Evening Must-Read: Shane Ferro: Robots Won’t Save Us From Secular Stagnation

Coyle gives the historical example of the washing machine…. Sure, if the robots come and take everyone’s jobs, but then people find ways to work the same amount doing different things, productivity will increase drastically. The economy will probably boom. But this assumes that nothing blows up the global economy before we get to that point…. If low interest rates continue to create asset bubbles that then pop dramatically–which seems to be the real fear of some people who are talking about secular stagnation–the economy could be in rough shape for a long time before the robot (or demographic) saviors come.

It is possible to be afraid of robots and of asset bubbles at the same time.