YOU WILL NEVER RETIRE
Retirement will be impossible, but maybe that will be OK in a world of knowledge workers, says Harvard Business review.
Actually, when you read in medical literature that retirement is the surest highway to alcoholism, depression, and death, this may not be that alarming a forecast.
You know what they say, aging is terrible, but it sure beats the alternative.
Rupture! from Michel Cartier
by Eric Garland
I have no idea how I managed to miss this incredible video for so long:
Are You Ready for the 21st Century ? from Michel Cartier on Vimeo.
Cities: the real driver of future economic prosperity
For the first time ever man is becoming a majority urban creature. It’s hard to overestimate this change. Since the Fertile Crescent in 10,000 B.C., cities were only a fraction of human population, even if they were the centers of technology and culture. Humans throughout history have been mostly villagers, mountain people, hunter/gatherers.
In 1800 only 3% of humans lived in cities. Most people never saw a city, and the vast majority didn’t trust city folk when they came to town. They earned nasty terms like “city slicker” and “vilain,” which is just old French for “city slicker.”
By 1900, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, only 6% resided in urban areas. Plenty of economic opportunity was to be had in the fields and in the mines of the countryside. Manufacturing and intellectual work still represented a minority of the jobs available.
Now in 2009, more than half of humanity lives in cities. Upward of 88% of all economic activity happens in cities – and this is increasing. Job opportunities in the countryside are disappearing as the knowledge economy makes physical capital less valuable and makes innovation the main driver of competitiveness.
Not all cities are created equal. Amsterdam, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Paris are monuments to culture, economic vitality, and learning, blessed by sufficient infrastructure and social stability. The urban future also means Lagos, Nigeria, Mexico D.F., Cairo, Egypt, Manila, Philippines, Calcutta, India, and more – cities of five, ten and twenty million inhabitants with critical sanitation problems, insufficient water, crumbling roads, and few jobs for the refugees from even deeper rural poverty.
For this reason Competitive Futures took a closer look at the future of what is likely to be our most common environment, the urban area. Enjoy.
Podcast with Jack Soto – Native Mindsets and the Future
by Eric Garland
It is impossible to fix any problem while continuing to use the mindset that created that problem. This is an old saw, used to extoll the virtues of examining your assumptions.
Naturally, if you want the opposite of the Wall Street-speculator-growth-at-all-costs model, you need to talk to people who remember lots of past and have been around to see lots of future – Native Americans. I have the great honor of working with Mr. Jack Soto, director of the Washington Internship for Native Students (WINS) program at American University on issues of tribal leadership and the future. Jack’s program brings native students from around the continent to Washington to connect them with the mechanistic workings of Washington.
In this podcast, we go deep into the difference in perspective between US corporate, suburban culture and the constant rebirth going on in the native communities, what it means for their nations, and what we can learn from each other about the recreation of communities.
And we’re not diving into the typical, “Native Peoples Are More Holistic” claptrap. During the hour, we get into the deep background in complex business transactions that most tribes have, their process of constantly recreating nations and governments to suit evolving reality, casinos and their effect, Jack Abramoff (“Live and Learn“), why natives aren’t really environmentalists, and much more.
Enjoy.
Competitive Futures Podcast with Jack Soto, Washington Internship for Native Students: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadWhat should come first, marketing or products
Seth Godin stands conventional wisdom on its head:
The Prius was developed after the marketing thinking was done. Jones Soda, too. In fact, just about every successful product or service is the result of smart marketing thinking first, followed by a great product that makes the marketing story come true.
This makes quite a statement about the inherent value of products and services. Is something only ever as good as we are convinced it is? Is perception now 110% of reality?
Can Web 2.0 be a tool of fascism?
Due to a highly interesting debate on Twitter, I’d like to recast the spontaneous debate between Mr. Keen and myself regarding the potential use of Web 2.0 technologies.
For the record, Keen does not say that Web 2.0 is doomed to fascism, he says it’s “fucked.” He believes that as economic realities get more dire, fascist elements could seize Web 2.0 as a tool to whip up frenzy. It is not certain that Web 2.0 will lead to fascism, but he believes that social media could be even less democratic than the media used in the pre-web industrial era, media that was dominated and guarded by experts and official sources. His typical argument, well expressed in his books and articles, is that most people on social media can hide behind anonymity, whereas professional sources are incentivized to stay professional and accurate. I am paraphrasing, but his argument seems to be that Web 2.0 risks being seized by fascists, capitalizing on that anonymous, vituperative, snarky spirit in some corners of the Internet to whip up sentiments for nationalism. A provocatively-titled piece in the Daily Beast called The Internet is Bad For You explores this risk.
My retort is that fascism worked much better with few sources of official media, broadcasting owned by central sources and manipulated by the concentrated power of elites in a nationalistic government. While Web 2.0 surely can be used as a tool for fascist elements in society, I think they had a better deal when it was really expensive to own radio and television towers. Web 2.0 allows nearly infinite social networks, and while many of these could be angry, nationalistic, and sympathetic to fascism, the structure of the technology works against its fundamental logic of conformity. Fascism worked well with single arguments, uniforms, flags, and national anthems. Web 2.0 leads more to a giant jumble of micro-niches, groups that only ever really come together to watch clips of British talent shows and similarly democratic events. The rest of the time, it’s herding cats.
