While I may not be an expert on the subject, I come from the school of thought that we aren't in an economic recession but instead are in a weird "changing of the guards" phase. What I mean by that is that instead of being totally fucked; we are slowly (or in some people's cases rather quickly) learning the things that used to be financially sound choices aren't any longer viable. We have lost the need for a lot of humans in our job force and are now automating more jobs. This is more apparent in factory based jobs, and for many reasons this is a smarter move. With robots and computers it reduces chances for injuries; decreases the amount of "human" workers needed, which then translates to less people on their payroll, which then means less insurance they need to take out to cover those would-be employees and other nonsensical expenses that comes with being human. Most major companies even dedicate a part of their factory into machining parts to fix said machines on site thus reducing down time and cost of involving in a third party company that would specialize in said parts. I know this to be true since my time at the metal shop taught me this.
So where is the money now-a-days? There are a few jobs for the time being that are going to be future proof for at least another 20-50 years, they include: any job in the legal field (like lawyers, judges, cops, etc.), doctors (even psychologists*), entrepreneurs*, insurance agencies, teaching, fire protection/prevention field (and paramedics), inventors*, entertainment industry, politics*, and scientists/programmers*. The main reason is simple and can be whittled down to one conceptual term "variables". That's right "variables"; those annoying things that plagued us in science class continue to plague us into reality. The reason behind this theory is that each field has too many variables that technology has yet to be able to take into account. Let's break these apart a bit (something I love doing every day, getting to the root of all things): with the doctor each patient they see are genetically different from one another and so they respond differently to the same treatment; with the cop, each criminal have different history and motives and some are more charming than others; with the entertainment/entrepreneurial/inventors industry, they have to look at what's trending and then have to try to mimic it to maximize return; with the fire protection field, any good fire fighter will tell you each fire is different and unique (in what ignited it, the combustibles, and even environmental). Given time technology will catch up and replace most of these fields, but luckily not any time soon. Those that are "starred" are the ones that are the most resilient to change, since as long as humans outnumber machines we will be more comfortable/willing to listen to things made out of flesh and blood (it's the whole relate-ability thing, it's more primal than it is civil).
Now you'll want proof, or more realistically, real examples (damn you redundancies and poor wording). How many times does the news report about an app making the one million sold mark; look at Angry Birds, and Apple brags about having sold over one billion apps for their mobile phone platform. Sure as technological advances rates increases so will the amount of people looking to exploit said systems, even resort to "pirating" (or the act of stealing a digital product). If the musical "Repo: The Genetic Rock-Opera" taught us anything it's that "For every market a sub-market grows." Most hackers will tell you that they never intend for their work to lead to illegal activities (like pirating), but instead they are merely trying to get the most out of the system they are working with. One could equate this with someone that's considered an "adrenaline junkie"; that is to say that hackers get a thrill from the bragging rights that goes with breaking into a supposedly impenetrable system. In some ways hackers can help sell a system; while it may not be significant it still is a boost , a great/recent example of this is the Nook Color. The Nook Color was marketed as a "Reader's Tablet", but when it got rooted it turned the device into a very nice tablet at a very reasonable price (coming in at about $250). I bet that increased sales of that device by at least 20%, and according to electronista.com(+) they have sold about 3 million units as of it's launch in late 2010. That's nearly half of the number of iPads Apple has sold since it's launch, making the Nook Color the number 1 selling "unintentional" Android Tablet. Hacking has also boosted Apple's iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch's sales, and PSP. All three companies have had noticeable boosts in sales due to this; but if you look at the PSP you might find conflicting reports, thought that is regarding to software sales and not hardware.
As much as I hate to admit it Apple is a great example against the whole "recession" argument. As a company they've been doing very well from a market standpoint, and their new touch-based devices have been selling very well. We can't over look their re-imagination of their Mac-Book lines as they've made the shift to a uni-body and more environmentally friendly product. We all know Apple to sell what many consider a "premium" product at an equally "premium" price tag (meaning high priced). As we all know one does not a majority make. Though the same argument can be made in the cellphone field; "smart phones" are selling well as of 2010 according to the Neilsen Report they account for at least 31% of all mobile phones sold(+), and that number is increasing with the ability to surpass computer sales by the end of 2011(+). Everyone knows that with a smartphone sold a data package has to go with it; if you have a contract you have to choose your data package, and anyone who's looked into them know that they can be rather pricey.The recent disaster in Japan may retard sales up to an estimated 5%. On a weird side note, anyone else find it odd that what seems to be small numbers (like 5%) tend to have quite the impact on the market; talk about a "butterfly effect".
Robot Revolution
Given the recent advancements in technology I see us slowly turning away from relying on foreign countries to build our products on the cheap (which we also use to circumvent any ethical BS that would come up). They have also become "Greener" since that is the most recent hot-button issue apparently plaguing our country (not the economic "recession"). This will cut down the need of workers in factories, which I already went over before. Plus factories have made quite the attempt in becoming 100% self-sufficient and eliminating their "carbon footprint". Ford is looking/using methane to power some facilities and others use wind and solar and even experimenting with tidal power (more so in Japan and Asia than over here). Mind you this won't realistically happen within the next few years but could realistically happen in five to ten years; sadly the things that are holding us back aren't so much "practical" (meaning technological restrictions) as they are "political"/"economical", but as I said we are slowly getting to that point.
Solutions/Theories
This will list my theories on how to achieve the "American dream", in this changing environment.
- In order to succeed you need to adapt
- Learn to take advantage of a situations
- Read the trends
- Apply what you have learned and then improve on it
- Example: Android took an Apple approach to smartphones and made it "open"
- Example: Xbox 360 took motion-based gaming and did away with the need of a controller peripheral
- Stand out
- Apple makes products that look nice and have great internals (god I hate having to use them as an example, since they are so full of themselves)
- Motorola Xoom (pronounced "zoom") was one of the first (if not first) to have a dual-core tablet hit the market
Sources
(+)http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-smartphone-sales-to-beat-pc-sales-by-2011-2009-8
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