 important biz centers and 3,000 busy population centers that each have built infrastructure and extreme get-up-in-the-morning.
If you divide any annual percentage increase into 70 you get the doubling rate.
A population increase of 2% per year doubles the size of nation in 35 years. An inflation rate of 5% doubles the price of bread in 14 years.
The IMF forecast today that China’s economy this year grew 8.5 percent with few restraints on its future rate of expansion. The USA moans about 3%. In both cases, the doubling is well inside one lifetime, no? Can you conceive what this globe will be like soon? There’s so much going on, every minute.
I remember Jimmy Carter suggesting during his campaign loss to Reagan that a smart society could figure out happy quality living at 1% growth, a comfortable rate for humans, he thought.
The IMF World Growth Forecast is 3.5%, much more robust than most pundits are chewing and a great deal of activity, a very great deal of activity, that will double the world’s handshakes and deal-making in just 20 years.
Obviously, yes, obviously there is a great deal going on, even in the USA. What’s missing is that most of our leaders and politicians, especially local leaders and politicians, have no bloody idea where to look to bring activity and solvency home.
They’re listening to Limbaugh and reading Palin, no?