[Adrian Thompson]

I remember attending a lecture in high school in the 80’s and being told with confidence that due to the amazing advances in technology the biggest challenge my generation would have would be working out what to do with all our space time. Productivity would be so high the average person would only need to work 20 hours a week. Yeah, that came true all right, oh no, actually we all work harder and longer than before.

I’ve no doubt that we are on the leading edge of the biggest shift in technology, socioeconomic status, job description, job location etc. since the start of the industrial revolution (remember England considered steel production formula’s a secrete of National importance) but I don’t think anyone alive knows what our, let alone the world, economy will really look like in another 50 years.

We’ve seen massive shifts from agricultural, to industrial to service to…who knows what, but while it causes great upheaval, at the end of the day more people are employed than not and things, people, location of power bases change. I now live on a different continent from where I was born and grew up (Ex-pat Brit living in Michigan) working in a massively unpopular industry that only 100 years ago was credited with creating the middle class and helping put America on the map. Ten years ago no one really believed autonomous driving was actually on the horizon, now the whole industry can’t hire people fast enough. I’m confident that the industry will revise and adapt and I’ll get to retirement without having to re-train as an algae grower for energy production or something.

One thing I am sure of, is as the world gets smaller and it’s easy to outsource jobs and technology, the wages will start to equalize among skill sets around the world. I’m not saying we will have a world wage, but I’ll bet in 20 years technical jobs like engineers, software developers etc. will be closer to 2:1 than the current 10:1 between the US and places like India/China. The upshot of that is the standard of living will rise in those places, the cost of living will rise and it will pull the wages up for other positions lower down the food chain. At some point it’ll no longer be worth making cheap **** for sale in the US on the other side of the planet and more stuff will be made here again to help the job base, we’re already seeing the start of this.

Also, while we complain about the education here, the US and Europe still actually lead the world in education and technology advances. There have been lots of studies looking at scientific papers written in China and India, they are prolific, but the true standard and rate of piracy of material is way higher over there. I have confidence that the West will continue to lead true innovation for the time being.

Just as a smart phone wasn’t really conceivable by most people 30 years ago and is now a $400 Billion industry, I bet we have no idea what will be the next new $1 Trillion industry tomorrow. Hell, Uber didn’t exist 7 years ago, now it’s valued at over $60billion.

Nope, I don’t’ know what tomorrow brings, but I also know the glass isn’t half empty. In fact it’s not half full either, it’s being constantly topped up.