Whenever he says "polynomial", he actually means "exponential", right? Economic growth over the last couple of centuries looks pretty exponential, at least.
Yeah, I think so. In fact, I get the feeling that he originally wrote "exponential", and someone talked him out of it. I'm as opposed to the misuse of "exponential" as anyone -- and it is frequently misused by science journalists and others -- but in this case I think it is appropriate. For one thing, polynomials don't have a flat left tail!
