back to article iPhone to account for half of US economy by 2030 - projection

Strange, terrible, yet curiously inevitable news today - the day before iPhone 5 day. Analysis based on figures from hefty Wall Street brains appears to show that the Jesus Phone is set to account for a large chunk - perhaps the majority - of US economic activity within a matter of decades. The Register's elite economic …

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  1. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Facepalm

    I am not worried.

    They will do something to bugger it up well before then.

    1. asdf

      Re: I am not worried.

      Yep in America the only thing we make any more are junk financial products used to hide money, Walmart receipts and McDonald's cheeseburgers.

    2. Shagbag

      Economics and Economists

      The story highlights the fact that no-one has a monopoly on the truth.

      If Economists could forecast with ANY reliability, the word 'recession' would feature in our language. Yet, here we are, in the worst economic downturn since records began. Economists never saw it coming and years later they still can't get us out of it.

      Sadly, people still give credence to these people and their 'predictions'.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Economics and Economists

        Wasn't there a study done regarding economists predictions that basically showed the economics should be treated like history? It's useful for examining the past and drawing conclusions but offers very little for predicting the future.

        Sadly, fortune tellers are treated as crazy people and economists advise governments. I think that the current government would have a better understanding of future economic direction if the entrails of animals were consulted more frequently....

        1. deadlockvictim

          Re: Economics and Economists

          History tells that some power-crazed little man *will* run riot across Europe and get his armies killed in the Russian winter while trying to take Moscow. It just doesn't tell us when.

          Likewise Economics tells us that economies move in cycles of boom and bust and that bad things happen when all of the resources are located in the hands of a few. It just doesn't tell us when they'll be.

          1. Vic

            Re: Economics and Economists

            > Economics tells us that economies move in cycles of boom and bust

            I thought Gordon had fixed that?

            Vic.

            1. asdf
              FAIL

              Re: Economics and Economists

              >> Economics tells us that economies move in cycles of boom and bust

              >I thought Gordon had fixed that?

              Funny that was what everyone was saying about Alan the bubble blower Greenspan as well.

    3. Mips
      Childcatcher

      Re: I am not worried.

      I thought this article could have done with a Playmobile montage.

  2. Mnot Paranoid
    Coat

    Hand me a massive quantity of barbiturates

    This actually makes me want to kill myself.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It wasn't long ago the same was said of Nokia and Finland.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They said it about Marillion too, and look what happened to those poor buggers, one sunday magazine profile saying they were headed for world domination and they were doomed! ;)

      1. Fred Dibnah
        Thumb Up

        @ AC 20:18

        I will find out what happened to Marillion tomorrow night, when I go to their sold-out gig in Wolverhampton. Hopefully they will turn up and play. So it's not just economists who get things wrong, the Sunday papers got that wrong too :-)

        Signed

        A. Gingrocker

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: @ AC 20:18

          Today Wolverhampton - Tomorrow the world !

  4. Mike Bell
    Mushroom

    What happened to the shoe shop event horizon?

    We're all buying phones to make ourselves happy these days.

    Seriously, though, economists are mad, and so is the notion of money in the modern world.

  5. Aaron Em

    It seems to me

    that the Reg web development staff could do worse than to make the "Joke Alert" icon available for articles, as well as comments.

    1. Grikath

      Re: It seems to me

      Well Aaron, it seems to me that the Joke Alert is pretty much between every single line of this article.

      Meanwhile, El Reg, I want my crystal ball back!

      1. Aaron Em

        That, Grikath, is because

        you are among those for whom the Joke Alert icon is not necessary in the first place.

        Pity so few of the comments on this article were made by people of whom that's true.

  6. Steve Knox
    Trollface

    So how long.....

    before the iPhone accounts for 100% of The Register's economy (based on articles published)?

    I'm guessing somewhere between 10 and 30 hours...

  7. stu_ekins
    Pint

    I believe you've just stolen Mitt Romney's next attempt at an economic policy.

    As for the pub - sadly many of them haven't been economic since the introduction of "continental-style" drinking. But that's another story...

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Heard it all before

    And by the year 2000, we'll all be buzzing about in flying cars...

  9. Kwac
    Meh

    Value

    This demonstrates the value of such long-range 'predictions' then, doesn't it?

    Of course, they might be right, but have they include technological developments, food prices, water scarcity, AGCC, etc?

  10. Tim Bergel
    Thumb Up

    "that's a pretty speculative and wild-eyed bit of curve fitting"

    ... but fun though.

  11. Glostermeteor

    If its true then god help the US economy because most of the manufacture and production of the iPhone happens outside of the USA so while Apple employees might become filthy rich the majority of the US population will be out of work

  12. Mr.Mischief
    Alert

    But of course

    With the advent of NFC, iphone currency will become the next best thing. A loaf of bread will cost 3 iPhones, a car 20,000 iPhones.

    The US economy long since bankrupt will have employers paying employees in iPhones and Jesus will come back and collect iPhones in church.

    Could happen

  13. Barry Dingle

    I for one

    welcome our new half-eaten fruity overlord.

    1. russsh

      Re: I for one

      That bite represents the 30% Apple will be taking out of the entire economy by 2030.

