Our cat Theo has a heart disease. We discovered that from a Cat cardiologist.
A cat cardiologist? Real?
Yes, really.
Why am I mentioning this on a site called Econlog? Because the fact that there are cat cardiologists is a sign of economic growth.
I’m pretty sure we didn’t have feline cardiologists fifty years ago. There wasn’t much demand for them because Americans were, on average, significantly poorer than they are today. You could argue that there wasn’t much inventory either and you’d be right. But Why Wasn’t there much stock? It was due to the fact that technology had not evolved to the point where cardiologists could diagnose cats, but that was also partly due to the fact that Americans were poorer and unwilling to demand such cardiology for cats.
There are so many indicators of economic growth and how rich it has made the average American.
Consider movies. In a blog post entitled “Howard Hughes would make you jealous,” EconlogSeptember 19, 2024, co-blogger Kevin Corcoran told a fascinating story, which I had not known, of Howard Hughes and his use of his own television station to play movies. Kevin points out that Hughes was very wealthy in the 1960s, wealthy enough to own his own TV station, KLAS, in Las Vegas, where Hughes lived.
Kevin writes:
Now in control of his own private TV station, he could ensure that movies would be broadcast at all hours. And apparently it wasn’t uncommon for him to decide he didn’t like what was shown and just call the station and tell them to play something else instead. As a result, someone else watching the station would suddenly become confused because the movie they were watching suddenly switched to something else.
Imagine that: wanting to watch a movie when you want, changing your mind and then watching another movie. To do that, Hughes had to buy a TV station for $3.6 million, which, translated into today’s dollars, is about $34 million.
Of course we don’t have to imagine that. Most of us do it by subscribing to Netflix or other services and paying less than 0.0001 percent of the price paid annually. (Of course, I should praise Netflix over 10 or more years, but you get the idea.)
Boy, are we rich!
And now compare our situation with that of kings and queens just 2 centuries ago. Even a king couldn’t play a song when he wanted to. If he wanted it late at night, he would have to gather an orchestra. Maybe it could be done, but maybe it couldn’t. Now we all “assemble” our own orchestras and can do this by touching a few things on our portable phones. And the artists get it perfect every time.
I wouldn’t trade my life for Howard Hughes’s. I especially wouldn’t trade my life for that of George IV, the King of England 200 years ago.