In my Odd Moments

In my odd moments I often wonder where some trends are going to end up.

Take business productivity for example. It's going up. More stuff is getting done with less people. Eventually, everything will get done by nobody. Productive will be maximized. Once that process is complete, nobody will have a job. So who's going to buy all those goods and services provided by those productive companies? It seems there's a race on. The first companies to be 100 percent without human workers win. They'll make money from that shrinking pool of workers -until they are gone too.

Maybe the government recognizes the problem. So companies can stay in business, government is slowly moving towards a system of handing money to former workers. Of course, it's politically inexpedient to just hand everyone money. Instead we get unemployment compensation, food stamps, disability retirement, Social Security, and all that. Just giving everyone money would probably be more efficient, but they've decided to have a lot of make work jobs in government bureaucracy too.

That's the positive outcome, such as it is.

Another end point is where a handful of “owners” get all the money. They have all the money, all the gold, all the silver, and everything else. Then most of the world's population no longer has any value to them and should be eliminated. What do you do after you've taken everything?

Of course, average people are a lot tougher and smarter than the elite give them credit for. They survive, but no longer have money are any part in the old economy. After a brief adjustment period, they develop a new economy (barter, gift, turnips, whatever) that has no exchange with the money from the old economy. The rich retreat to their walled in mansions. Some are left to survive as a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

Like I stated in the beginning: odd moments.

-Sixbears