Join Barbara Boyd as she dissects the recent meeting of Europe's leaders and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy aimed at reviving the war driving their economies.
Trump's Next Move to Guarantee Long-Term National Prosperity
We’re no longer simply opposing evil. NOW, WE ARE IN POWER. How do we know the consequences of our actions? How do we minimize mistakes going forward? How can we guarantee success? Let's dive into this question.
How do we guarantee the future we wish for our posterity? We’re no longer simply opposing evil. NOW, WE ARE IN POWER. As Elon Musk says, “Let that sink in.”
WE ARE RESPONSIBLE. We’re massively in debt. We have many deficiencies in our productive economy, and our productive and potentially productive workforce. So, what positive actions should we take? How do we know the consequences of those actions? How do we minimize mistakes going forward? How can we guarantee constantly increasing progress?
Not that long ago, America produced a genius who thought deeply about these questions and developed a Socratic methodology for answering them. His name was Lyndon LaRouche. During his lifetime, most Americans were lulled into thinking that the “experts” had everything under control, so that there was not much need to make the effort to understand his thinking. Meanwhile, the British Empire/Deep State apparatus marked him as a threat, suppressed his ideas, and subjected him to the same treatment they later tried to administer to President Trump. But LaRouche knew that the days were not that far off when everyone would be asking the questions that he began to ask and answer, beginning in the 1950s.
The Human Mind as the Basis of Economy
Starting with archeology, if you find animal remains along with evidence of controlled fire, you have discovered a site of human habitation, because every animal runs from fire. Before Man discovered how to control fire, the human population on the entire planet could not have exceeded 8 million people.
The history of mankind is the story of a succession of discoveries of new physical principles which, when applied to nature, result in the upward transformation of economic practice and multifaceted growth of the population. The global population now exceeds 8 billion people. That is a 1,000-fold growth. And even at our current level of technology, our potential population is far above that number.
Don't miss this class series given by Lyndon LaRouche.
So, in first approximation, you can compare economies (or stages within the development of a single economy) by the number of people supported. More precisely, you can measure the population density (people per square mile or kilometer of territory). We should also relate that number to the quality or character of the land in question. That's better, but what we really want to know is not how many people exist but how many people could exist, given available technology and resources at a given time and place. LaRouche called this concept Potential Relative Population Density (PRPD). Let’s restate it as the number of people who could be sustained on a given platform of technology within a given area—adjusted for the quality of the land area measured.
Unlike simple population density, PRPD is not a number, but a concept. Different societies have more or less powerful armies or navies, more or less powerful agriculture or manufacturing, etc. There are many ways to measure the power of a country or economy, but the most comprehensive overall measure is PRPD. It’s the view from out in space.
Light emissions at night also give an indication of population density. Image: NASA composite
Zooming in from space, how can you model the economy in such a way that you could accurately predict consequences of actions or inactions? How could you willfully improve your PRPD? How can you forecast the future economy?
LaRouche began with a simple model of the economy. He saw that the total output of the entire economy could be divided into 3 categories: the maintenance of the households of the productive workforce; the maintenance of plant, equipment, and infrastructure; and a surplus. The surplus is further divided into various necessary and unnecessary subcategories, the most important of which are reinvestment into the following areas: improvement of the living conditions and powers of the productive workforce, new plant and equipment, new infrastructure, and research and development.
The Discontinuity Problem
That model could serve as a still image of an economy at any point in time, but the economy is a living process which changes radically over time. Human discovery changes all of the internal relationships within the economy, increases productivity per worker, and leads to progress. The problem LaRouche faced was that he could not come up with a mathematical way to prove or demonstrate what he intuited about progress.
He believed in progress. But how can you measure it? How can you prove to someone that an action (especially a sneaky scheme of a finance guy) will have positive or negative effects on the economy and society? Sometimes, in the very short run, you may try to measure progress by measuring the simple growth of units produced, tonnage produced, units sold, sales figures, etc. But simple extrapolation or measurements of growth within categories soon break down in the face of new discoveries and technologies. What is valuable today, may be worthless tomorrow. What is an oxen yoke worth today? What is a 286 processor worth today? What happened to Baldwin locomotives? What happened to Polaroid?
(At the same time, LaRouche was trying to prove the difference between human intelligence and prospective artificial intelligence. The leaps and economic discontinuities associated with human discoveries proved that human creativity and discovery was the cause of the discontinuities. The inability to calculate the future from the past because of the discontinuities humans introduce proved that no mathematical system could create those leaps and discontinuities—though a mathematical system might serve us in many admirable ways.)
