Changes in the air for big tech and the economy

Big tech changes are here and more are coming. Some of them will take an effort to get used to. Cars without steering wheels — I’ll want a joy stick, at least. Exo-robotic skeletal-like contraptions can enhance the strength and endurance of manual workers so that they can lift five times what an average human body can; it is already being designed and would be a good way for warehouse operators to reduce their workforce. Machines don’t need health care.

And economic changes, talk about winners and losers. People in town and around the country are talking. According to what I hear, the losers are mostly young folks who don’t own property. Heard on a Roaring Fork Transportation Authority bus about a middle-age couple who were hoping to buy their rental home since an aunt owned it and they both thought that that was going to happen, but with the price spike the aunt sold it and they have to move. Can you say “rent increase”?

This huge economic cultural shift can be attributed to both all of the “opaque,” dark money that is looking for a safe place to park and the fact that we are living in the new gilded age. Real estate looks really good. There are different opinions as to the size of this black market, but one indication would be the fact that mega-yacht builders have been booked up for years. What? You mean I have to wait to get my ocean-liner-sized yacht built?

Tom Mooney

Aspen