A tweet from Ed Driscoll linked to this photo of an IBM 350 5 Megabyte data storage unit, circa 1956, part of a system which leased for $3200 per month:
Here is what a 5 Gigabyte flash drive looks like now, costing about $50:
Identifiable jobs were lost in the transition, but many more jobs were created by virtue of the transformation of the economy through innovation.
What if our government, in 1956, had been focused on saving the jobs of the people who manufactured the parts and materials in the IBM Hard Drive, rather than promoting policies which allowed and encouraged technological innovation?
You would have the current Democratic Party policies which focus on subsidizing non-economically viable union jobs in the public and private sectors for political reasons, while punishing wealth creation in the name of fairness.
(Added: This chart shows the steady drop in tax rates since 1956; I don’t think it is any coincidence that technological innovation and the growth of the information economy took off as rates dropped dramatically starting in the 1980s).
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