The New ... 2001 by Perry ... 2005A million jobs and more are being lost each year ... ... of people each month are giving up hope of ever finding a job. This is a hu
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 passé'. The future is upon us. Financial freedom is upon us. The hope and dream of many for decades is now at hand. We are being released - kicking and screaming perhaps - but we are being released nevertheless from the tyranny of work - from the daily 9 to 5.
It is a bold future and requires that each of us be bold individually. We must set our fears behind for the future is truly bolder, bigger, brighter and better than any future we could have envisioned just a few years ago.
It is a scary future. For we will be cut off from familiar faces and familiar means of employment at offices and factories and stores and warehouses and the McDonald's and Wal-Mart's across the country.
And for now, what those familiar faces and those familiar processes will be replaced with we do not know. But it will be good. Because we are up to the challenge, because we are bold, because we are strong, because we are intelligent. It will be good because we are good. It will be good because when tossed a challenge we always win. I have no faith in big out-of-touch government or big out-of-touch corporations. I have faith in the individual. I have faith in you.
