Thursday, March 15, 2012

What This System Rewards

Seeing as how i've been slacking on my blogs i figured i'd come back into the mix, full force, with not one but TWO posts today! This second post is also from another Huffington Post article posted today entitled, "Top Industries For Becoming A Billionaire".  Which is a top 10 list assembled by Forbes magazine of industries ranked by number of billionaires within each. Just like my previous post i'll keep it quick and get right to the list accompanied by a Zietgeist point of view.  Let's begin.

#10 Sports - 15 Billionaires
If you've seen or read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky it's easy to see why this is such an offensive metric.  The first industry on our list of industries with the most billionaires not only has nothing to do with global social well being and public health, but add to it the fact that professional sports was designed as a distraction for the masses and you get a double whammy. One more ripple effect is that the wealth accumulated by these sports figures goes to feeding luxury wants, thus rewarding other socially offensive industries built on unsustainable consumption.

#9 Manufacturing - 18 Billionaires
Private ownership of natural resources, their unsustainable extraction and exploitation, and the market driven artificial scarcity that affects the cost and thus the affordability of all products derived thereafter has concentrated  wealth into the hands of the very few.  Manufacturing's purpose is to serve the needs of the global population, not the wallet's of a select few who benefited from the entitled legacy of corrupt elite's before them.

#8 Real Estate - 27 Billionaires
Private ownership is a fiction.  It is restricted access enforced by the threat of violence.  Shelter is a common necessity of our species. It should be the goal of society to provide shelter in all of it's various forms and functions for all mankind.  Having shelter subject to the monetary market insulates it from it's social purpose and restricts access for those that need it as much as those that have access. The concentration of wealth in real estate spits in the face of impoverished people across the globe.

#7 Fashion and Retail - 28 Billionaires
Clothing and retail, like real estate, when subject to monetary market drivers also restricts access to functional and well designed garments to those that need it just as much.  The concentration of wealth in this industry is based on status symbols and celebrity endorsements being used to brain wash consumers into demanding unsustainable production from brand name labels. A waste of resources and totally unsustainable.

#6 Food and Beverage - 31 Billionaires
Just like clothing and shelter, food is a basic need of any species. Subjecting food production to the monetary market restricts access to impoverished people across the globe. We have the technology for abundance in food production but we lack the economic model to distribute it as needed.  Wealth concentration in an industry so basic to human survival is probably as offensive as you can get, especially when referring to access to clean water. The most profitable multinationals aren't even providing nourishing food but instead stocking store shelves with toxic, GMO laden ingredients and enough sugar and fat, to give most of the population diabetes or coronary heart disease. But hey, i guess they're helping the medical industry to grow, right?

#5 Service - 31 Billionaires
This industry includes medical care and just like food is a basic human need. It has the same social implications on global well being and social health.  Restricting access due to monetary market drivers is inhumane. As a social species our sole purpose in life is to serve each other as brothers and sisters which volunteers do around the globe, not for monetary compensation, but for the joy of helping a neighbour.

#4 Energy - 35 Billionaires
Energy is vital to all other industries and is just as fundamental to social well being as the raw materials of production.  Accessing the technology needed for harnessing renewable energy and to create abundance is being limited by the monetary market economy and driving wealth into the hands of a few. Most of the current international conflict is over energy resources which should, by nature, be common heritage of all mankind.

#3 Media - 37 Billionaires
Media is a social service and thus should not be subject to private profits. Journalism 2.0 is democratizing media delivery but is being fought against by media moguls with political influence through lobbying and campaign contributions.  Pulling the money out of media will bring the truth back in media.  Corporate interests cannot be allowed to control and bias mass media with unethical goals and intentions. This results in propaganda.

#2 Technology - 51 Billionaires
If all technology were open source, sure there would be no billionaires but we'd be light years ahead of where we are now.  Technology is what provides access abundance to the world. Throttling it's advancement and innovation by restricting collaboration and rewarding competition via the patents, fictional intellectual property rights, and the monetary market system is preventing us from reaching our full potential as a society.

