Technology changes civilization.

England's history was forever changed by the invention of the stirrup, allowing soldiers the ability to stay on a horse as a fighting platform. Even the view of technology, the Spanish seeing a ship as a fort on the ocean, the English seeing their ships as maneuverable platforms like cavalry; helped bring about the defeat of the Spanish armada.

Gutenberg and his printing press open new vistas and a route of escape from feudal slavery. The advancement of civilization was assured, but the advancement of the individual was subject to personal initiative. Access to printed material allowed the common man access to a wealth of knowledge, and made literacy a filter for opportunity.

Our current technological innovations have that same potential, but are more vulnerable to interference from bureaucratic powers.

In the same way the lord in his castle was threatened by his serfs learning to read and write, so is the bureaucrat in his comfortable chair threatened by innovators working as teams on their personal computers.

Networked personal computers are the maneuverable cavalry of this age. The fortresses of bureaucracy are no longer able to launch sorties, and under siege, have to be content to fire catapults filled with regulations at the advancing netcohort knowledge workers.

There is no longer a tenable status quo, it must now be victory or defeat. There appear to be only two major options available to the entrenched. They can despoil the countryside and so join all in defeat and suffering, or they can embrace the new era and prosper with all others. They may try both.

The bureaucratic castles, as other fortifications before them, may soon be disassembled stone by stone to build personal dwellings.

Human behavior cannot be predicted accurately or consistently. Distrust anyone who claims to know the future, however dimly - including me, . With a thousand people flipping coins, several may have 10 straight heads, they are not more talented or intelligent, and the next flip is still 50/50.

Their are futurists that use tools, from technical indicators to hocus pocus. Their primary value may be as a timing method similar to watching the tides roll in and out. The proposed discipline of Socionomics (Elliott Wave Theory) may have value, and it is certainly worth looking at some of the free materiels available and making up your own mind.

Remember to think for yourself. Think - don't follow.

Just remember those coin flips, several accurate predictions in a row do happen even with wild guesses. Watch for many interactions, then commit slowly.

Read Nassim Taleb's Fooled By Randomness to learn about survivability bias and other ways we fool ourselves into trusting patterns that don't really exist.

You do not need to ask permission to learn. You do not need to wait for a course to be offered in what you feel is important. Text books and other materials are readily available - go get them. Don't wait, the future will belong to those who aggressively seek wisdom and understanding.

Use a good learning style to gain understanding of what interests you. It is your desire - feed it. With effort you will begin to understand what is reasonable, and what is just words.

Even the best futurists will have bad guesses. Many of their ideas may be good, and quite a few can be timely; but very few will be both good and timely - for you.

There is a way to tell if a guess at the future has merit. Does it make you uncomfortable, nervous, irritable? Does every average person around you tell you to get your head out of the clouds? Then it is probably worth considering.

When economists predict the next year their guesses always come closer to each others guesses than they come to real life. It is comfortable to be in company, even if the company is frequently wrong.

Instead, try to emulate the philosophy within the word Imagineering that was coined by Alcoa and picked up by Disney. The old Aluminum Company of America said it involved building your dreams in the air; then engineering them down to the ground.

Make up your own mind. No one cares more about your future than you. Imagineer your future today.

Vanishing Middle Class

Maybe shrinking middle class is better.

Let's go with the transforming middle class.

Most of the bureaucratic age middle class is sinking, others will morph into the netcohort.

The point is, a whole bunch of people have lost their middle class status. A lot more people are worried about losing it.

Most of the studies on this phenomena have been finger pointing; folks with a political agenda throwing obfuscating reasons the other guys are at fault. The followers of political party lyrics are singing the songs they have been handed. Very few are thinking.

To start our thoughts we will take a look at the transformation from a historic view. The rising middle class is usually associated with the industrial era.

Small businessman, and workers at skilled jobs in larger businesses, reaped rewards commensurate with their contributions. As they raised themselves above the level of their brethren, the economic level of everyone they were associated with was also raised.

Industrial society as a whole became better off, the emerging middle class was much better off. But there was a group that was hurting and vanishing, the guilds.

