It's All Made Up - Inventing Modern Products and Institutions

There seems to be a dawning realization that our social inventions - institutions, norms, culture, processes - are invented just as our products are. At that point of realization, some people become a nihilist, believing that because it is all made up, none of it matters. I feel very differently.
777s are just made up. I was at Boeing in one of the rooms that had file cabinets with various designs for this jet that could carry 400 people 7,000 miles. The complexity is mind boggling. And they have to get it all right to make it successful. A jet is just made up, just invented, but it matters a great deal that designers, builders and operators get it right.

Churches, states, banks, schools, and corporations, even marriage is just made up. But it takes a lot to get them right. And they really do make us different people.

Polygamy and monogamy are completely made up. At different times and in different places, communities embrace one or the other. But the consequences are very real. The 10 most violent nations in the world practice polygamy. When swaths of young men can't get a partner, the community is more violent.

Theocracy and democracy are completely made up. Voice of God or voice of the people? It's all social invention. But the consequences are very real. The 10 most prosperous countries in the world are democracies. Better truths come out of debate and multiple perspectives than from dictates from a religious elite.

About 100, 150 years ago we got much better at product invention. (Edison may have "invented" the first R&D lab. He died with over 1,000 patents in his name partly because he was an inventive genius but more so because he was one of the first to hire people to turn out inventions the way that others hired people to turn out products.)

We are learning more about social invention. One of the things we are learning is that most progress is incremental. A gain of 2% a year in income will double incomes every 35 years. The American revolution that gave religious freedom went much better than the French revolution that outlawed religion. We experiment our way into the future and while we challenge everything we pause before we blow up institutions. (We blew up the monarchy. We did not blow up the nation-state.)

The most important thing we are learning about social invention is that social constructs are like products, like other tools. They make our lives better but they are our tools, we are not theirs. You can love the creative genius of Karl Benz and Henry Ford without wondering whether they would approve of cup holders in a car or marvel at the genius of Jefferson and Hamilton without wondering whether they'd approve of a law banning child labor.

Social invention is at least as hard as designing, building and operating a 777 and it is even more important. If you mess up on a 777, only 400 people die. Errors in social invention kill millions.

So yes, it's all made up. And that should make you take it all more seriously rather than be more flippant, more nihilistic about it.

My new book, New Politics for the Next Economy, is now available at Amazon

New Politics for the Next Economy available here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6P5MZ6Z/

At our country's 250th anniversary, I've described four past Americas and a fifth, new America that is ours to make. The good news is that this suggests so much promise. The bad news is that transitions into a new America have always been a mess. It seems as though Americans have to make things so much worse before they act to make things so much better.
The first America - most clearly defined by Jefferson - focused on land, on creating a nation of farmers. From the Louisiana Purchase to the war with Mexico that resulted in the top half of Mexico becoming the bottom third of America, the US grew by nearly two Indias.

Lincoln and the New Republicans transformed America into an industrial power that focused on creating new capital rather than acquiring more land. Between 1861 and 1933, we ended slavery, gave women the right to vote, and began to transform reality through the spread of inventions like trains, telegraph, electricity, cars and planes and the creation of unprecedented levels of wealth and products.

FDR then added a focus on full employment, the creation of labor as a factor of production that was not incidental, but central to progress, to realizing the potential of this great country. Between 1900 and 2000 we went from a world in which roughly 10 percent of teenagers were in high school or university to a world in which less than 10 percent were not. The creation of a world in which the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines about 800 distinct careers and in which the returns to meritocracy have created a new kind of intellectual capitalist.

Reagan was asked if he thought he could be president after a career as an actor and quipped that he didn't know how one could do the job without having been an actor. Once we'd accomplished incredible feats like landing on the moon, splitting the atom, and editing the human genome two things became apparent: creating new knowledge of HOW to do things and then deciding WHAT we should allow or prohibit, fund or discourage would define politics and the economy in this information age. That is, culture - questions of HOW and WHAT - became central to this new information economy.

You - lucky reader - are now living through another one of the historic moments in which we're reaching the limits of one America and a new America is struggling to be born. These transitions are messy, dramatic, and can give birth to a new America that is so much better than the last.

The next America will focus on the institutions that define us and our potential, taking us beyond our current institutional recession into a entrepreneurial economy in which we get more adept at creating the institutions that do so much to define us and our potential.

New Politics for the Next Economy narrates past history and future history that is yours to make. Get yourself a copy. And perhaps buy one for that politician you think has so much potential. We've got a new America to make and it might just wow your kids and grandkids. Let me know how it changes your mind. And then let's see how we can change our country.

New Politics for the Next Economy Published Week Before Country's 250th Anniversary!

New Politics for the Next Economy now available, published 25 June 2026 ....

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6P5MZ6Z/

New Politics for the Next Economy: 

The Critical Chain of Progress

by

Ron Davison

My new book that gives pattern to - and hope for - the political turmoil of America. 

Buy two copies: one for you and one for the politician you have the most hope for.

From Google to Gargle - Cleanse Your Mind Rather than Fill It

Introducing Gargle, not Google. Every other app fills your head. This one empties it. Swish, spit, repeat.

