Key Trends from CES 2022. More from WSJ.
Tyler Cowen: “By far the most optimistic feature of today’s world is that there is more mobilized talent than ever before, and by a long mile. A mere few decades ago, or less in many cases, if you were born into India, China, or Nigeria, the chance you could make a positive contribution to the world on a significant scale was quite low. It is now much, much higher, largely because of increases in wealth and also because of the internet.”
Donald Boudreaux: “Because consumer preferences are always changing, and because entrepreneurial ingenuity incessantly creates previously unthought-of combinations of resources, at no time in reality is the market in what economists call “equilibrium.” At no time are all resources being used perfectly – that is, as they’d be used by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent deity. But so what? In our mortal vale, a standard of God-like perfection is absurd. The best that we can hope for is that the profits and losses that prevail at each and every moment continually prompt improvements in resource use…As long as there is freedom of entry into markets – as long as entrepreneurs are free to experiment in whatever peaceful ways they wish – as long as consumers are allowed to spend their money as they choose – there will be no plausible grounds to suppose that a private firm will secure to itself the monopoly power necessary to inflict harm on consumers. There will, instead, be continued economic growth, and rising prosperity for the masses.”
