Agree. But only to add that a steady state economy is likely as we move from an economy of tangibles to an economy of intangibles.
arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 11:39 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] President Obama will nominate Alan Krueger chairman Council of Economic Advisers. And Alan Krueger, employment specialist though he might be, will no more be able to create jobs for America than Austan Goolsbee did. Most economists, politicians and senior civil servants cannot conceive of the possibility that most of the Western advanced world is now locked into a particular urban way of life in which there is no space, energy or daily use of time for significant new consumer products -- even if they could be imagined. As it is, there is nothing new on the horizon that can be remotely compared with the significance that the radio, car and television had. These are just three of the long line of unique consumer goods -- the buying power -- that motivated the industrial revolution of the last 300 years. During that period there was always a tangible item that individuals at every social level aspired to possess. Today, there isn't such a list. As far as products in daily use are concerned (repeat: in daily use) even the poorest in an advanced country can enjoy much the same as the richest. We've almost certainly reached a steady-state economy. It hasn't been planned but it's been initiated by the breakdown of the credit system. Of course, President Obama will never dare say so, nor will any other president for at least another generation. By this time, if governments are going to exist at all in the form that we know them today, politicians will be seriously thinking not how to create jobs but how to educate children and young people in order to share the highly specialized jobs that remain once our manufacturing, transport and retailing systems have become largely automated. Keith At 15:14 29/08/2011, you wrote: Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0007_01CC6634.7A651840" Content-Language: en-us Obama to name Krueger for key economic post by msnbc.com news services . Aug. 29, 2011 Read Later <http://www.readability.com/articles/okbolvvf?legacy_bookmarklet=1> . Jon Roemer / Princeton President Barack Obama will nominate Princeton University's Alan Krueger to be chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama will nominate Princeton University's Alan Krueger to be chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, a White House official said Monday. If his nomination is confirmed by the Senate, Krueger will succeed Austan Goolsbee in the White House economic post. Goolsbee left the position earlier this month to return to his teaching post at the University of Chicago. The departure was a blow for the White House as Goolsbee had been a high-profile spokesman on the economy. A labor economist, Krueger is likely to provide a voice inside the administration for greater action to bring down unemployment and deal with the problem of long-term joblessness, according to The WallStreet <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44311574/ns/business/> <http://www.readability.com/articles/okbolvvf?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footn ote-1> 1 Journal. Krueger served as assistant Treasury secretary for economic policy during the first two years of the Obama administration, meaning he has recently cleared the sometimes treacherous Senate confirmation process, the Journal noted. The Krueger decision comes as Obama prepares to unveil a jobs package in a speech planned for shortly after the September 5 Labor Day holiday. With U.S. unemployment at a stubbornly high 9.1 percent and amid fears the economy could slide back into recession, Obama is under pressure to show he is doing all he can to bolster growth. _____ References 1. ^ <http://www.readability.com/articles/okbolvvf?legacy_bookmarklet=1#rdb-footn ote-link-1> WallStreet <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44311574/ns/business/> ( www.msnbc.msn.com <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/> ) ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44311574/ns/business/ ) Share . * Post to Twitter <http://www.readability.com/articles/okbolvvf?legacy_bookmarklet=1> * Post to Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.readability.com/articles/okb olvvf> _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/08/
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