I don't know anybody who actualy produces anything.Everyone I know works in the service industry.If fiat money becomes worth less than much sought after toilet paper,what will people do?We're such a spoiled people of entitlement I just can't buy the "we'll all pull together"line.When gas is $50 a gallon and our pathetic illusions of freedom fall away with our useless vcr's where will we as a people turn.Even if it is TEOTWAKI we can't hunker down forever.Where do you,my fellow doomers,see our society progressing?

-- apokoliptik (apokoliptik@yahoo.com), October 18, 1999

Answers

Yeah, it's too bad that all those people responded to prosperity by actually enjoying themselves. If they had just stayed on the farm or factory floor instead of running off to get easier, more fun service jobs, we would have nothing to worry about.

After all, it's not like Y2K can disrupt factories or farms! Only service jobs will be affected!

-- You Know... (notme@nothere.com), October 18, 1999.

the Entertainment, Advertising, and Military sure "produce" a lot too.

get a new circle of friends, if it is true you don't know anyone who produces hard goods.

those who use money to make more money are the real non-producers imo.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), October 19, 1999.

From a fairly old systems analysis book I have ( Systems Analysis and Design Methods, Whitten/Bentley/Ho 1986 ) page 40: " In his bestselling book Megatrends: Ten Directions Transforming Our Lives , John Naisbitt ( 1982 ) analyzes today's society to paint a convincing picture of our future. The most explosive of the ten megatrends is our dramatic shift from an industrial society to an information society. Just as the early agricultural society gave way to a more advanced industrial society, so the the indusrial society has been replaced by an information society. We are now part of an economy built on the production, distribution, and usage of information. This is not to say we are not still manufacturing goods and growing crops. But today, the majority of workers are actually creating, using, or distributing information rather than manufacturing products or providing services. Indeed, many companies exist only to manufacture or transport information ( such as overnight mail, computer service bureaus, and consulting firms ) and information technology ( such as computers and software ). Today, the information services sector paces the economy.

Naisbitt points out that the change to an information society did not occur overnight. It was so subte tat most of us didn't notice. It began in 1956, when white-collar workers first outnumbered their blue-collar counterparts. White-collar workers include managers, engineers, technicians, clerks, secretaries, civil servants, professionals, and money managers. They earn their living by creating, processing, using, and exchanging informaton instead of producing tangible goods. Hence, they have been described as knowledge workers. We also refer to them by their data processing nicknames, users or clients.

Knowledge workers, or users, are the new majority. Experts suggest that at least 60 percent of today's workers are knowledge workers. "

Wow! 60 % !!! I had forgotten that number. What happens to information workers if this information economy faulters or collapses due to screwed up information ? I don't know but I can reason that it will not be something pleasant.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), October 19, 1999.

As a follow-up, I saw a speech by Ross Perot in which he talked about the fellow who created Honda, how in post-war Japan he walked around scrounging for scrap metal to make motor scooters from and built Honda up from there.

In my new U.S. News and World Report, there is a short article abut Akio Morita, who built Sony Corp. from a very small electronics-repair business to a global colossus which helped pull the Japanese economy to postwar pre-eminence.

This got me thinking about information workers and how they tend to be bright, well-educated types. Next year we may find our infrastructure and factories in a similar state to that of post-war Japan and Germany.

Perhaps the way to recovery if we suffer severe buisness decimation is through the creation of very small buisnesses like electronics repair, bicycle repair, etc., that could be eventually grown into new medium and large buisnesses. This could be something information workers could do.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), October 21, 1999.

The answer may be in our past. The Twenties were a time of great economic and technological progress and the national mood was definitely in favor of business and growth. On the political level the Thirties changed us from a view of "Give me the freedom to get rich" to a view of "Lets punish the rich and take what is ours".

We have shifted to the political right over the last 20 years, but a social crises could very well stir up envy and anger and return us to a government exerting strong controls over business.

Communism collapsed because it couldn't sustain itself. Our system does sustain itself, but a severe crisis could cause a large majority of voting citizens to question its validity. Then where do we go? Can we imagine a new socialism (or fascism) done up in new duds promising us "never again".

Citizens won't be looking for progress but for a return to their pleasant lives of the past (and today will seem pleasant in memory). Whoever offers the best hope for this gets to set the agenda.

-- scott essley (essleyj@bright.net), November 19, 1999.