It's self-evident that we cannot possibly understand trade, soaring corporate profits, Facebook's data collection or the economy without understanding the core role played by Big Data in reaping outsized profits and pushing narratives.

Let's connect the dots between these two comments from longtime correspondents: the first is on the model of collecting and selling data (Big Data), and the second on trade:

GFB:

“If I had a lot of money, would I want to do:

A) –invest in the exploration forbidding areas of the globe for oil reserves with a 50/50 chance of no results
–negotiate leases for the areas of the planet I want to extract oil in and have to negotiate with corrupt and unstable governments
–Pay for the oil extracting and transportation infrastructure
–deal with the fluctuating market values – which may make my whole investment worthless

OR

B) set up a low-cost trap that has millions of people handing me for free, and with their acknowledged permission, their preferences, tastes, beliefs, and aspirations . . . which I can re-sell at almost no cost to a long list of buyers, with a price that I can set as I have the data.

Why I keep thinking we've moved past ‘the sky is falling' to ‘the sky fell' with this is that we haven't yet seen what happens when next-generation AI gets a hold of this data and starts using it.

That's no concern of anyone in the data mining, acquisition, or aggregation business now – as their goal is very simple: get as much data as possible from any kind of source that you can beg borrow or steal from – as the AI and algorithms of the future will find more and more uses for this data.

Data will only become more valuable. I don't think there is an equivalent ‘substance' in our universe, that no matter what happens, the data holder will be wealthier and wealthier.

Data doesn't expire, rust, need maintenance, go in or out of fashion, need to fed, require medical care…