Commerce

In the past, the vast majority of our layoffs were caused by economic downturns. As we move into the future, the tide will shift, and the majority of our layoffs will be caused by automation and technology. With all the chaos and uncertainty of a workerless world looming, I’d like to step you through some of the reasons why it will not be as bad as the doomsayers are predicting.

I am excited to begin a project this year on bringing jobs to a county in Northern New England, my home stomping ground. I have worked on economic development projects for years as a futurist, from the state of South Dakota to the Prince of Monaco. This year, in 2012, something is different: many people accept that the old methods no longer work.

It sounded like one of the craziest tasks anybody ever dreamed up: Def Leppard is in the process of re-recording, in painstaking detail, its monster-selling albums from the 80s, specifically Pyromania and Hysteria.

There is a lot of chatter in the news from the neo-cornucopians about how "wait, resource scarcity was merely a false alarm, there's more than enough resources to keep growth going for years - like lots of new oil!" When you read the fine print, it turns out that the "new oil reserves" make very little mention of how much oil is going to flow each day, at what cost, and to replace what level of lost capacity in critical places such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and the U.S.

In 2003 the DaVinci Institute produced a landmark event called “The Future of Money Summit” which took place at the Omni Hotel in Broomfield, CO. One of the featured speakers was Bernard Lietaer, chief architect of the Euro. At the closing session for the event Lietaer introduced his plan for creating a global currency, a digital currency called the Terra

In 2004 when Chris Anderson released “The Long Tail,” the world was suddenly awakened to the potential for niche markets that appeal to an increasingly diverse consumer marketplace.

The Education Bubble caused by credentialism, generational conflict and a receding 20th century economy does not just affect the young. Sure, when we think of "student loans" we immediately think of the standard student coming straight from high school and going directly into the maw of the American university debt monster.

Every three years (or so), the Fed’s Survey of Consumer Finances releases a report on “Changes in U.S. Family Finances.”  It’s a goldmine of information on how families are doing financially—specifically, how their assets and liabilities and net worths are changing by various demographic categories.

Imagine that you own a desktop box that could print physical objects.   At the push of a few buttons, you download a file, modify it, and then hit the "print" key. The possibilities would be endless for localized production, print-on-demand distribution, and the customization of almost everything.    3D printing offers the potential for an industrial revolution within the current generation.

Richard Florida made a lovely cottage industry around telling cities, regions and countries that their fortune rose and fell with the attraction of the creative class.