The Awesome Science of Chinonomics

You and I, inhabitants of the Americas, should all speak Chinese (or a derivative of it) instead of a European language. We don't, of course, because it was the Europeans who "discovered" ( for the second time ) this continent in 1492 and sparked a rat race among European States to stake a territory in the "virgin" lands of the "New World". China had all in its favor to beat the Europeans in the early 15th century. They led the world then in technological innovation: cast iron was  first invented  in China; the compass  was invented there ; gun powder was  first concocted there . Not to mention printing; the umbrella, porcelain, the wheelbarrow, hot air balloons, and even seismographs to measure earthquakes. How can you be that advanced and not attempt to conquer other lands to extract their resources? Well, they did. And succeeded.  Decades before  Columbus "discovered" La Hispaniola, the Chinese had reached as far as East Africa. Befo...

Technology has always been feared and revered at the same time. It has always been this dual destructive/liberating boogieman/hero that divides people. And with good reason. The way it eases human life can be addictive --sometimes pathologically so. But also disruptive (the word has been used --and abused --  ad-nauseam lately). We know what happens when new things disrupt the way we live our lives. Our conservatism bias (that miniature devil who sits on our shoulder and keeps us stuck at the same jobs for years and years) fights the heck out of it . These days there's been a plethora of analyses about the way technology will reshape  jobs around the world. The topic is ripe with speculation. Will it create an army of destitute willing to wage revolutions to fight to get their stolen livelihoods back? Will it save us from the planet's resource depletion ? Will it allow for people to adapt  and learn new skills to complement the technologies that will automatize (i.e. ...

If we could plot "global anxiety over the end of times" (the end of human times, that is) on a time series graph, I would say that now we would be at --or close to-- an all-time high. Typhoon Yolanda's epic size and strength is indeed a reminder of how insignificant we are, which definitely does not help to calm that feeling of impending doom. End-of-the-world anxiety takes different forms. Economically speaking, the specter  deflation  is one of them. The New Normal , or the idea that we have reached a point from whence we will never achieve the growth rates of yesteryear is another. This idea, defined as a statistical regime change, can also be described as an inflection point, or the point at which the speed of growth decelerates going forward. In other words, the point at which the second derivative of GDP turns negative. The New Normal : The second derivative (the slope's rate of change) turns negative at L 1 The reason this inflection point occur...