​Peter DIAMandis: Costs decline, standard of living improves, what's not to love!

"Why the Cost of Living Is Poised to Plummet in the Next 20 Years"

"I think the author is probably too optimistic on health care and education--government interference will have to be substantially decreased--but he may well be correct on the others."

More below!

Link to the underlying article:

Why the Cost of Living Is Poised to Plummet in the Next 20 Years

Perhaps Newmark is correct and the author is too optimistic about health care, and education, or perhaps the world political upheaval we are seeing will result in an 1850 like political change, and the old socio-economic model of progressivism will be swept out just as slavery was swept out in the 1860s. 

I suspect the latter is correct. Usually experience is a reliable aid to understanding the world. This fails when progress allows a non-linear jump to a new model. 

For example, AT&T was destroyed after being required to choose between long distance, or local operations in the 1984 break up. As expected AT&T knew that long distance was the cash cow of telecom, so it chose to retain long distance. But technology had changed, and stranded copper wire was not good enough, and so competitors began laying fiber optic cable. And other competitors rode the cell phone wireless trend.

In the end AT&T chose poorly. Fiber optic began carrying data, the public began to use the Internet, and in the end, the cost of long distance voice went to $0. 

If education, and health care are being subjected to similar forces, and I believe they are, then the disruption will be complete, and even the expert's advice will be valueless.

On the other hand, humans are essentially conservative, especially people with families, so it is possible that even bad models like our current education, and health care models can survive intact, or with only modest efficiency changes.

I expect the America standard of living will continue to improve. I have been noticing this since the 1970s, and I see nothing which would slow or stop this trend. That does not mean everything will move lock step.

Our real concern should be in encouraging the rest of the world to eschew socialism, and adopt more free market policies. If they don't they will likely slowly fade in our lifestyle rearview mirror. That would be a very bad outcome.