🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi-

Greenspan was being questioned by a congressional committee on CNN this
morning.  My account here is fuzzy because its from memory and because
I was half awake at the time.

He stated something to the effect that the Fed had detected recent significant 
gains in white collar productivity (which has otherwise been lagging or 
decreasing for at least 20 years).

He attributed most of this gain to desktop computing.  He pointed out that the 
U.S., unlike our Asian and European competitors, has been investing heavily
in traditional fixed enterprise information systems for decades.  

Greenspan speculated that the presumed high returns from centralized, unified
information management systems may have actually been low or negative during 
most of this period.  

He further speculated that networks of desktop computers used for informal, 
flexible, ad hoc information modeling and management were producing large, 
positive, unanticipated returns.

There has been some rumbling about this theory for about a year among some 
academic economists.  This may have prompted somebody at one of the Fed
branches to look at the numbers.

Greenspan's hypothesis, if correct, goes a long way towards explaining the 
demise of IBM, the Seven Dwarfs (remember them?), unplugging, downsizing, 
outsourcing, etc.

This is on the same day the IBM cut its sacrosanct dividend.  There was
even some talk about Scully (of Apple) as a replacement for Aikers (IBM 
Chairman, recently deposed as CEO).

-George