This may seem to be OT but it's going to affect most people deeply. What does it mean when most goods are very cheap or meaningless. We have been edging into post-scarcity since the 1960's, but we dont realize it yet. We shouldnt need two income families just to tread water. We have a lot of surplus, but it has been sucked away. The biggest offender has been housing. Not just that houses are larger than we need, but that speculation has driven land prices to outrageous highs. Now we are at the point where we can live anywhere and telecommute. Does the value get sucked out of the suburbs? Does the value of a university education become meaningless because we can learn off the web? What to the whole automotive/energy industry when cars are electric and long lived, may be one or two cars last your whole life? Do we all become service workers or do the service industries collapse, because we can do it outselves? What do we do with 20-hour workweeks?
