contributing $0 to gdp, whereas when you used to buy the world book or britannica that showed up in gdp. so the fact that those services listening to music, finding videos the price deflator doesn t capture the quality of these services. particularly ones where the price goes down so quickly that it essentially doesn t get seen by that measurement. so you wouldn t trade places if you made you know inflation and adjusted the same amount 50 years ago, your life would be way worse than it is at the current level. but let s take that and just be very specific because a lot of people say middle-class wages have stagnated for the last 15 or 20 years depending on how you measure it. but you re saying well a middle-class person shouldn t trade places with somebody 20 years ago because his life or her life has immeasurably
you re not going to get back to 3%, 4%, 4.5%. well, gdp growth doesn t capture mass improvements that take place, particularly digital innovation. it s not quite as negative a picture as it appeared gdp look will give you. explain that. you think there s stuff going on that s improving quality of life that isn t being measured properly. that s right. when you use wikipedia, it is contributing zero dollars to gdp whereas when you used to buy the world book or encyclopedia britannica that used to show up in gdp. so the fact that those services, listening to music, finding videos, the price deflator doesn t capture the quality of these services. particularly ones where the price goes down so quickly that it essentially doesn t get seen by that measurement. so you wouldn t trade places if you made, you know, inflation adjusted the same amount 50 years ago, your life would be way worse than it is at the
get rid of its smell and make sure that it couldn t cause disease, then it would be just like normal garbage. and for very low cost, in fact, that could be moved out of the household. or we could just burn it as some part of reinvented toilet. so the r&d to figure out how do you get caltech, m.i.t., all these top universities to look at the chemistry, the physics and build this reinvented toilet the foundation has funded that type of advanced research. and we re seeing really good progress. and the way it worked, as i understand it, is that the waste is taken, it s essentially heated to a high level. the water evaporates. you can then separate the liquids from the solid. that water is then distilled and purified. and then you drank it. exactly. all the water we drink has been in lots and lots of different places.
the key is it s been purified right before we have to drink it. and in this plant, it is a very, very pure output. in fact, you know, it s a valuable output. did you could you tell anything different from the taste? no. once water is boiled and filtered very effectively, it s nice, wonderful water. i had a bottle of this stuff in my car, and my kids would pick it up and say, really, dad? so they found it fascinating. but in fact, what we have to think about is that most people don t have sanitation. in fact, mody in india has a great campaign to say let s get toilets, let s clean up the ganges. so a lot of energy has been brought to this area that really isn t often discussed. and it can be improved. when you look at this issue of water, does this have an applicability to rich countries? we are reading all about droughts in california.
so if we open it up, we can reach inside and pull up. reporter: there s the vaccines. vaccines. reporter: and it is very cold. it s cold. oh, for sure, it s cold. reporter: and you could use this all over africa, all over south asia, parts of latin america, anywhere where you have large rural populations that don t have access to really good power supplies. that s right. the world has tons of people that work and live in an area that has either no power or very flaky power. and with flaky power if the, you know, generator goes out, if the power lines go down, the vaccine goes bad. and it s not just that you lose the vaccine, which is very expensive. but in fact, you kill kids. even in this country. when human organs are moved around, enormously valuable, a kidney or a heart, you have to keep it cold.