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Twin speed economy

Twin Speed Economy

We’ve got a two speed economy.

Walmart was a tipping point. By 1983 Walmart was tracking goods and sales in realtime at the network level. They pioneered commercially distributed automation. This pioneered “just-in-time” inventory. And as a result Walmart become the worlds largest retailer. All down to simple raw efficiency.

Since then we’ve seen a gold rush towards Big Data

Recently the finance markets learned the secrets of algorithms. Since then they’ve used high frequency trading to jettison risk into the economy. And as we know the economy itself became toxic.

Despite this recent recession, corporate profits are at an all time high:

Corporate profits at all time high
All time high corporate profits – credit: http://www.businessinsider.com/politics-economics-facts-charts-2012-6#our-businesses-are-doing-remarkably-well-corporate-profits-just-hit-an-all-time-high-6

But jobs remain low:

credit calculatedriskblog.com
Depth of the employment recession – credit calculatedriskblog.com

This is due to labour polarisation.

Those who can afford to employ network potential can use technologies like, automation tools to change the game. But for many, this automation signals a collapse of labour.

Mapping the job market shows serious decline and the only job replacement is in science or services.

Services are not a sustainable economic base. The more companies that lose profitability and jobs, the fewer customers there are to service.
Science perhaps in theory. But with knowledge comes power. And capitalism does not distribute power. It’s modus operandi is to hoard stock, move markets and set prices for individual return, not greater good. If we want a science economy then we’d better evolve from capitalism.

Whilst we live on capitalism, our economy is running at two speeds. One is accelerating into hyper efficiency. And we celebrate it. The other, driven mercilessly into collapse. And we ignore it. Of course both economies are one and the same.

Ultimately we get the economy that we feed. At this rate, that’s the one without value assigned to human relationships, cultural inter-depencies & the wider health of planetary ecosystems

That’s not smart. It’s selfish. Let’s evolve.

Max

Just me. Planting seeds. Growing ideas. Feeding freshness. Cultivating smart design.