The most significant economic event of the past decade: Human genome project failure
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Something a little different from our every-now-and-then Friday Weekly Wrap guest Mike Mandel.
He wrote an intriguing blog post the other day about the most significant economic event of the past decade: Not the dot-com boom and bust, not housing, not the financial crisis or the recession.
Try this: The failure of the Human Genome project to — so far — deliver medically useful results.
Think about how much we spend on health care every year, the logic’s pretty good.
In his blog post, Mandel writes:
“Right now there are three depressing aspects to the current course of the U.S. economy. First, the growth of health care spending, if it continues, will put a stranglehold on employers and taxpayers. Second, the apparent inability of the private sector to generate well-paying jobs for college grads, if it continues, will put a squeeze on young workers. Third, the apparently inability of the U.S. to export enough to close a huge trade deficit, if it continues, will leave the country exposed to a dollar collapse and a sharp fall in living standards. I could have arranged and described these differently, but that’s the outline of the negative picture.
The Human Genome Project had — and still has — the potential to be a powerful antidote to all three of these problems.”
You can read the rest of Mandel’s explanation for why he chose the human genome project as the most significant economic event of the past decade here.
Do you disagree or agree with Mandel?
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