The future is evenly distributed...and Americans are getting poorer

The future is evenly distributed...

This is one of the core global outcomes of the smartphone wars. Within a few years, billions of people will have equivalent personal technology, the smartphone. Billions will have like access to the mobile web, the same social networks, the same job listings, access to crowdsourced funding, acces to global markets.

This will reshape the planet's economy and culture, fostering a Great Leveling of work and wealth and opportunity and access. The current Great Recession is merely getting us to that point much faster:

For once, the poor are getting richer faster than the rich are getting richer.

While most of the world’s stocks and other assets still belong to Americans and Europeans, the gap is narrowing as emerging markets grow faster and people in the advanced countries focus on paying down debt. 

But the financial crisis is having a leveling effect on global wealth. In fact, poorer regions of the world have been gaining ground since the dot-com bubble burst at the beginning of the decade.

In Eastern Europe, which has had the biggest gains, wealth has soared an average of more than 16 percent a year since in 2000. Asia (not including Japan) and Latin America are close behind with average annual gains of more than 12 percent, Allianz said. The United States and Europe have managed gains of 3 percent or less.

I've been talking about this 'great leveling" since the beginning of this site. Yes, I'm happy to see the New York Times use the word "leveling" to describe what is now taking place.