Session 11: Predict- Alex Tabarrok

Alex acknowledges that the economy now is a mess but the
With the radical changes and challenges (war etc) we built walls.
Only later in the last century did we begin to pull the walls down: political alliances, trade laws, communication, social walls
With the second half of the last century we have grown radically in gdp and population, especially in India and China. Sub-Saharan Africa however has declined.
New ideas drive growth.
Ideas have an amazing property. "One apples feeds one man, one idea can feed the world."

Incentives and Ideas:
consider two diseases: one rare, the other common, but of equal severity if not treated.
Which disease would you rather have?
The latter because larger markets save lives as the desire for greater effectiveness among drug producers.
Larger markets increase the incentive to produce new ideas.
So how do we maximize the incentive to produce new ideas?
There are few scientists and engineers in the world, but the good news is that the USA's proportion has been shrinking- we are sharing the shouldering with a great variety of minds.
If the world were as wealthy as the US, the number of idea-makers would multiply by five.
The US and the world at large benefits with the wealth of others.

What about the increasing cost of oil? Growth increases the demand/need and therefore costs. Of course that means the push for alternative energies. We are better equipped to create those now as well.

Globalize world markets yes- but GLOBALIZE EDUCATION. The USA needs to learn this because we have global leadership.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson: When someone else lights their candle from ours, there is twice as much light.