Keen is right, though – the real risk is poverty and injustice. Prevent that, and the fascist gangs should remain at bay.
Douglas Rushkoff on the future of value creation- why the web broke everything (but it’s a good thing)
by Eric Garland
I am glad to see Douglas Ruskoff weigh in on our current situation. He’s a fantastic thinker, humanistic and often contrarian, the author of many books including the recent Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out, which is about the foolishness of senseless innovation. If I read Rushkoff correctly, he sees economics as a distinctly human, connected enterprise, and the absolute opposite of where our commercial leadership has taken us.
He presents some major, major ideas:
- The recent goal of business has been to make every company a holding company, one whose purpose is the acquisition and/or management of debt as opposed to a group of competent people who do things for other people
- People at all levels have become more interested in the perceived value of assets (homes, shares of companies, CDOs) than the actual value that they might ever produce
- Most of these ideas are supporting people who may not even be in the system – long-gone investors, maybe even dead guys
- The monetary system is not about encouraging trade, but often preventing trade
- The American Revolution came about because England forbid people from providing each other with services
- LOCAL CURRENCIES used to be very popular and could be again
- We were probably better off economically in the Late Middle Ages (the Black Death notwithstanding)
We need to revisit our total concept of value creation. It’s great that Rushkoff is lending a hand.
Jack Welch declares shareholder value “dumbest idea in the world,” employees number one constituency
by Eric Garland
This is perhaps the top entry in the Guinness Record Book of Complete Philosophical Reversals.
Jack Welch, “Neutron Jack,” the great father of steroid-pumped management, “Flourish Elsewhere” human resources, cutting the bottom 10%, and evangelist of shareholder value as a singular strategy, has now declared the whole “money for Wall Street” thing is the “dumbest idea in the world.”
For those of you who have heard the term “shareholder value” abused in every possible context, a phrase used as a placeholder for an actual strategic thought, this reversal is akin to hearing the Surgeon General come out and say, “You know Marlboros and tequila get a bad rep – I think they are part of a healthy breakfast.”
This too is an overcorrection. People who bet their money on the performance of a for-profit enterprise will expect a certain level of return compared to stockpiling gold or letting money sit in a savings bank (assuming you can find a solvent bank these days.) Jack is right, shareholder value is a result and not a strategy – but it’s still a fine goal.
The difference in the next economy will be that half the world won’t be investing through Wall Street for the basic societal functions of assuring a dignified retirement for aging citizens. Once the pensions set to grow at 8% fail (coming soon to an economy near you!) people will get even more hesitant to invest in nameless, shapeless glass and steel buildings. Investing in for-profit companies will return to where it ought to – a risk undertaken by the very professional and very observant.
Will corporations really see employees as their number one constituency, as Jack suggests? He obviously saw value in firing over 110,000 employees in his tenure at General Electric – but it sounds like a nice idea.
The future may look like more of a balance between durable human relationships and the need to keep the doors open by making money.
“Diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity” – is the stimulus a hopeless attempt at reviving a moribund economic system?
If you don’t read Jim Kunstler on a regular basis, you ought to. His book “The Long Emergency” predicts the end of peak oil and more importantly the end of suburban consumer life in America and around the world.
He sees a significant strategic shift – to put it mildly – in the coming years. His doubt about the stimulus package is caustic:
The attempt to restart “consumerism” will be equally disappointing. It was a manifestation of the short peak energy decades of history, and now that we’re past peak energy, it’s over. That seventy percent of the economy is over, especially the part that allowed people to buy stuff with no money. From now on people will have to buy stuff with money they earn and save, and they will be buying a lot less stuff. For a while, a lot of stuff will circulate through the yard sales and Craigslist, and some resourceful people will get busy fixing broken stuff that still has value. But the other infrastructure of shopping is toast, especially the malls, the strip malls, the real estate investment trusts that own it all, many of the banks that lent money to the REITs, the chain-stores and chain eateries, of course, and, alas, the non-chain mom-and-pop boutiques in these highway-oriented venues.
Here’s a huge question then: are we merely (!) at a major disruption in the economy that will eventually right itself, or in a complete shift away from old values, something that will require major restructuring of the global economic system?
Either way – is Keynesian economics going to work this time around?
Jump in the discussion at The Future Forum.
Obama tests Keynesian economics in 2009 – new hotness, or old and busted?
by Eric Garland
I thoroughly enjoyed the NPR segment yesterday entitled “Obama tests Keynes” in which a couple of young guys dig into the often-bewildering rhetoric of the economic stimulus package. Funny, relevant, and worth a listen.
It’s important that in this case it’s young journalists taking a fresh approach to the economic arguments of Baby Boomers. I don’t think the Boomers at the head of our institutions often recognize that the political ideologies discussed were born long before we arrived on the scene, and often have no connection to reality for Gen X & Y. The snarkiness between taxcutters and economic stimulators often generates as much deep-seated passion as comments about “Hanoi Jane” Fonda – it’s a reference to a fight that started well before our births, and may need minutes of explanation to even make sense.
