Buying $2 worth of bananas boosts GDP; having $20 worth of fun on the Web does not.
10. Juli 2009 von Peter
Zwei sehr clevere Texte die ich im Fast Company gefunden habe:
Im ersten Text erklärt Ökonomieprofessor Tyler Cowen, u.a. dass so klassische Begriffe wie Produktion neu gedacht werden müssen.
More and more, “production” — that word my fellow economists have worked over for generations — has become interior to the human mind rather than set on a factory floor. A tweet may not look like much, but its value lies in the mental dimension. You use Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and other Web services to construct a complex meld of stories, images, and feelings in your mind. No single bit seems weighty on its own, but the resulting blend is rich in joy, emotion, and suspense.
Im zweiten Text argumentiert Douglas Rushkoff sehr schön die volkswirtschaftlichen Zusammenhänge der unterschiedlichen Booms (Biotech, Dot com, Housing) der letzten 25 Jahre. Wichtig ist auch sein Hinweis, dass die Finanzkrise schon mit der dot com Blase begonnen hat, weil die VC Gelder die da geflossen sind, nichts mit realen Investitionsmöglichkeiten zu tun hatten. Warum braucht ein Startup das aus 10 Geeks besteht und einen XYZ Client programmiert 5 Mio Dollar Kapital?
Problem was, the dot.com industry–while certainly fun and wonderful–could not support this level of investment. There just wasn’t so very much more profit in doing things with chips and wires that used to be done with paper and people. Thus, the crash.
In an effort to orchestrate a soft landing, Alan Greenspan looked for someplace all the money printed for the dot.com boom to go. Real estate was the obvious choice. Banks were enabled to stay in the leveraged lending business, and homes became the asset class to fill in for Pets.com and Lucent.
Aber es wäre nicht Rushkoff würde er nicht einen optimistischen Ausblick finden:
While we rightly mourn the collapse of a state’s economy, as well as the many that are to follow, we must–at the very least–acknowledge the real culprit. For digital technology not only killed the speculative economy, but stands ready to build us a real one.
LESEN!!!
