Innovation is pretty much immune to crisis

Reading this Credit Suisse e-magazine article and watching the interesting 14 minute video recorded expert debate about effects of the credit crisis, I noticed, for example, that Heinrich Rohrer, Nobel Laureate for Physics 1986 and expert on nanotechnology, reminded the participants that innovation is pretty much immune to crisis and that technology can develop even in the deepest recessions. Lars Kalbreier recalled that "in the 1930s, household refrigerators had double digit growth and that was in a depression environment, [and] in the 1970s, fax machines had double digit growth during a period of recession."

I also noted that Dr. Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former President of Mexico, warned against the rising number of trade restricting measures that have been taken over the past couple of months and the potentially devastating effect of increased protectionism, if key political leaders do not take a strong stance against these measures. If protectionism is not seriously countered, Zedillo cautioned, "then global demand will be negatively affected and at the end of the day, everybody will end up losing and the path to recovery will be moved further away."