  14. tbdge
    Alert

    Jolly funny.

    Best bit of reporting I've read all day.

  15. Julian Bond
    Trollface

    A.N.A.Lyst reports

    In shocking news, an analyst reported today that the X market would be Y big in Z years. The first paragraph of the press release was then posted on 10 different tech news websites in minutes with only slight spelling mistakes added. What do you think about this? Tell us in the comments.

  16. Zombie Womble

    Total iphone orientation.

    Hig Hurtenflirst, the risingest young executive in the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation must now be consulting for Apple.

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Re: Total iphone orientation.

      If only we could find even a Partial Perspective Vortex to sit some of the tech-bloggers in this evening...

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Elvis Statistic strikes again

    When Elvis Presley died in 1977, there were an estimated 37 Elvis impersonators in the world.

    By 1993, there were 48,000 Elvis impersonators, an exponential increase.

    Extrapolating from this, by 2010 there will be 2.5 billion Elvis impersonators.

    The population of the world will be 7.5 billion by 2010.

    Every 3rd person will be an Elvis impersonator by 2010.

    Source.

    1. RainForestGuppy

      Re: The Elvis Statistic strikes again

      How does the Tommy cooper Joke go:

      Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese.

      And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them.

      It's either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin.

      Or my younger brother HoChaChu.

      But I think it's Colin.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The Elvis Statistic strikes again

        Is that a Tommy Cooper joke? I'm sure I've heard Woody Allen say it (and in my opinion it suits Woody Allen better than it suits Tommy Cooper) but maybe he nicked it off Tommy Cooper.

        Can anyone confirm either way?

  18. Local G

    After reading the story, I said to myself

    J.P. Morgan is probably wants to unload a huge portion of its holdings in Apple stock.

  19. Eddy Ito
    Coat

    Could happen

    Given the way the Gubbermint rejiggers the GDP, inflation and unemployment statistics every so often I'd be kidding myself to think it wasn't true. Given how the Capratal markets are run are run by trolls, bandits and thieves it just makes you want to bleat the pills out of them. Perhaps I'm being too Gruff but where's Billy when you need him? What's that? What do you mean it isn't Goat Domestic Product? Sorry, it's the cashmere one alone in the corner.

  20. Steve I
    WTF?

    Hmmm, that's interesting...

    I've applied the same logic to myself. Taking my current age and height and extrapolating, I'll be 8'6" by the time I'm 70...

  21. toadwarrior
    Trollface

    Of course it'll benefit the economy. Apple pays good designers and coders to create their product unlike some freebie OS projects that just rely on copying.

    Iphone users also pay for their apps. The freetards just pirate and the bitch it wasn't worth a whole dollar.

  22. RainForestGuppy

    The new iphone

    2030: Apple launch new iPhone 23. It's identical to the iphone 4 and all subsequent iphones but this time SIRI actually works.

  23. Purlieu

    Half the US economy

    what a pity it's not actually made in the US from US sourced parts either

    says it all

    1. RhysM

      Re: Half the US economy

      Well their CPUs are made in the Texas by Samsung before being shipped to China.... It's a funny world, isn't it?

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Perhaps Douglas Adams was almost right .... he thought it would be shoe shops that would take over the world and eliminate all other commerce!

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    The iPhone event horizon?

    I think Douglas Adams covered this eventuality in one of his books but cleverly substituted the iPhone for shoes so apple wouldn't sue him in the future.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The iPhone event horizon?

      It is interesting to note that a later and wilier CEO of Apple sent a shoe backwards in time through a temporal warp, and then successfully sued Douglas Adams for infringement of the same laws.

      1. Thorne

        Re: The iPhone event horizon?

        It was a iRan

  26. Some Beggar
    Thumb Down

    Is this the same type of analysis that predicted that every person on earth would own forty six tamagotchi by 2010?

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a pile o shite!

    Are these the same people who predicted the economic downturn in 2007?

    Pah!

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Christmas?

    Is it April 1st already? I don't even remember Christmas...

  29. CmdrX3

    Whatever...

    Give me a B, Give me U, Give me an L, Give me an L, Give me ............................

    Nuff said.

  30. Tim Worstal

    Umm

    "If Economists could forecast with ANY reliability, the word 'recession' would feature in our language."

    "Friedrich von Hayek - "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.""

    There's a very large portion of economics which specifically points out that we cannot forecast.

  31. Dick Pountain

    "Jesus Phone is set to account for a large chunk - perhaps the majority - of US economic activity"

    That would make a lot of sense if Apple Inc takes over the whole country and everyone becomes an employee. Then all the fanboiz could finally get to wear silver collarless suits and carry cattle prods.

    1. Thorne

      Welcome to the United States of Apple

  32. This post has been deleted by its author

  33. russsh

    Reserve Bank of Apple

    iTunes credits will become the only dependable currency in a world of quantitative hyperinflation.

  34. samlebon23
    Headmaster

    Apple designs IPhones.

    Foxconn assemble iPhones.

    Uncle Sam borrows money from China, and gives it to Americans to buy iPhones.

    What a great future.

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