The media has been buzzing about Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire, but I’ve seen little discussion on the economic effect from this. I’d like to think that all of the people who bought stock in Space X’s IPO, and others who have benefitted from the markets’ rise, feel wealthy enough now to buy some luxury goods, add a second story onto their houses, and take splurgy vacations. But maybe it’s more of an asset bubble that will just sit there, translating into little retail effect. What do you expect, Peter?
Elon Musk is a trillionaire the way 99% of all billionaires not named Donald Trump are billionaires--it's all on paper.
If the stock value of Tesla and SpaceX dropped to $0 tomorrow, Elon Musk would be flat busted broke.
Donald Trump is perhaps the one authentic billionaire we have in this country, because his assets are in real estate. Stocks may rise and fall, but real estate never goes away.
However, it must be said that Tesla and SpaceX are productive companies producing goods and delivering services that are deemed valuable by segments of the marketplace. As long as that continues, carping about Elon Musk's stock holdings comes across as petty jealousy, and is appropriately ignored.
Would the increase in the use of artificial intelligence have any effect on the economy, considering the displacement of employees because of the use of AI?
The overarching historical trend of technological innovation has always been to boost employment. Certain professions might fade away, but the overall demand for labor itself tends to rise with innovation.
The real questions for AI are going to revolve around what manner of transformations are genuinely taking place? We are seeing reports of jobs being displaced because of agentic AI--and we are seeing reports of sloptacular AI work product coming forth in consequence. I can honestly say that agentic AI is creating more work for me, not less, because the AI agents are able to make mistakes with greater speed and efficiency than humans.
Anyone attempting to project immediate impact of AI on immediate jobs numbers is pushing the data far beyond the limits of reasonable extrapolation. The final tally of AI's impact on jobs is not going to be available for a few years at best.
The media has been buzzing about Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire, but I’ve seen little discussion on the economic effect from this. I’d like to think that all of the people who bought stock in Space X’s IPO, and others who have benefitted from the markets’ rise, feel wealthy enough now to buy some luxury goods, add a second story onto their houses, and take splurgy vacations. But maybe it’s more of an asset bubble that will just sit there, translating into little retail effect. What do you expect, Peter?
Elon Musk is a trillionaire the way 99% of all billionaires not named Donald Trump are billionaires--it's all on paper.
If the stock value of Tesla and SpaceX dropped to $0 tomorrow, Elon Musk would be flat busted broke.
Donald Trump is perhaps the one authentic billionaire we have in this country, because his assets are in real estate. Stocks may rise and fall, but real estate never goes away.
However, it must be said that Tesla and SpaceX are productive companies producing goods and delivering services that are deemed valuable by segments of the marketplace. As long as that continues, carping about Elon Musk's stock holdings comes across as petty jealousy, and is appropriately ignored.
Would the increase in the use of artificial intelligence have any effect on the economy, considering the displacement of employees because of the use of AI?
The overarching historical trend of technological innovation has always been to boost employment. Certain professions might fade away, but the overall demand for labor itself tends to rise with innovation.
The real questions for AI are going to revolve around what manner of transformations are genuinely taking place? We are seeing reports of jobs being displaced because of agentic AI--and we are seeing reports of sloptacular AI work product coming forth in consequence. I can honestly say that agentic AI is creating more work for me, not less, because the AI agents are able to make mistakes with greater speed and efficiency than humans.
Anyone attempting to project immediate impact of AI on immediate jobs numbers is pushing the data far beyond the limits of reasonable extrapolation. The final tally of AI's impact on jobs is not going to be available for a few years at best.