Of course, if income is collapsing, cost-cutting decisions extract pain.
It is based on three big technological changes, all reinforcing each other.The first is the collapsing cost of solar power.
THE collapsing cost of hardware can be seen in its revival of a hobbyist ethos in the so-called Maker subculture.
But the collapsing cost of crude oil is the equivalent of a tax cut for energy consumers; governments could remove subsidies painlessly in the current climate.
This is now changing rapidly as a new wave of manufacturing robots appears, driven by the collapsing cost of computing and the rapid emergence of inexpensive sensors that give robots new powers of vision and touch.
But the ballooning expansion, and collapsing cost, of communications technology even in the least developed parts of the world will put most of us in a direct relationship with our governments.
In time, nearly 1,000 savings and loans — a third of the industry — collapsed, costing the government billions.
After its boss, Ivar Kreuger, died in 1932 the company collapsed, costing American investors the equivalent of $4.33 billion in current dollars.
While stock-lending businesses normally invest in safe instruments like Treasury securities, A.I.G.'s unit invested in higher-yielding mortgage-backed securities - which soured as the housing market collapsed, costing A.I.G. money.
But the synthetic products that helped create Goldman's record-breaking profits, drove the financial system close to collapse, cost millions of Americans their jobs and houses, and led to a civil suit against the firm have no economically redeeming aspects whatsoever.
