The New Economy - Making a Living in the New World
The New Economy
Copyright 2001 by Perry Jones Revised 2005
A million jobs and more are being lost each year overseas.
Thousands of people each month are giving up hope of ever
finding a job. This is a huge tragedy the effects of which have
not yet even begun.
A million jobs lost are a million people out of work. It's a
million people depending on an unemployment check to pay bills
and feed their families. A million people out of work is a
million children whose parents wonder how they are going to feed
their children. A million jobs lost.
That's a lot of people wondering what to do next. That's a lot
of people wondering if their next job is going to pay as well as
their last job. A million jobs lost is a million people
bewildered.
We are faced with a great challenge. But the challenge we face
in lost jobs is the opposite viewpoint of what is really
happening. No matter how politicians may rant about their
opponents causing millions of jobs to go overseas, no matter how
politicians may promise they will stem the outflow of jobs to
Mexico, China and India, no matter how many promises are made;
the outflow of jobs cannot be stopped. Nor should it be.
Jobs are flowing toward those areas where the economics prove
the most effective for that job keeping the cost of goods and
services affordable for the most people. Productivity gains in
the areas of job loss keeps inflation from rising. But these
things are meaningless if you're the one who has lost your job.
A great restructuring is upon us. It is painful and it is
arduous. It is challenging. But it is also necessary. For those
whose jobs have been lost things could hardly get any worse. But
the loss of jobs is a good thing. The loss of jobs to China and
Vietnam, Mexico and Korea means the increase of opportunity
where those jobs were lost. It may not look like it if you're
the one holding that final paycheck and your heart begins to
flutter in panic.
I know. I've been there.
Instead of looking at what we've lost, we must do the hard thing
and look at the opportunity that has been presented to us. With
some support from the government in the form of unemployment
compensation, tuition loans and vouchers for adults and medical,
life, vision and dental insurance for those thrown out of work,
we can make it.
With these necessities provided, we can now set about ensuring
that never again will we be at the mercy of some corporation
that doesn't really care about us anyway. By starting over again
at 30, 40 or even 50 at some big corporation, we'd only be the
first to go at the next economic downturn. There has to be a
better way. And there is.
It will be hardest for adults. But I also know that as adults,
we do whatever is necessary to get by - to put food on the table
for our children and families, to keep a roof over their heads
and clothes on their backs. It will be hard. But it is doable.
It is also necessary.
A new economy is upon us. The means of production are being
handed back to the individual by the forces of evolution,
science and progress. No person is doing this. No state is doing
this. No religion is doing this. No ideology is doing this.
Evolution, science and progress alone are presenting each of us
with the opportunity to grab a hold of our own economic future
and be totally self responsible and totally self-sufficient.
As our basic necessities for life and living are temporarily
provided by the state, we must go back to school to learn a
trade, to learn that profession we always wondered about. Our
dream of being an architect, teacher or doctor is now forced
upon us. And we must take up those reins which have been
presented to us - and learn.
It may not be easy. It may not be cheap. But it must be done. As
we learn that trade or profession we've always dreamed of, other
avenues of generating income wait to be explored.
The standard of living for our future lies in how well we grasp
the fundamentals of financial education. We must look to people
like Suze Orman, Robert Allen and Robert Kiyosaki, for they
represent the vanguard of our economic future. The jobs we have
lost will be replaced by jobs we ourselves create.
Inventions, copyrights, patents, licensing, acting, music
publishing, trading in commodities, rental income, income from
websites we own, are all just a small part of the great variety
of streams of income we will enjoy in the future. REIT's, gas
and oil income trusts, share-the-wealth and distributed
ownership corporations are all just some of the myriad income
vehicles we will create and participate in in the future.
Shared ownership of corporate robots, distributed ownership in
satellite networks, traditional franchises, internet auctions,
affiliate programs, ebooks, software development, licensing a
game, product, patent or process are all just a small part of
the universe of means to provide us with an income which will
eventually be many times larger than any income we would have
received had we stayed in that job we lost.
A million jobs a year are flowing overseas. Good riddance. Jobs
are pass