Gargle: the anti-search engine. Zero results - that's the feature. Empty your mind rather than fill it with clutter.

A Level Beyond Conventional Bobbleheads

 His collection began conventionally enough: baseball bobbleheads. Years later, however, it had evolved into the far more obscure field of bobble-bellied sumo wrestlers.

$10 Trillion Market Cap

Bold prediction: it will be the first company to reach $10 trillion in market cap.
In June 2023 it reached $1 trillion. Recently, it reached $5.5 trillion.
It'll reach $10 trillion is less than 3 years - probably a couple.

The American Dr. Who

Doctor Who is delightfully inventive and madcap. The American remake, by contrast, just feels off. Even the title seems pretentious: Doctor Whom.

The Emergence of American Values After 1980

Wonk that I am, I find this fascinating. Jefferson spoke of liberty. Lincoln spoke of union. FDR spoke of jobs and security. Yet presidents rarely spoke of "American values" as an explicit concept until the 1980s. Since then, references have exploded. One possible explanation is that as politics moved from farms and factories to television and media, debates over culture and identity became increasingly central. And maybe, just maybe, you can get more agreement about the importance of American values if you don't specify which values.

Data from the University of California, Santa Barbara's presidential communications database.

Culture Wars - Performers for Obama and Trump This Week

The grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side featured Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Christina Aguilera, Common, U2’s Bono and The Edge, Marc Anthony, Eddie Vedder, Tems, and The Roots.

Trump's birthday party included performances by Zac Brown Band, Luke Bryan, Kid Rock, and Cage Fighters.

Which "Pay Iran for Trump's War" Payment Plan Have You Signed Up For?

Apparently Trump is giving Iran $300 billion to settle the war he started. That works out to $1,000 per American. Have you signed up for the one-time payment or are you going for the $100 a month plan for the next year? And are you covering your kids' share or are you just going to pass that along to them as something to roll into their college debt?

Will Car Sales Stall For the Next Couple of Years as Car Capability Hits an Inflection Point?

I'm an old man. I feel convinced that we're in the middle of about a five year period of transition in which cars will change more than they have at any time in my life.

I wonder if this will translate into a period in which new car sales drop off for the next year or two as people wait for self-driving, efficiency, in car entertainment centers, etc. to hit an inflection point.

Trump's Narcoleptocracy

Trump's governance? A narcoleptocracy. He gets to sleep through it but its a waking nightmare for the rest of us.

Pope Leo XIII and Pope Leo XIV - Writing About Industrial and AI Revolutions 135 Years Apart

Pope Leo XIV has done something fascinating. 135 years ago, Pope Leo XIII - the last Pope Leo - wrote a piece about industrial capitalism and the importance of protecting industrial workers. Titled Rerum Novarum ("Of New Things"), it saw the mechanization of labor as the core threat - physical machines replacing human muscle power, reducing workers to mere cogs.

On the anniversary of that piece, Pope Leo XIV wrote a very similar piece about workers and AI.
Leo the XIV's document is Magnifica humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity"), subtitled "On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence." It sees the core threat as the automation of cognition - algorithmic systems replacing human judgment, relationships, and intellect. Leo XIV's first encyclical, was signed on 15 May 2026 — the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum — and published on 25 May. The link reaches back to the first act of his papacy: he chose the name Leo in reference to Leo XIII, and has described AI as ushering in a "new industrial revolution."

Both Pope Leos diagnose the signature danger of their era as the same inversion — the human person slipping from end to instrument while the system or the machine becomes the thing served. The question is which is the tool: the new industrial technology 135 years ago or the new AI technology now vs. the humans interacting with these and at turns using and being used by them.

The first American pope. He's an interesting guy.

Baby Boomer Demand for Sources of Retirement Financing

America is experiencing the largest wave of retirements in history. Roughly 4.1 million Americans per year are reaching retirement age. That's about:

11,300 per day
470 per hour
8 per minute

What is one reason stock prices going up? People are buying equity to finance their retirement.

It is easy to say that this surely would have shown up in purchases BEFORE Americans hit this point of 65 but it is worth remembering that, on average, a 65-year-old American has roughly 20 more years to live, 20 more years to finance; they are not done buying equities once they hit 65.
 

Trump Apparently Wants a Parade After The Cage Match

 Trump started a war and then he ended the war?  Huh.

Converging P/E Ratios for Tesla and Nvidia

Bold Prediction: 
The P/E for Tesla and Nvidia will converge within 3 years. 

Currently P/E for, 

Tesla is 371

Nvidia is 31

First Trillionaire Got There With N/A P/E

Tesla's P/E is 371, more than 10X normal P/E, on profits of $477 million. (For instance, Nvidia's price to earnings ratio is 31.) SpaceX? It doesn't have earnings, posting a massive quarterly net loss of $4.3 billion for Q1 2026.

Combined, the most recent profits of Tesla and SpaceX are negative. Meaning, our world's first trillionaire's two most valuable companies combined have a P/E ratio of ... N/A.

Musk a trillionaire makes as much sense as Trump a president. Maybe that is inevitable in a world in which people get more exposure to memes than reality.