A conceptual representation of a ladder of technology S-curves. Similar ladders exist in all areas of the economy. The process by which one technology supersedes another is called technological attrition.
Scientific progress creates discontinuities. How can you mathematically account for all of the discontinuities which arise as the S-curve of one technology is superseded by the S-curve of a new technology?
LaRouche found that Bernhard Riemann’s concept of manifolds, and Georg Cantor's ideas about ordered classes of infinities were exactly the types of mathematical/philosophical ideas which could be applied to his problem.
This 2012 video gives a good idea about how to conceptualize technological progress via spiral or conical growth horns.
His concept can be conceived as a ladder of S-curves, a series of nested manifolds, three-dimensional growth horns, successive platforms, or ordered layers of Cantorian infinities. Even though we cannot measure PRPD with a number, we can tell if the change in the rate of change (second derivative) is positive or negative—is the curvature of the growth horn becoming more negative (which is good in this case) or positive? We should also be able to tell in general terms if our economy is growing (first derivative), but that is much more difficult to determine when collapse or growth appears to proceed slowly.
So, while LaRouche developed a concept which can be used to understand the step-function nature of physical economic growth (or collapse), he does not directly answer the question, "What do we do next?" The answer is qualitative, not quantitative. You can only begin to measure quantities once your physical economy has jumped to the next S-curve.
How To Identify the Next S-Curve
Think about the factors that constrain human life: space, time, isolation, mortality, productivity, etc. Any new endeavor which promises to break through such constraints is a project worth developing. But often, a breakthrough is achieved as a byproduct of pursuit of a personal interest, or as a solution to a personal problem. As well, the beneficiaries are often completely unaware of the fact that they suffer under constraints. That is illustrated by Henry Ford's famous quip:
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said: 'faster horses.' "
So, there is no rule, no mathematical formula for reaching the next S-curve. Qualitative judgment is required. If we could actually build and implement a new idea, would it improve productivity? Would it make life easier or longer? Would it put the country and the citizen in a better position to control their destinies? Such are the types of questions which go into identifying the technologies which will leapfrog us up to the next S-curve.
The Federal Role
As a matter of federal policy, we wish to encourage the kind of entrepreneurship exhibited by Elon Musk. And we wish to lower the barriers to starting a breakthrough company, by redirecting some of society's savings that now lie unused in various types of cash accounts and cash equivalent instruments into investments in startup companies. In America, it shouldn't be necessary to already be a billionaire to begin a new enterprise.
We commend the fact that many venture capitalists are branching out from Silicon Valley software investments into investing in difficult manufacturing projects. However, in general, banks run away from loaning money to startups.
Yet, as a society, it is in our interest to ensure that even if a project is only given a 10% chance of success, the endeavor should get the credit line necessary to take it through proof of principle, and if valid, on to commercial production. As venture capitalists have discovered, the startups which succeed more than make up for the ones which fail. But we also don't want founders to lose all of their control over their companies to venture capitalists. They do not share identical interests.
An example of a revolutionary concept: Boom recently demonstrated the power to fly at supersonic speeds without creating a sonic boom on the ground. Transcontinental commercial supersonic flights will begin by the end of the decade.
So, we have to ensure that long term, low interest loans are made available to entrepreneurs who demonstrate potentially great ideas and diligent work. We have a national history of doing that-–going back to Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesse Jones. There are several institutional arrangements by which this can be accomplished, via a new National Bank, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, or something like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. However it is structured, it must be initiated very soon.
Making America Greater Than Ever means increasing the rate of introduction of new technologies, the rate of creation of discontinuities, the rate of technological attrition. Study Lyndon LaRouche. If in doubt, ask Elon.
Rebuild the USA: The Trump Presidency and Beyond
After all the years of campaigning, Americans have finally come to the agreement that we will Make America Great Again. But, how do we actually implement the intention, and with a minimum of mistakes along the way?
Avalanche Inc. Achieves Record-Breaking Fusion Milestone. A Seattle-based startup has successfully electrostatically confined plasma at a world record 300kV, paving the way for compact fusion reactors to power everything from cars to spacecraft, and potentially transforming the future of energy.
As we stand at the threshold of a new industrial golden age, fueled by President Trump's unbridled energy and determination, we're excited to share with you the most inspiring stories of innovation, progress, and transformation.
Bruce Director
Benjamin Deniston
