Paradox: Stuff will be cheap – but it’s hard to make money creating it

As Jeremy Rifkin points out, for many goods we’re heading to a zero marginal cost economy, where every extra unit costs next to nothing to deliver. Once the design and system of production has been established, whether it’s for software and digital content, pharmaceuticals, an iphone or electricity from solar panels, it’s very cheap to deliver an additional unit.

So lots of stuff will be very cheap – on the other hand, there will be very few jobs in producing it, and you can’t make much doing so.

Getting by will be cheaper, on the other hand: you may be broke.

Amazing radio program by Martin Wolf on our economic future

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, has produced a 43 min. radio program for BBC, which provides a very good and timely overview of some of the deep structural issues that are changing the economy and everybody’s future. The program is titled: "The future is not what it used to be". 

Martin Wolf covers issues such as machines taking over jobs, polarization of income and taxation and redistribution. He draws on an amazing line-up of interviews with the world’s leading economists: Thomas Pikkety, Larry Summers, Robert Stiglitz, Robert Gordon, Eric Brynjolfsson… It goes on and on. It’s hard to think of anyone else who could have produced this program.

Generally, Wolf himself sounds a bit more pessimistic than the experts he interviews.

Hvad vil du leve af, når robotterne overtager dig arbejde?

Jeg anmeldte Brynjolfsson og McAfee's glimrende bog "The Second Machine Age" i Politiken. Den er bestemt værd at læse. Det er et af de store paradokser vi står overfor: Vi udvikler os derhen, hvor vi selv (eller rettere: størstedelen af os) bliver overflødige. 
Det kunne være rart at have en håndfuld troværdige forslag til løsninger.

Foxconn's robots are late

Interesting update on the situation around Foxconn’s plans to deploy massive numbers of robots in their immense factories in China – the ones that, among other, produce phones and computers for Apple.

Several details I wasn’t aware of:

- Foxconn is losing money, $US 316 mio. last year

- Foxcon build their own robots – they call them Foxbots. They started constructing the robots with the help of MIT back in 2009. So far they have only made 20.000, but the plans are to build a million.

- Unusually, there is currently a freeze in hiring at Foxconn, or at least thay was the situation back in february, after the new year holiday.