If there had been an internet at the start of the industrial revolution the conspiracy theorists would have had feudal lords guilds financing the mobs that destroyed looms. As an aside a joining of the Luddites and the guilds would be the equivalent of today's odd bedfellow relationship of greens and labor unions that together are fighting technology.

As the industrial age advanced, the middle class expanded. Unskilled labor, by politics, extortion, and the compound growth of wages, secured many highly paid positions with access to middle class incomes.

The world has for a few centuries had huge populations controlled by strong central governments. In most of those nations all but the politically influential became working poor.

The middle class of more open societies prospered by lack of innovative competition from the more socialist societies.

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

The transformation of the protected middle class is now in effect. Workers in China and other formerly highly managed economies are now starting to compete, and all people want a piece of the pie.

Just as when the guilds faded into history, the industrial age middle class is shrinking. People now want to be treated as individuals - not as part of a fungible mass with diminishing options.

Small businessmen will remain, a constant of open societies from all ages. Those with skills, knowledge, adaptability, integrity, and who apply networking relationships will form the Netcohort that replaces the current middle and upper middle classes - and above.

Those netcentric knowledge workers that are replacing the old middle class have far more options than the middle class had before. This is similar to how the industrial age middle class had more options than the guildsmen.



The Netcohort Society is real.

We will define ourselves.

There are indicators I've collected or developed over the years that help me understand timing within cycles.

One is the naming and re-naming of companies. As a market passes stable, sustainable growth and enters its final frenzy mode, it is easy to be captured by the excitement. from sleazy promoters to ethical captains of industry; everyone gets caught up in the "new, new, thing."

Fly by night small cap companies re-name themselves to sound like players, large stable companies buy leaders in the field and blend their names with the acquisition. Flour at the top of the last gold market bought gold mining companies. Time Warner bought AOL at the peak of the first Internet mania.

In real estate you can look at the size of the MLS books. If they are so thin you can read a newspaper through them, consider that the market may be ready to top. If they take a fork life to pick them up and carry to the table, the market may still be in decline.

Step into the office of a Realtor that has been in business ten or more years and look at his book case (rare, Realtors normally last one cycle, or around five years tops). You will see the historic evidence as MLS books seem to wax and wane upon their shelves.

Many people watch Time or Newsweek magazines. These are not serious undertakings, but are marketing tools reflecting what the masses believe.

The Business Week cover story of August 13th, 1979 proclaimed The Death of Equities. "Everyone" knew that commodity futures, gold, diamonds, and real things were the only protection from inflation. With the Dow Jones stuck under 900, it could only go lower, even pension funds were deserting stocks for "things." Financial assets were dead. Of course this was close to the bottom for stocks, and a top for things.

There are more such rules of thumb. The reason they have value is as Mark Twain commented "History does not repeat itself - but it rhymes." What was a good indicator of an opportunity or danger in the past, will probably, with observant modifications, be a good indicator in the future.

Just because Time or Newsweek shows a house on the front cover headlined how buying a house is a sure way to wealth, it is not a guarantee of a top. It is an indicator that it is time to step aside, take a deep breath, and consider how excited everyone is about housings prospects.

Two phrases that should send a chill down your spine; "it's different this time," and "This market always goes up." Conversely, when everyone knows real estate will never come back, and you can rent most houses for more than their monthly payments, it will once again be time to consider buying.

There are hundreds of these indicators.

One of my favorites is to find a big magazine rack. When the poker craze started, there were no magazines about poker, except freebies in poker rooms. At poker's popularity peak, there were several on most stands. Coins, stamp collecting, stock investment, auto restoration, remodeling housing; how many magazines are on the racks for enthusiasts?

If there are none, it's a small fad, or not one at all. If there are a half dozen or more - be wary. These are only indicators, not holy script, they can and sometimes will be wrong.

The idea is to start looking at where the crowd is rushing off to today. The crowd is frequently right in the middle of a trend, and the crowd will keep growing. At the extremes, everyone in the crowd will be very wrong, to the great hurt of many.

It is easier to think for yourself if you have observed that few escape the herd.

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"We hear fables about the past, we develop dreams of the future, but the work needs to be done today." - Allan R. Wallace