The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 9 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Levinson: Reagan and Thatcher's free-market policies failed to boost productivity
“This was what was behind the political swing to the right in the late 19 seventies, early 19 eighties, when we got Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, because the more social democratic type of governments before that hadn't been able to restart productivity …”
Levinson: Rapid economic growth and multiplying incomes will not recur
“The golden age was actually the exceptional time. It's not normal that economies grow at a rapid pace. It's not normal that incomes double or triple or quadruple in the matter of just a few years, and I don't think we should expect that to recur.”
Levinson: China's growth will slow to a couple percent annually
“But China's not going to grow at 10% a year for the next Half century. It's becoming much more like a normal, mature economy in which the growth rate is a couple of percent a year, and that's all they're going to be able to expect.”
Levinson: Ocean shipping consolidation will raise rates and reduce competition
“There are now probably three so-called alliances of container carriers that kind of dominate world trade. So we may be in an environment in which there are few enough players that they'll be able to have a better handle on prices, on shipping rates, and that w…”
Levinson: Automation will not cause long-term mass unemployment
“I'm not too concerned about that. I'm pretty confident that we'll have ways in which people can earn livings.”
Levinson: 1948-1973 was the fastest economic growth period in world history
“The period from To 1973 was probably the period of the fastest economic growth in the history of the world. GDP around the world grew at more than five percent a year.”
Levinson: Past productivity surges like the 1990s internet boom were completely unpredicted
“If you look at past episodes of fast productivity growth, in general, they weren't predicted very well. For example, we had a spurt of productivity growth, which translated into, to faster income growth in the late nineties and the first years of the 2000. Thi…”