This year Ive been working on an idea, a big idea that I have been having trouble expressing. But here goes...
Animals have a life-cycle. Can a system like capitalism have a life-cycle too? Can it be young and naive in one nation but old and past its prime in another?
Think about MTV. I remember when it came out it. It was pretty rough. They played that horrible Buggle's video 24/7. Over time the music video matured and got more sophisticated. Then MTV realized that music videos just didnt keep one's attention so they completely changed their format to the present one, 24/7 reality shows.
MTV today is barely recognizable from its start in the 1980's which is true for just about any topic since WW2.
Think about a product or process. It starts off simple, gets increasingly sophisticated, often it changes so much it is unrecognizable today from 50 years ago or it is completely gone.
We call this progress and the guiding force behind this progress are the basic rules of capitalism. Make more money.
Cars, car manufacturing, steel, mining, banking, computers as well as systems like trade or banking. The Cold War with the Russians came and went in the last 50 years as did entire thought systems, the big ideas of communism and socialism.
The nature of human beings may not change much over the centuries but a human being does. We start out very simple, grow stronger, come into our prime and then start a long decline. What does an 80 year old think when looking back to when they were 30? Can you recognize an 80 year old from their photo at 10, 20 or 30? Are the changes welcome? Are they desirable?
The idea I have been struggling with is that our system of capitlaism is reaching 80 (in the USA) and the affects are not pleasant now and getting worse. Capitalism itself may not be sustainable in a way that is agreeable for Americans.
Put another way, for the past 50 years our system has been giving the business to other countries and we have been living better and better. Our system now is no longer naive and simple but rather sophisticated and mature. It is looking like the next 50 years will have the rest of the world giving us the business, particularly China. China is our child in this way. 50 years younger than us, looking to us for guidance but indepenent and ready to forge a new way whether or not we like it. (Ungrateful kids!)
For the past 20 years, our natural progression has been away from the manufacturing industries that built our wealth and onto the next step, banking. Banking and investing have been our only source of economic growth since the Clinton administration -- and it just blew up.
Can we rebuild and maintain our finance empire? Can this financial empire stage actually support us? All of us? Sure Buffett and Madoff made a lot of money but most people havent seen a raise in years and now unemployment (and underemployment) are at the highest levels since the great depression.
The capitalist system we have created and fostered (much like children) doesnt owe us anything and we dont control it. With the globalism we pushed to make ourselves wealthier, it is now a force by itself well beyond our control or even the control of national governments. Everone everywhere recognized the desire to make a buck and financial systems are changing much faster than government systems.
So now what?
The stock market is ballooning again less than a year after our "crash" but why? I think the stock market (the industry of money) is greatly separated from the realm of jobs and families, ie real people.
I question whether the jobs will ever come back to the USA. It is more likely that there will never be as many jobs as before. In part that is because of technology which lets fewer people do more with less. (For a perfect example, look at farmers.) There are too many people, and not enough jobs that need to be done. (There are also jobs that lack trained people.)
We will continue to have the highly paid high-tech and banking jobs but all other jobs will go away or not pay enough to support a family.
Think about your experiences at retail and fast food and support on the telephone. Are you getting knowledgable, helpful, happy people because I am sure not. I get indifferent, often miserable folks - they dont love their job, they know they dont make enough now and they know that they never will in that job. The hope of a brighter future is missing and sometimes so is the English as even these jobs have been moved out of our country.
Not quite the Road but not a very cheerful outlook for my daughter.
I dont see any curbs on capitalism and as a result I see a very different future for our country. When I was a kid in Michigan, the morons who dropped out of high school could get a job making cars for Detroit and make enough money to afford a summer house with a boat on the Great Lakes. Not anymore.
Im expecting more people, fewer jobs, and less prosperity overall in the US. The retirement of the baby boomers is going to be painful. Crushingly painful as they find out what it means to not have saved for retirement (but to still have a mortgage for a McMansion).
