Those who sold property during that period made an average of $230,633 and more than a third of sellers doubled their money. Only 9 per cent of those selling properties recorded a loss, thus more than 90 per cent made a profit, CoreLogic RP Data shows.
One of our underlying problems is that energy costs have risen faster than most workers’ wages since 2000. Another underlying problem has to do with globalization. Globalization provides a temporary benefit. In the last 20 years, we greatly ramped up globalization, but we are now losing the temporary benefit globalization brings. We find we again need to deal with the limits of a finite world and the constraints such a world places on growth.
Even if and when investors ‘see the light,’ the hard part is knowing where to put the capital next in order generate a return on clean energy, water, and infrastructure. The New Energy complex includes leading renewable energy companies, electric transport and the development of a much smarter grid (which will include some measure of storage), where the ownership of key assets is widely distributed.
The technology has moved even faster than I thought. I talked about an autonomous car back then, and it happened within a year. Same with IBM's Watson (the computer that won the quiz show "Jeopardy" in 2011). That was pretty remarkable. But in general I haven't changed my view that in the long term this is going to be a disruptive change and we're going to have to do something fairly radical to adapt to it. It might be 10, 20 years, but eventually we'll get to the point where there won't be enough jobs for most people - average people who aren't rocket scientists with a Ph.D. from MIT.
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"The Extinction Debate"