#1 Investments - 100 Billionaires
The investment industry does nothing for social well being or social health. It's sole purpose is to track the money sequence of value. It's growth, profitability, and it's wealth concentration only rob the planet of resources and benefits an elite few. It's very existence is not needed for the planet to thrive sustainably.

Displaced Workers And Disappearing Industries.

It's been a busy year trying to volunteer my time as a local chapter coordinator and editor at zietnews.org, such that i haven't been able to publish a blog in over a year. Do not fear as my draft folder has been growing and growing as i write notes for procrastinated blogs.  Today marks my return to the blogosphere and i've chosen an article in today's Huffington Post to return with, entitled America's Ten Disappearing Industries.

In the concise style of this blog I'm simply going to list the industries and give you a quick analysis as to why said industry is disappearing. I encourage all my readers to question my analysis and do further research into my comments. I guarantee it will take you on a wild ride. And now onto the list:

#10 - Telecommunications - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -11 percent
This is an easy one, Moore's Law is allowing us to create smarter more efficient devices that allow us to do more with less. The more efficient and robust a technology becomes the smaller the industry required to maintain it becomes. It used to be that you needed a pager, a fax machine, a land line, an internet connection, a cable subscription and a mobile phone account.  With my current smart mobile device i have access to all of the above functionality with a single mobile voice/data account at a fraction of the price in hardware and service cost.

#9 - Banking - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -11 percent
Online banking and ATM's adding to the already ubiquitous trend of technological unemployment which is causing a decline in consumer spending power which causes a decline in qualifications for borrowing, which causes a decline in investment leveraged spending, which causes a decline in banking revenues, and the cycle continues.

#8 - Construction - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -12 percent
Austerity measures due to the global debt crisis are decreasing infrastructure spending by global governments. Private sector construction is taking a beating due to the same decreased consumer spending mentioned in the previous point.  The decrease in size of this industry further results in more unemployment and further consumer spending power decline, and the cycle continues.

#7 - Automotive - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -13 percent
I hope you're starting to see a re-occuring trend here with the consumer spending-decline-cycle thing. But this industry gets the added bonus of global peak oil production being passed and oil reserve depletion causing a rise in the price of oil eating away at profit margins, causing layoffs and reducing spending power etc.  The high price of gasoline is also decreasing demand for the uber profitable, high horsepower, sports cars, SUV's and luxury vehicles. Environmental impact is also making personal internal combustion engine powered vehicles less popular with the masses.

#6 - Retail - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -15 percent
Online shopping and other related advancements in technology have caused increases in efficiency and thus brick and mortar layoffs are the result. Reduced consumer spending causes declines in revenue and resulting layoffs. Manufacturing efficiency is creating product abundance and perfect competition that drives prices and profit margins down to zero causing more layoffs. Advancements in 3-d printing which will democratize product manufacturing will not help either.

#5 - Supermarkets - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -20 percent
see above

#4 - Capital Markets - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -21 percent
This is the vampire of the bunch. It feeds off the success of other industries since it is merely an exchange facilitator. When all other industries take a hit, wall street cannot "tax" non existent transactions.   No exchange (i.e.business), no fees for facilitation. Investment depends on industry growth, no growth, investments go south thus reducing spending power from investment losses.

#3 - Warehousing - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -25 percent
Real time Point of Sale (POS) data makes Just-In-Time (JIT) delivery even more effective and efficient reducing the need for warehousing.  Purchase orders are filled on demand.  Global logistics are simplifying the transit routes causing the need for fewer distribution centers (DC's). Technological unemployment at it's best.

#2 - Restaurants - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -26 percent
Restaurants move in tandem with retail. Reduced consumer spending due to technological unemployment and you close doors due to reduced demand.  More home cooking as well as a move toward healthy organic food is making major food franchises buckle.

#1 - Newspapers - Change in industry size, 2007 to 2011: -28 percent
Do i really need to explain this one? I'm sure anyone reading this digital blog will understand the implications of Journalism 2.0.

The big question is, who will replace the GDP of these dying industries? I'm afraid the answer is, nobody. The decline in these industries is not due to a failure within the monetary market system but is, by design, an expected result of it.

Marshall Brain - Automation & Unemployment