Hard Tack

This week's guest is Eli Dourado, an economist who says that all he wants is for GDP per capita to reach $200k in 2050. 

Marshall's conversation with Eli today centers around how to get economic growth back on track after the Great Stagnation, which was a slowdown of total factor productivity growth from 2% annually in the post WW2 period to .3% by 2005. 

We discuss the causes of economic stagnation and the way to get to faster growth, including genuine hard tech advances like the MRNA vaccines or faster air travel. We also talk about why institutional and regulatory changes — what Eli calls “social technologies” — are just as necessary as pure technological innovation. 

It’s a far-ranging discussion that covers everything from the details of what led to the mothballing of the Concorde project, to how it might be possible one day to travel to the other side of the earth on your lunch break. We also discuss why the “promiscuous distribution of veto powers” have slowed our ability to make decisions as a society, crippling our ability to innovate and achieve our economic growth potential as a result. 

Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger