Can technology be blamed for increasing inequalities? Should the market be bearish about equities in 2022? How must our ideas of success and wellbeing change if we are to avoid an over-consumption-driven disaster? Where are we making progress? Can Western-style diet be blamed for rising numbers of auto-immune diseases?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“When technology, education and training move together, you get shared prosperity. Otherwise, you don’t.” Lawrence Katz, a Harvard labour economist, in the article of the week
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Steve Lohr, Economists Pin More Blame on Tech for Rising Inequality
(The New York Times, 12 January 2022)
A consensus is forming among economists that tech innovation and automation are partly (but largely) responsible for rising inequality. This article explains why. Over the last 40 years in the US, half or more of the increasing gap in wages is attributable to the automation of tasks formerly done by human workers, especially men without college degrees. MIT Acemoglu argues that automation-fuelled inequality is “not an act of God or nature (…) but the result of choices corporations and we as a society have made about how to use technology.” Keep an eye on the chorus of criticism about the Silicon Valley giants and the unchecked advance of technology (metered paywall that may require free registration – reads in 8-9 min).
Click here to read the full article
Jim O’Neill, A Bad Year for Markets?
(Project Syndicate, 13 January 2022)
This is an interesting perspective as the former chief economist of Goldman Sachs is a renowned ‘perma-bull’. This time he’s not so sure. He thinks that after the remarkably strong performance of last year, financial markets may come to terms with the likelihood that fiscal and monetary policies will tighten in 2022. Therefore, the possibility that equities could suffer a net-negative year must be taken seriously (metered paywall – reads in 6-7 min).
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Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, Yogi Sadhguru reflects on depleting resources in a future world
(World Economic Forum, 11 January 2022)
Sadghuru, the founder of the Isha Foundation in India, has millions of followers around the world. In this interview conducted for The Great Narrative, he reflects on the need to re-engineer ideas about wellbeing, what constitutes success and a good life. In his opinion, this is the only way to curtail consumption and prevent disaster. He also emphasizes how vital it is to work on soil regeneration if we are to prevent a food crisis (free access – reads in 7-8 min).
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Scott Summer, Where are we making progress?
(Econlib, January 2022)
Some interesting thoughts about the meaning of progress and new fields of “progress studies.” Progress is very uneven: very rapid in science and technology, slow in public morals or sport, and non-existent in human personalities and art. Some may disagree about the latter. Many argue that all the best music was created in earlier centuries, and that the same holds true for painting, but this could be just a question of visibility and subjective taste. A very enjoyable and thought-provoking read (in just 5 min and with free access).
Click here to read the full article
Robin McKie, Global spread of autoimmune disease blamed on western diet
(The Guardian, 9 January 2022)
Globally, autoimmune diseases (ranging from type 1 diabetes to rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis) are rising by between 3% and 9% a year, even in countries where they did not exist before. This seems to be correlated with
the rate of adoption of western-style diets and specifically fast food. They lack important ingredients like fibre. Such alterations affect a person’s microbiome which in turn trigger autoimmune diseases (free access, reads in 6-8 min).
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