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Economics and commerce, all built from scratch.

Keep it Going!

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The parties are over, and we got through the New Year and the Inaugural.  Everyone in Washington is back at work and ready to make great things happen.

Not so fast.  A lot has happened since the start of 2009, a convenient time to look back over the economy for a lot of reasons.  It was the start of Obama’s presidency, but more importantly it was when the financial collapse triggered by the fall of Lehman Brothers really hit the economy in general.  It was the start of final phase of this Depression.  So how are we doing?

It’s worth looking back if for no other reason than to make a few predictions – or at least know what to look for in 2013.  Let’s break it down.

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Managing Innovation

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What does the future hold?  The job is often left to Futurists, which is nice work if you can get it.  Then again, we still don’t really have flying cars, do we?  It’s always hard to predict just what will happen as technologies advance, and by that I mean a lot more than just information technology.  There’s still a lot to be done with advanced materials, machining, finance, and other more mundane things.

We have determined in Barataria that as the world’s population grows richer, more uniformly, working age populations are going to stabilize and even decline in the next two decades.  That means that future growth will come not from more workers but from new technologies.  That puts pressure on the Futurists, for sure, but it puts even more pressure on the delicate art of managing innovation – the process of rendering a bit of magic into practical use.  It’s a topic worth exploring.

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With a Moslem Beat?

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Looking back through history may not seem like a good way to determine our future, but it’s all we have.  We can reasonably guess that if all the trends continue the current Depression will run its course by 2017, give or take a few years or a major meltdown. We can also be pretty sure that this current period of evening out between the developed and developing world will be followed by relatively low growth as working age populations flatten across the planet.

Where this gets tricky is the realization that Western finance, including stocks and bonds and constant price inflation, is not remotely set up for a low-growth world.  Something has to change.  The best recommendation any of us can make is what is working in economies built around sustainability and resilience today as well as strategies that functioned well before the great wave of industrialization.  And that’s where I’m going to start with a few suggestions and predictions as to how finance as we know it could change.

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Next Generation, Waiting

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There has been little doubt that employment has been improving in the US.  From the trough three years ago 5M jobs have been created.  That’s not enough to fill the 12M or so that need to be created, but it’s a start – and it’s been steady progress.  But who is being left behind as the situation (very) slowly improves?

The most important group are the young who are looking for their first job.  Those 20-24 have a lifetime of expectations and habits created by the start of their career, and by any measure their outlook is not good.  While the economy transforms itself into whatever will create the next wave of opportunity the young are being left behind.  This is true throughout the developed world, particularly in Greece and Spain, but the problem is also acute here.  Let’s start by defining the problem.

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The Small Story of 2012

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This is the time of year to look back and reflect.  What happened in 2012?  A lot of things happened, and yet when we look at the political and economic situation it appears that almost nothing happened at all.  About US 1.6M jobs were added during the year, but growth (change in GDP) remains at a near-recession 2% or less.  Politically, the election produced the same President and Congress who remain mired in gridlock, currently unable to get out of the “Fiscal Cliff” trap of their own making.  Europe has gone from bad to somewhat worse, proving that austerity isn’t going to help anyone.

What should we make of this year?  Not much, really.  There was not a big story in politics or economics that is worth re-hashing.  But there is a small story that has not been told.  Where did those 1.6M jobs come from, anyway?

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