Life Improvements Since the 1990s
I think he kind of missed the elephant that is modern communication technology has reduced the marginal cost of skilled services enabling pretty much every object designed in an office and manufactured in a factory to benefit from a broader array of engineering and design professionals and methodologies.  The average product and service that the average actor in the economy interacts with is designed and optimized to a far greater degree today than they were historically.<p>Look at the bottle of Elmers glue on the table.  Today the glue probably works better (barring regulation that forces compromises to product efficacy) and comes in a bottle that uses half as much plastic.  Something like a bottle revision that would have formerly required expensive salaried employees to come up with multiple options, send them to the supplier, supplier has to respond to each with details and quotes, etc, can now be accomplished in a fraction of the man hours thanks to email and CAD being ubiquitous in the entire supply chain from marketing, to engineering, to the vendor&#x27;s contractor who will actually design the tooling.  Sign off might take days instead of weeks.  This sort of efficiency improvement allows more engineering, design work, or other optimization to be done to every good and service in our economy allowing it to penetrate into even the most thin margin use cases.  From farming to high finance products and services are substantially more influenced and optimized by specialist professionals than they were in 1990. Increase efficiency like this throughout the national and global economy is how lawnmowers and A&#x2F;C units can be sold on sale for $100 and still make a profit. (yes I know that example isn&#x27;t perfect but you get the point).