My Opinion: Lots and Lots of Bubbles

With all the talk about problems in the banking and investment industries, the insurance and real estate industries, I have my own “bubble” definitions:

   Health Care: 16% ($2.2 Trillion (that’s Trillions with a Big “T”T folks, and growing) of American GDP. This is a Bubble by a factor of 2 at least. No one economic segment can represent that much of an economic system unless it is seriously out of line. unconstrained by normal free- market forces of competition, “technology disruption,” and more.   Health is ripe for a combination of cures and corrections, but only if we allow a redefinition of the relationship between the individual physician and the User.

    This means that by inserting technology, disruptive technology, into the equation, a new Medical Business Model can be generated. One in which some of the high-cost diagnostic and well-care procedures can be automated through technology, made more efficient and productive, freeing the more expensive doctor’s time for the “value added” portion of the system, where the rote-ness of diagnosis and procedures is made more efficient, more productive through re-structuring. We already have enough wireless-enabled diagnostic instruments to initiate early stages of Cloud Health Care AT HOME. Imagine the savings just in well-care.

    Education: We have similar problems and cures available in Education, where the mechanical parts of education can be “technology disrupted “through AI- assisted educational software programs that free a teacher and restructure their role into mentor/coach, a much more productive arrangement.

    U.S. Education Expenditures for 2008 were $1.1 Trillion dollars (that’s Trillions with a Big “T” folks), 7.4% of U.S. GNP, a cost much too high for the “value received” and reducible through technology-assisted education. (See my article “They can ALL Be Geniuses”)

   Thepoint in all this is that there are bubbles beside financial and real estate bubbles. Segments of economies that get misaligned through conscious (legislated monopolies, unions, Luddite attitudes towards technology) or unconscious (media misdirection, usurpation of Value Structures) and restructuring over time find market forces sometimes initiate changes that are totally unforeseen with sometimes very bad consequences. Reluctance to plan for and accept technology -based changes allows resources, technology and human talent to be thwarted from the natural proclivity towards “better” that a truly free market produces.

    Oh, and the biggest “Bubble” of all?     Government.    2009 Government Expenditures were 21% of GNP, some $2.1 Trillion dollars (that’s Trillions with a Big “T” folks!) by far the biggest bubble.    The American taxpayer has become the politician’s “piggy bank.” and, in fact, long ago emptied the piggy bank, and is now borrowing at an ever faster rate than ever before.

   We may be looking at the bright light of extinction as a society, or at least “considerable negative modification of living standards,” and the Doctor has just walked into the room and said, “She’s circling the drain.”

We simply must allow the changes that “disruptive technology” can effect for the better in health, Education, Government and at Work.

And while we’re at it, we have to consider the “negative leverage,” the potential threat that growing dependence on Computer Technology, the Internet and related products and services can bring to bear; suddenly and overnight create unforeseen problems that are magnified by the speed of our Communication Systems, and the symbiotic nature of technology in our economy.