UW Barter News Sept 1992 Page 5

"Unlimited Wealth," by Paul Zane Pilzer with introduction by Bob Meyer, Barter News, Sept 1992.

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About the Author
Pilzer is a Paradigm-Buster
Education Must Never Stop

More on
Unlimited Wealth

Explains how we live in a world of unlimited physical resources because of rapidly advancing technology.

"Unlimited Wealth: Paul Pilzer Tells Where to Find the New Prosperity," by Duncan Maxwell Anderson, Success Magazine, October 1993.

"The Economic Alchemist," by Paul Wirth, Lehigh Alumni Bulletin, October 1990.

"Renaissance and Real Estate," by William Summers, Financial Enterprise--The Magazine of GE Capital, Fall 1989.

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price and supply of such basic goods as bananas, copper, rubber, and timber. By the mid-1980s, all of the cartels had been driven out of business. They had mistakenly believed that nations couldn't survive without these commodities, and that they'd pay any price rather than do without the goods.
     As prices rose, consumers began looking for substitutes. For example, as the price of copper rose, the telecommunications industry accelerated the development of new technologies such as fiber-optics that didn't depend on copper wiring and cable. By the end of the 1980s U.S. telephone companies had installed 1.5 million miles of fiber-optic cable.
     In the Alchemic world, the market has no corners. As a result of technology, one can find a substitute for virtually any raw material.
     If accumulation of physical resources through attempts to corner the market doesn't lead to wealth, what does? Efficiency in distribution.
     Technology has driven actual production costs of a product down to an average of just 20 percent of its retail price. The other 80 percent lies in distribution costs and profits. With few exceptions, we haven't applied to our distribution networks the technological advances that have so profoundly transformed the rest of the supply pipeline. On the supply side of the Alchemic equation, improvements in distribution have the potential to yield tremendous financial gain.
     A notable exception was Sam Walton. Because distributors weren't eager to service his first Wal-Mart in tiny Rogers, Arkansas, he started his own distribution system. Implementing the latest advances in data processing and communications technology, he constructed the most sophisticated automated distribution system the world had ever seen.
     As a result, Wal-Mart has grown, from its humble beginnings in 1962 to a $45 billion-a-year enterprise, and passed Sears and Kmart on its way to becoming the largest chain in the world.

Demand-Side Alchemy
     Economists and Alchemists alike would agree with the Elizabethan philosopher Francis Bacon who observed, "Money is like mulch, not good except it be spread." The point of money is to be spent.
     Supply is useless unless it can be matched with some corresponding demand. If consumption doesn't keep pace with rising incomes, prices fall, jobs are lost, economic growth grinds to a halt.
     Fortunately, demand does keep pace with income. Real per capita income in the U.S. rose 174 percent between 1940 and 1987, while real per capita consumption spending rose 172 percent.
     As advancing technology provides us with new products or processes which induce changes in our basic behavior, it both defines and determines the nature of human demand. Before the invention of the electrically powered agitator-type washing machine in 1922, for example, people simply didn't wash their clothes all that often. Most clothing was constructed to require a minimum of laundering. Shirts came with detachable collars and cuffs.
     But once it became possible to wear a clean shirt every day, without tremendous effort, freshly laundered clothing became a staple of middle-class decency. Technology created a need that previously hadn't existed, and by the mid-1930s, detachable collars and cuffs were a thing of the past.

(4) By providing us with new products and processes that change the way in which we live, technology determines what constitutes a need, and hence the nature of consumer demand.

The new needs technology creates--how many salesmen can't live without a car phone?--generate demand in a self-fulfilling cycle that will continue as long as technology continues to advance.
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PUBLICATIONS

		The Next Millionaires Explains how you can become of the the ten million new millionaires that will be created between 2006-2016.		The New Health Insurance Solution How to get cheaper, better health insurance from birth to old age without an employer plan.		The New Wellness Revolution How to make a fortune in the next trillion dollar industry--preventative medicine and wellness.
		New York Times Bestseller God Wants You To Be Rich Explains how our economic system is based on our biblical heritage, and you can prosper materially and spiritually.		Fountain of Wealth Award-winning 6 CD (or cassette) audio series explains the new opportunities for creating wealth in the 21st century.		Other People's Money Pilzer's first book, exposing the S&L Crisis and the history of savings in America.

Unlimited Wealth
Pilzer's seminal work explaining how we live in a world of unlimited physical resources because of rapidly advancing technology.

The Next Trillion
Why the wellness industry will exceed the $1 trillion health care (sickness) industry in the next ten years.

Real Estate Review
Collection of articles on the guidelines for success in commercial real estate investments.

The Wellness Revolution
How to make a fortune in the next trillion dollar industry-- preventative medicine and wellness.