Planet Money
00:18:43 · Jacob Goldstein, Paul Israel, David Kestenbaum
[00:18:43] S1: When you think of economic growth, how much do you think of it as coming from, like, individual, like, eureka moments and inventions and stuff like that? And how much is it the stuff around it? Like, the ability to finance these things, the economic structure around it. [00:18:56] S4: So most of it is actually the structure around it. [00:18:59] S1: To light a square mile of Lower Manhattan, Edison needed a whole financial system. He needed patents, a way to protect his ideas so no one would steal them. He needed a company, a way a bunch of different investors could come together and risk money, a lot of money, to build a power plant and lay wires so you could try this crazy thing, light without fire. Edison comes along at a time when all this machinery, patents, corporations, banks is in place. [00:19:26] S5: There were consequences to growth. I mean, those first power plants burned coal, and pollution was pretty bad. Edison built a huge power plant on the East Side Of Manhattan. And at some point, the city health department got involved. And this is according to the New York Times, quote, when it was found, health department men were trying to photograph the smokestacks. Scouts were put on the company's roof who ordered the feeding of coal stopped whenever photographers appeared. On the other hand, you now had a city lit up with cheap electric light. Trade offs.
00:19:26 · David Kestenbaum, Jacob Goldstein, William Nordhaus
[00:19:26] S5: There were consequences to growth. I mean, those first power plants burned coal, and pollution was pretty bad. Edison built a huge power plant on the East Side Of Manhattan. And at some point, the city health department got involved. And this is according to the New York Times, quote, when it was found, health department men were trying to photograph the smokestacks. Scouts were put on the company's roof who ordered the feeding of coal stopped whenever photographers appeared. On the other hand, you now had a city lit up with cheap electric light. Trade offs. [00:19:52] S1: Around this time, everything is getting faster and cheaper. Scientists keep making new discoveries. You get the internal combustion engine, the tractor. For the first time in human history, most people don't have to work as farmers. [00:20:04] S5: This went on decade after decade all through the twentieth century. All kinds of things got much cheaper like light. [00:20:10] S1: And if you look at the really long arc here, it's it's amazing. I mean, go all the way back to the Babylonians. Okay? Babylonians worked all day. You got the equivalent of ten minutes. Ten minutes of light. [00:20:23] S5: Four thousand years later, in the nineteenth century with kerosene lamps, things are better. [00:20:28] S1: A day's labor gets you five hours of light. And by the time Nordhaus does his light study in the nineteen nineties, if you work a day, how much light do you get? [00:20:38] S7: Maybe twenty thousand. [00:20:40] S5: Twenty thousand hours?
00:20:40 · David Kestenbaum, William Nordhaus, Jacob Goldstein, John Edmond
[00:20:40] S5: Twenty thousand hours? [00:20:42] S7: Twenty thousand hours. Mean, basically, you have your house lit up, you have your streets lit up, you have your all your equipment on. You have your air conditioner on. You have all the stuff you're doing is... You're you're saturated with light. The main thing is you're saturated with light. [00:21:02] S1: Economic growth isn't all good. There's pollution. There are environmental consequences. But fundamentally, growth is about things getting faster, getting cheaper, getting more efficient. It's about doing the same amount of work and being able to buy twenty thousand hours of light instead of ten minutes. And as a result, it's about being able to work less or to buy other stuff that used to be just for the wealthy. We can buy books. We can take vacations. [00:21:27] S5: Even today, there are still people who go to work every day and try to figure out how to make a better light bulb. [00:21:34] S3: This morning, I went to, the bulb factory for about an hour. [00:21:39] S1: This is John Edmond. He's one of the founders of a company called Cree. They make LED light bulbs, which, of course, are much more efficient than regular bulbs. [00:21:48] S3: You'll make... You'll you'll try and experiment and you'll say, holy crap. We just got more light out of this thing by using this contact material or flipping the chip over.
00:21:48 · John Edmond, David Kestenbaum
[00:21:48] S3: You'll make... You'll you'll try and experiment and you'll say, holy crap. We just got more light out of this thing by using this contact material or flipping the chip over. [00:21:58] S5: Jacob, when we talk about economic growth every year, you know, when we say the economy grew a couple percent, That happens because every day out there, someone, somewhere, in some corner of the economy has figured out how to do something a little bit better or a little bit faster or a little less expensively. And this process has gone on year after year for hundreds of years now. And one question I always have when I think about this is like... And not just with light, but this whole story of constant economic growth, constant productivity improvement. My question is, is it gonna go on forever? Or at some point, we're gonna run out of ways to make things better? [00:22:32] S3: We might we might double from where we are now, but we're not gonna be triple and quadrupling it because there are physical limits. I mean, will a car go a million miles an hour? No. It just won't. It just... It's not gonna happen. [00:22:45] S5: For the light bulb at least, John says, we may actually be near the end.
00:22:45 · David Kestenbaum, Jacob Goldstein
[00:22:45] S5: For the light bulb at least, John says, we may actually be near the end. [00:22:50] S1: That episode was from 2014. Today, I host a podcast called Business History. It's a show about the history of business. If you like Planet Money, I think you'd like business history. We recently did an episode on the banana business in the early twentieth century. It's got capitalism and imperialism and communism. It's got all of the isms, and it's got bananas. The show is called Business History. Check it out. Also, please sign up for the Planet Money newsletter. Every week, the newsletter takes an issue in the news or your life and finds the economics behind it. This past week, newsletter writer Greg looked at California's proposed wealth tax. He reviewed the arguments over whether the tax would generate money for the state or chase it away. Sign up at npr.org/planetmoneynewsletter. That's npr.org/planetmoneynewsletter, or just click the link in the show notes. This episode was originally produced by Caitlin Kenney and Damiano Marchetti. I'm Jacob Goldstein. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
00:22:50 · Jacob Goldstein, S6
[00:22:50] S1: That episode was from 2014. Today, I host a podcast called Business History. It's a show about the history of business. If you like Planet Money, I think you'd like business history. We recently did an episode on the banana business in the early twentieth century. It's got capitalism and imperialism and communism. It's got all of the isms, and it's got bananas. The show is called Business History. Check it out. Also, please sign up for the Planet Money newsletter. Every week, the newsletter takes an issue in the news or your life and finds the economics behind it. This past week, newsletter writer Greg looked at California's proposed wealth tax. He reviewed the arguments over whether the tax would generate money for the state or chase it away. Sign up at npr.org/planetmoneynewsletter. That's npr.org/planetmoneynewsletter, or just click the link in the show notes. This episode was originally produced by Caitlin Kenney and Damiano Marchetti. I'm Jacob Goldstein. This is NPR. Thanks for listening. [00:23:58] S6: Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Bombas. Still looking for the perfect gift? How about something soft? Something plush? Fluffy? Maybe something sporty? How about cushy or grippy? Definitely something cozy. This holiday season, Bombas has something for everyone on your list, making the best version of your everyday go tos. Socks, slippers, shoes, and more. Visit bombas.com/npr and use code NPR for 20% off your first purchase.