Asia’s digital divides mean some can’t afford tech upgrade they need to compete

Asia is the biggest user of industrial robots, its residents account for nearly 60 percent of the world's online retail sales, and the region's researchers created the same proportion of patents in digital tech before the pandemic. Yet a report published this week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) asserts that the region …

[jmch]

Fetishizing Growth

"...not digitizing fast enough to avoid a slowdown in productivity growth, and attendant economic unpleasantness."

So, still growing, but not growing as fast as you would like, then? This "growth, growth, growth at all cost" type of ultra-capitalism is a cancer on the human race and the Earth.

Pearson's law (that which is measured improves) through and through - GDP can be measured because it's relatively easy to measure, and suddenly it becomes a yardstick of "progress", and very few people ever bother to ask whether we are, in effect, measuring the right thing. GDP (and GDP per capita) means nothing if all the increases in GDP are going to line a few pockets while the median income stagnates or recedes. Comparing GDP across countries means nothing when cost of living varies so wildly across countries. And most importantly, there is a very tenuous link between GDP and standard of living, which isn't measured just by the number of cars in a family or the area of their house.

The IMF doesn't care about improving anyone's standard of living, it's basically a supra-national loan shark preying on the poorest countries in the world.