All that whether or not we have significant climate change.
Animals have a life-cycle. Can a system like capitalism have a life-cycle too? Can it be young and naive in one nation but old and past its prime in another?
Think about MTV. I remember when it came out it. It was pretty rough. They played that horrible Buggle's video 24/7. Over time the music video matured and got more sophisticated. Then MTV realized that music videos just didnt keep one's attention so they completely changed their format to the present one, 24/7 reality shows.
MTV today is barely recognizable from its start in the 1980's which is true for just about any topic since WW2.
Think about a product or process. It starts off simple, gets increasingly sophisticated, often it changes so much it is unrecognizable today from 50 years ago or it is completely gone.
We call this progress and the guiding force behind this progress are the basic rules of capitalism. Make more money.
Cars, car manufacturing, steel, mining, banking, computers as well as systems like trade or banking. The Cold War with the Russians came and went in the last 50 years as did entire thought systems, the big ideas of communism and socialism.
The nature of human beings may not change much over the centuries but a human being does. We start out very simple, grow stronger, come into our prime and then start a long decline. What does an 80 year old think when looking back to when they were 30? Can you recognize an 80 year old from their photo at 10, 20 or 30? Are the changes welcome? Are they desirable?
The idea I have been struggling with is that our system of capitlaism is reaching 80 (in the USA) and the affects are not pleasant now and getting worse. Capitalism itself may not be sustainable in a way that is agreeable for Americans.
Put another way, for the past 50 years our system has been giving the business to other countries and we have been living better and better. Our system now is no longer naive and simple but rather sophisticated and mature. It is looking like the next 50 years will have the rest of the world giving us the business, particularly China. China is our child in this way. 50 years younger than us, looking to us for guidance but indepenent and ready to forge a new way whether or not we like it. (Ungrateful kids!)
For the past 20 years, our natural progression has been away from the manufacturing industries that built our wealth and onto the next step, banking. Banking and investing have been our only source of economic growth since the Clinton administration -- and it just blew up.
Can we rebuild and maintain our finance empire? Can this financial empire stage actually support us? All of us? Sure Buffett and Madoff made a lot of money but most people havent seen a raise in years and now unemployment (and underemployment) are at the highest levels since the great depression.
The capitalist system we have created and fostered (much like children) doesnt owe us anything and we dont control it. With the globalism we pushed to make ourselves wealthier, it is now a force by itself well beyond our control or even the control of national governments. Everone everywhere recognized the desire to make a buck and financial systems are changing much faster than government systems.
So now what?
The stock market is ballooning again less than a year after our "crash" but why? I think the stock market (the industry of money) is greatly separated from the realm of jobs and families, ie real people.
I question whether the jobs will ever come back to the USA. It is more likely that there will never be as many jobs as before. In part that is because of technology which lets fewer people do more with less. (For a perfect example, look at farmers.) There are too many people, and not enough jobs that need to be done. (There are also jobs that lack trained people.)
We will continue to have the highly paid high-tech and banking jobs but all other jobs will go away or not pay enough to support a family.
Think about your experiences at retail and fast food and support on the telephone. Are you getting knowledgable, helpful, happy people because I am sure not. I get indifferent, often miserable folks - they dont love their job, they know they dont make enough now and they know that they never will in that job. The hope of a brighter future is missing and sometimes so is the English as even these jobs have been moved out of our country.
Not quite the Road but not a very cheerful outlook for my daughter.
I dont see any curbs on capitalism and as a result I see a very different future for our country. When I was a kid in Michigan, the morons who dropped out of high school could get a job making cars for Detroit and make enough money to afford a summer house with a boat on the Great Lakes. Not anymore.
Im expecting more people, fewer jobs, and less prosperity overall in the US. The retirement of the baby boomers is going to be painful. Crushingly painful as they find out what it means to not have saved for retirement (but to still have a mortgage for a McMansion).
All that whether or not we have significant climate change.
