Ed’s Basic Economics 101

When I started college in 1966, I remember hearing that sometime in the future the vast majority of Americans would be managers, managing information.

They wouldn’t be workers who produced stuff. I didn’t really, entirely understand.

A world full managers? How would anything get done? Nothing would get made?

I mean, up until that time, my life was all about production. You have some bare dirt, you make some furrows, throw down some seeds, make sure it gets watered properly, watch for pests and then pick the fruit. Pretty basic, isn’t it?

When you produce commercially, to make money, the great volume of product does complicate things, but once systems are put in place, dealing with volume was manageable and still very productive.

I didn’t get it. If there was no product to manage, what was there to manage?

I was quite young and naive so the concept of “world markets” was way beyond me. Today, more than 40 years later, I comprehend the world market stuff a little bit better, but frankly, I still don’t get it. In my world, you always have backup systems, alternative methods and sources and a minimal level of operational reliability.

Early in the 1990s, I was making a living as, using a very generic term, a computer consultant. The main thing I supplied was project management and technical expertise, but, to some degree, I also provided product: hardware and software.

At some point, there was a natural disaster or a war or something in an Asian country and the production of memory chips for computers came to a complete standstill. No one could get chips anywhere. We were having to buy used memory chips to put in new equipment.

Late one night I got a call from an obscure computer-parts broker who told me he had access to several thousand memory chips, brand new but I would have to pay cash, cash in the hand, not checks or anything traceable.

I didn’t do business like this. The whole thing sounded way too fishy.

In the morning I made a few calls to more trusted people in my business circle and they, too, had been made the same offer.

As I suspected, the whole thing was bogus and I quickly forgot about it. However, it did get me thinking about how volatile the chip market was. One little tidal wave or one insignificant coup d'état in some far away country and the world’s supply of memory chips came to a halt?

Why is it that the powers-that-be allow some super significant element of all computer technology to become so locale specific and vulnerable to neighborhood whims and weather?

To my mind, that is very bad management. I would have assumed there would, at least, be several regional memory chip-making spots spread around the globe so that local disruptions would be in one geographic area ...

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