War! - The Mother of All Perverse Incentives

If you've read my previous posts, you'll already know what I mean. If not,
the short explanation is this: Government deficits go directly into the bottom
line of the Private sector, big deficits = big profits; and nothing compares
to War when it comes to creating Government Deficit Spending.

This last week saw a couple of articles prompted this line of thought:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-09/productivity-growth-rebounds-q2-thanks-slump-unit-labor-cost-growth
"Annual average productivity change for 2016 revised to 0.1 percent decline from 0.2 percent increase, marking first annual decrease since 1982; productivity gains revised upward for 2014 and 2015 to 1 percent and 1.3 percent, respectively."

Exploring Palantir : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0RPn9Ikh0A
It's long, and I'll leave it to the reader to decide how much to view.
A few take-aways : How much of the future can be predicted five years hence?;
Why is the CIA interested in Winners Lists and in Losers Lists? ;
Those who use AI vs Those that don't use AI - who wins?
Who uses anonymous chat rooms to train bots?

What's bothersome about this discussion is not so much the improved
forecasting, but the implicit power to influence events. This is, above
all else, the reason for the existence of Intelligence Agencies.
This isn't about will bitcoin will rise or fall? (BTW the answer is Yes!)

There is a bigger picture here. The ability to maximise the profitability
of War. And this will not go away quietly into the night. What's surprising
is that the economists aren't all over this like a rash. Something about
difficulties in understanding something when your job depends on not
understanding it ....

Which brings me back to my previous posts .... you'll figure it all out
..... eventually.