Case in point: the radio program deals primarily with the multi-decade conflict between Keynesians, who believe that well-timed government spending can save flagging economies, and market fundamentalists who belief that the entire economy can be managed through tax cuts and manipulation of the interest rate. The Keynesians protest, “government spending led to winning World War II and got us out of the Depression!” Market fundamentalists tend to argue that the slump of the 1970s proved that it’s not a cure-all – and that only deregulation, tax cuts, and Greenspan’s masterful operation of the interest rates saved us from big government stagnation.
The radio program concludes by saying that after all the discussion about this once-in-a-lifetime event, the Obama plan is basically pure Keynesian economics. After this, we’ll be able to see once and for all if it works or if we were imagining it the 1940s. The exciting bit is, this may be the first verifiable test of classical economics!
This kind of thing makes me insane.
Here we are, heading straight into the meaty part of the 21st century, experiencing an economic emergency that could only be created by a combination of today’s special mix of globalization, Internet, post-hegemonic power vacuum, unchecked assumptions, and 6.8 billion people at an unprecedented moment in history. And the only topics our elites can discuss is:
“So should we spend a lot of money on credit or fool around with the interest rate?”
Every day, people wake up and turn on the television or radio or Web site of their choice and begin worrying about a select group of numbers that are forced at them daily. We hear these measures so often, people are mistaking them for important or relevant.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average – a collective of large-cap equities, and the prices that Wall Street gamblers are willing to pay that day to take part in their eventual earnings
- Housing starts – the number of new suburban homes under construction, with the assumption that all human housing should eventually stretch to the planet Mars
- Consumer spending – The amount people spend on Guitar Hero and couches and other goods for their new suburban homes
- Interest rates – The rate at which money can be borrowed from banks to the Federal Reserve, to other banks, to people, through credit, through…oh cripes I have a master’s degree and still don’t really get it. Suffice it to say that the interest rate policy appears as logical as Aztec shamanism, and about as transparent as the election of the Pope
- Stimulus packages – The amount of fake money spent on real things, supposedly to be paid – with interest! – by future generations, who will repay this through all the fantastic, super-paying jobs that are right around the corner…so…uh…just let us retire in peace, um, and keep paying your taxes…
We follow these things excessively, and to the untrained eye, they don’t seem to be leading to better management of the world economy. In fact, the world has been managed exclusively through these kinds of measures, and our policymakers are stuck arguing on the radio about whether KEYNES got us out of the GREAT DEPRESSION using these numbers.
GUYS – CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE NEW STUFF HAPPENING?
U.S. manufacturing now resides in China. Our kids are in debt. The Internet is making new companies possible and other companies obsolete. Science and technology is rolling onward. This is probably just another phase of Kondratieff cycles or Schumpeterian creative destruction. We’re looking at a huge change of management between the Boomers and Gen X. The Boomers are going to start going to the doctor a LOT and will crush the private healthcare system. Mass media is about to go extinct. Europe is out of kids, while the average age of Iran in 24.
Now, how is it that the argument can still be down to deficit spending versus interest rate policy?
Here’s some new measure to try out on the TeeVee, just to inject a bit of new debate into the public sphere:
- The Gig Rate: Measure the percentage of people who just graduated with expensive student loans and got a job that pays for rent, food, and debt repayment
- The Grandma/Doctor Ratio: Percentage of grandmothers able to get to their doctors appointments as scheduled, not left at home, letting their prescriptions go out of date, because they can’t get transportation
- The Ebay Entrepreneur Stat: Number of cash flow-positive home-based jobs created through Internet technologies, allowing people to make money and still raise their kids
- The Youth Diabetes Drop: Number of young people diagnosed with Type II diabetes mellitus able to reverse their disease through diet and exercise, thus saving society billions in the long-run
- The Volunteer Volume: Number of people financially secure enough in their lives to donate time to a local charity, improving their communities at no cost to taxpayers
- The Revitalization Rate: Dollars generated through the repair of our natural and built environments, from wetland and waterways to city centers and school districts, creating economic prosperity while giving future generations even more opportunity
I don’t care if you use these – invent your own. Find a way of discussing economic prosperity in a way that doesn’t use these same, tired, busted statistics.
It’s time to leave John Maynard Keynes where he was: a Cambridge elitist who bounced around the London dinner party circuit, hating the working class and delivering all kinds of new, interesting ideas just for shock value. I think he’d be sorely disappointed in us if he thought that in 2009 we hadn’t moved past him, despite having gone to the moon, defeating communism, and inventing about 1000 new world changing technologies.
KEEP THINKING.
About Eric Garland
Eric is one of the world's pre-eminent thoughtleaders in forecasting and strategy. He helps leaders of business and government make critical decisions about their futures.Connect with us
Read Future Inc.
Learn
a time-tested, profitable method of discovering business opportunities in the future with Eric Garland's groundbreaking Future Inc: How Businesses Can Anticipate and Profit from What's Next, available at Amazon and fine independent booksellers.
