Future of the American Economy 2008

Here are three key factors, as the year 2008 comes to a close, that will drive the future of the American economy to at least 2012.

1) An End of Profits to Preserve and Create Jobs Due to Wall Street Banksters

Without profits there is no business. I like to use the word "surplus." With Peter Drucker and Joseph Schumpeter, I believe this "surplus" provides the resources to maintain and expand business, which in turn creates and preserves jobs. With Drucker and Schumpeter, I am against the idea of profits boiling down to the level of Wall Street Banksters - take the money and run, gut the company, leave people unemployed, profits at any price regardless of human suffering (ethics here, or lack of them).

TRENDCAST: For now, the Wall Street Banksters have looted profits; as a result, look for a continued collapse in job preservation and creation - big time - for at least 2009-2012.

2) Doing More with Less (Sustainable Leadership) Due to Wall Street Banksters

Managerial and organizational effectiveness and efficiency correlate perfectly with the need for profits to create and preserve jobs. Getting your money's worth from resources - human and non-human - is the order of the day, since the Wall Street Banksters have destroyed for all practical purposes our credit and financial system. All of us must learn how to do more with less.

Having surplus resources to compete, innovate and using them in cost-effective ways are on trend. We call this trend: "sustainable management," or doing more with less. Conserve resources. Make them stretch. The Internet-based boom in innovation and entrepreneurship is out. Sustainable Leadership - doing more with less - is in. Check it out. Accept it.

TRENDCAST: Rethink. Retool. Explore and learn "Sustainable Leadership." Check out and join new groups like the Association for Sustainable Leadership: http://www.sustainableleaders.org/ .

3) End to Government-Imposed Social Responsibility Mandates on Business

Per observation number one above about the ethical purpose of profits, business creates jobs. Social welfare work and social engineering are the tasks of other agencies. Peter F. Drucker estimated in 2002 that 25% of every dollar spent on management in America goes to comply with imposed "social responsibility" mandates by government. This dulls the competitive edge of business at home - and, above all, in the global marketplace. Other countries avoid such costs.

TRENDCAST: Look for growing pressures to end costly programs like Affirmative Action.

4) Local Production Trumps Long-Distance Hauling Due to Rising Energy Costs

Energy costs are going to reinvent our economy with focus on local production and services. It is no longer cost-effective to truck tomatoes from California for sale in Wisconsin. The price of oil will climb to new heights after the November 2008 elections in the US. Look for an increase in telework as the "creative class," who can use the Internet to go to work, escape commuting costs and rising crime rates in cities because of job loss. Rural America can reinvent itself to resemble Thomas Jefferson's vision of a noble, independent "yeomanry." The centralized factory model of the Industrial Revolution is dying. Joseph Schumpeter's "creative destruction" rules.

TRENDCAST: Look for a boom in "community supported agriculture" (CSA), hydrophonic greenhouses, and a migration of the "creative class" to Norman Rockwell's ex-urban America.