2 million views for an old codger giving a lecture about arithmetic? What's going on? You'll just have to watch to see what's so damn amazing about what he (Albert Bartlett) has to say.
See the rest here
H/Ts Tony & Pete H
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Video: The Most IMPORTANT Video You'll Ever See (part 1 of 8)
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2 comments:
The man is mistaken. He extrapolates huge future prices without discussing inflation and prices in constant dollars. Sure, it costs 10 times as much now as it did 40 years ago, but the dollar is worth one-tenth as much in purchasing power.
Also, he extrapolates current trends without factoring in more efficient technologies that will drop the prices of everything, like PCs.
Shame on him for his misleading sermon.
The "huge future prices" have a direct consequence upon how we handle today's saved dollars.
The same math that predicts "huge future prices" demonstrates the shrinking buying power of today's saved dollars--a sort of half-life. That is, every X years at 70/X %, the purchasing power of dollars saved today is cut by one half.
Option #1. Spend it all now. Half of nothing is still nothing.
Option #2. Grow the savings at a rate that is at least the rate at which prices are climbing. Anything less, and your savings lose value.
Option #3. Grow your savings at a rate less than the rate at which prices are climbing. Watch its purchasing power diminish every year.
Is Bartlett's model useful? Yes. Is it simplistic? Yes. Does the model have limits? Yes. Can exponential growth continue forever? Only in math-land. In reality, resources are limited. Their availability may be expanded and extended through the use of technology; but this too appears to have limits.
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