The rapid growth of technology is allowing for younger generations to own less. With the ownership of assets becoming "less attractive" it is becoming harder to measure economic growth. Software company Tradeshift's chief executive of buisness-to-buisness, Christian Lanng, was quoted on the topic at the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference and said "American teenagers don't want cars. It's not on their top-10 list of things they want when they turn 18 for the first time in 30 years. Why own a car when I have an Uber app and I can get a car in three minutes? It's a very silly thing to own,". Lanng recognizing that there has been no increase in productivity and believes only measuring productivity in economic output is not right. When measuring GDP we are only looking at final point sales but do not calculate all of the free stuff which allows us to do things more efficiently and with higher quality than before technology had such a big impact.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102539984
2 comments:
I do think technology makes owning things less attractive, however, I think that at some point kids realize that having assets and owning things is a must. When they are 16 they don't see it as a necessity, I wouldn't have, but now at 23 having assets, credit, and owning my own things is something I see as important.
I think this is a good point. It would be hard to measure GDP when people cut down on their assets. However, i think this is only said true for youngsters in their teens. For people who have stable jobs, families, building assets is a part of building wealth. However, we still can't deny a fair share of "free stuff" does not get calculate in the GDP. I wonder what can we do to fix that.
Post a Comment