Chapter 1: The Big Cycles in a Tiny Nutshell
I like this line → "I'm on a mission to figure out how the world works and to gain timeless and universal principles for dealing with it well."
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To be clear, while the leading powers covered in this study were the richest and most powerful, they weren’t necessarily the best-off countries for two reasons. First, while wealth and power are what most people want and will fight over most, some people and their countries don’t think that these things are the most important and wouldn’t think of fighting over them. For example, some believe that having peace and savoring life are more important than having a lot of wealth and power and wouldn’t think of fighting hard enough to gain enough of the wealth and power to make it into the group included in this study. (By the way, I think there is a lot to be said for putting peace and savoring life ahead of gaining wealth and power.) Second, this group of countries excludes what I will call the “boutique countries” (like Switzerland and Singapore) that score very high in wealth and living standards but aren’t large enough to become one of the biggest empires.
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Human productivity is the most important force in causing the world's total wealth, power, and living standards to rise over time. Where productivity is the output per person, driven by learning, building, and inventiveness.
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BUT while important, human productivity is evolutionary and therefore limited at the present moment. Therefore, they are not the primary cause for seismic shifts in wealth and power. Instead, this is driven by outside factors - most importantly money and credit cycles (credit availability)
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Humanity's ability to adapt and improve has been the most impactful contributor to rising living standards throughout history.
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small declines in RGDP per capita have triggered massive changes in markets.
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The quicker the printing of money to fill the debt holes, the quicker the closing of the deflationary depression and the sooner the worrying about the value of money begins.
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