Information shocks cause revolution

A good thing, Foreign Policy has the details. The article notices that Titter connected the Internet to the cell phone,l and overnight, literally, everyone had real time Internet streams.  As a result, everyone notices, suddenly, that goods are out of place, the actual economic growth drops below potential and the system  Requantizes.  If government is involved, then the only solution is revolution or the peaceful adoption of constitutional change.

We know what reverses the balance of payments

Oil at $83 and oil imports falling like a rock. Somebody is fixing oil to the dollar within a narrow range, a range that likely matches the supply chain physical limits. Of the culprits, we have consumers, manufacturers, or OPEC; or all three.

Another measure of the balance of payments, look at oil imports by volume and the Ceridian index, they match; oil imports leading the index even. But, both tied to transportation.

A real constraint, the cause of the depression, and caused by what?  The sudden arrival from the future of peak oil was brought to you by information technology, in the last ten years. We measure farther out with more accuracy, now the order of the day for the average citizen. Sudden information shocks makes things seem out of place and a cost results from having to hold futures contracts while things are moved about. In this particular case, we jumped in and acted as if we could rearrange inventory as fast we we could now track it. Transportation comes to a grinding halt and a Recalc ensues.

Information Shock

I define it as the time when new information technology increases knowledge about the location of goods, rapidly.

The classic example, we suddenly mass produce penny press with graphics and stories by a thousand fold. England 1820. Newspapers are instructions on various methods to organize into efficient production. How other countries, other industries, and other technologies were being used, with profit and loss statements. Available at 1/6 the cost of prior print technology. Delivered daily. Soon came double sided printing.

Assets value across international boundaries would suddenly shift as each population made production shifts by copying the best practices of the other. Asymmetric information corrected.