Stocks Taking A Beating

[Donald Baker]

How far into the new year to you predict this slide will go on?  Are we in Bear Market?

[Phidippides]

What do you think about the situation?

This leads to a related, though different topic about where the U.S. economy is going.  With more and more automation, will Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction continue to advance our economy and lead to the efficient allocation of resources, or are we at a point at which this won't happen any more as human labor becomes more obsolete, leading to the unemployability of the masses who don't possess highly-specialized skills?

[Donald Baker]

What do you think about the situation?

This leads to a related, though different topic about where the U.S. economy is going.  With more and more automation, will Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction continue to advance our economy and lead to the efficient allocation of resources, or are we at a point at which this won't happen any more as human labor becomes more obsolete, leading to the unemployability of the masses who don't possess highly-specialized skills?

I don't think labor can ever become obsolete.  However, I do think the gulf between the skilled and the unskilled will continue to widen and their wages will reflect the difference.  There may come a tipping point when the unskilled will no longer stand idly by while the skilled pull away from them in material gains.  At that point it will become very dangerous for our society as it might devolve into socialism or worse.  But we are many years away from that happening I hope.