Quote from: Nagato on June 06, 2014, 06:26:58 AM

in today's dollars.

The concept is elusive. Today, you can purchase 10 smartphones for the price of one phone call to your lawyer. Smartphones aggregate functionalities that did not all even exist 20 years ago. The producible stuff is getting smaller, cheaper and more capable, fulfilling the promise of ephemeralization.

On the other hand, assets that are scarce, like real estate in prime places, or gold, are holding quite well. Even if we transpass the cost of energy and gold becomes easy to produce, RE will still hold its value.

As for human service, some say that it cannot be bought with money at all in the future if we enter into general abundance. I don't believe this, however. Even though I myself don't generally work, or sell my services for money, I am still inclined to do this if someone presents a good offer since the price offered is the concrete proof of the value of my time, and doing something which is highly valued makes me feel good. In this way the monetary incentive does raise my welfare, but it happens directly via the feeling good of being valued, not indirectly via the things money can buy (since the compensation does not increase that at all; I have for long been able to buy all that I need).