Here's my opinion, and it ought to be yours...sm
America 2.0:
It's Not Your Daddy's Country Anymore
Larry Copling
Senior Wealth Strategist
Automated Wealth Strategies, LLC
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
www.AutoWealthStrategies.com
At the risk of telling my age, I remember reading an article in High School about a coming “revolution”- “Pay-for-Play Television”. The article predicted that one day soon, we would all be paying monthly subscriptions for TV programming. I remember thinking something along the lines of, “What a ridiculous idea!”
You see, as one of America’s “Baby Boomers” (those born between the years of 1946 and 1964), I grew up in a world of black-and-white TV’s with a channel changer that required getting up from the sofa and walking over to the set in order to change channels.
In those days, a typical TV viewer could only receive 3 or 4 local stations by means of outdoor antennas or indoor “rabbit ears”. Television was “free” to the viewer” (supported by advertising), and the idea that a person might actually pay money to watch TV shows seemed, at the time, unreasonable.
Today, I routinely spend in excess of $150 every month in order to get my HBO, Fox News and Weather Channel programming (I travel a lot). Of course, I also have a broad selection of hundreds of additional digital cable channels to choose from; as well as VOD (Video on Demand) programming.
In addition, I have eliminated AT&T from my life completely (except for my cell phone) with a VOIP (Voice-Over-IP) telephone service for my home office and a high-speed internet connection- all coming through that one cable TV pipeline.
As I consider the wireless router also connected to the cable modem in my home that allows all my PC’s, laptops, printers and a fax machine to connect to the internet (and to each other) without cables, I realize that things sure have changed since Led Zeppelin released “Stairway to Heaven” in the early 1970’s.
Experts tell us that we are entering the era of “Super High-Tech”; with “nanotechnology” being the driving force. Scientists are promising 500-year life spans, holographic home theaters, programmable brain implants and even home replication units that will use software and commonly available chemicals from the air, earth and water in order to “replicate” everything from food to tennis shoes- just like on “Star Trek”! We are hearing about scientific “breakthroughs” almost monthly now, and I believe the experts when they tell us that we will literally not recognize this old world in another 50 years or so.
The changes that are occurring all around us are having some profound effects on our society. Technology, good or bad, is absolutely changing the way the world does business, the way you and I buy and sell- even the way we might choose to make a living.
As a former IT (computer) professional, I had a front row seat during the “dot com” crash of 1999-2000. My IT support position was eventually replaced by an “outsourced” IT support person in India; who was able, through technology, to provide real-time support services to a local customer from half a world away at about 1/10th the salary cost to the company.
I am not bitter about losing that IT job to outsourcing, and you should not be either, for two reasons:
First, there is the economic “drill bit” analogy. It is a cold, hard fact of economics that outsourcing ultimately equates to significantly lower prices for products and services to the consumer. Imagine what a typical drill bit, widely available for as low as $1-2 dollars, would cost if the manufacturer were locked into producing the item locally (by “politically correct” social pressure, or worse- by law) with American employees paid by artificially high, union-scale wages.
Forcing a local manufacturer to compete with another company down the road who does outsource his production to overseas manufacturers would eventually result in that local company literally going out of business. That means that EVERYONE at the plant loses their job. Not a great business plan for the employee or the local community.
Secondly, outsourcing should be embraced because the very same technology that allows real-time, customer service support from remote locations will also allow a typical, 9-5 wage earner to consider a whole new type of employment model that is transforming the American workplace as we speak. I call this new employment model “The Alliance Income Method” (AIM).
Go to "America 2.0" Part 2