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I thought this excerpt from a 2007 book might spark some discussion.
Agree/Disagree with the author's thoughts? Overall I agree
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Also contributing to America’s decline is its descending social norms: For example, integrity among its residents appears to be declining.
Examples: corporate leaders’ financial fraud, athletes cheating by taking performance enhancing drugs, escalating student cheating on exams and adult cheating on taxes, increased “creative writing” on resumes, and clerics’ having sex with children parishioners. Also straining the social fabric are society’s mindmolders — the schools, colleges, and media — who are encouraging people to identify more with people of their race or ethnic group than with people in general, which is straining life in and outside the workplace. That model has led to devastating violence in many societies around the world,
past and present (Sunnis and Shiites, Serbs and Croats, Hutus and Tutsis, Israelis and Palestinians, Irish Catholics and Protestants) and portends to do the same in the U.S. America needs less pluribus and more unum.
Some career implications:
* The retraining business will boom. As Boomers retire and as technology demands increase, employers will be forced to provide or subsidize community-college-based retraining. Employees will see it as the only way to earn more than subsistence wages.
* This is China’s and India’s century. Americans may most easily capitalize by working for U.S. companies with current or intended interests in those countries. Entrepreneurs beware, however. It isn’t easy to do business in those countries without deep in-country connections. Eastern
156 Part I: Finding Your Cool Career, Right Here Europe, only now fully embracing capitalism, may offer better entrepreneurial opportunities. For example, a client of mine set up a medical
journal publishing company in Poland. Another conducts corporate training in Hungary. Both of those fields are fairly saturated in the United States but less so in Eastern Europe. Both clients are now millionaires.
* Pressures to offshore jobs will increase, and in turn, the need for U.S. employees expert at finding quality employees overseas and in training them to work well with American co-workers and customers will also increase.
* Hiring and salaries will decline in most sectors, but mostly in the private sector. The last bastion of reasonable job security will be in government employment. Exception: Public sentiment and decreased tax revenues will usher in a new era of U.S. isolationism, so employment in the military-industrial complex will decline.
* A small number of interesting jobs may exist in corporate foundations — the entities that companies create to give away money to nonprofit causes.
* Public schools will, in ever-more locales, become unacceptable to middle-class families. This will increase demand for private schools and home-schooling consultants. In just the last 20 years, the number of homeschooled children has grown from 300,000 to two million!
* People will cocoon more. Traffic and crime will likely increase. So, as home-based entertainment gets more impressive, people will choose to spend more discretionary time at home. Careers involved in making home environments more pleasant (for example, home remodeling) should benefit.
* The middle class will shrink and the lower class will expand. This will give rise to government policies to redistribute wealth downward and/or increased social unrest, such as youth riots like those seen in France in 2006. Thus, government careers assisting (or resisting) the poor should increase.
* Increasing numbers of middle-class and wealthy Americans will relocate to Asia, and to less volatile English-speaking countries, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Specialists in helping people to relocate will be needed.
* More people will need to learn to find happiness without materialism. They will need to come to realize that the life well led comes far more from good work and good relationships than from expensive jewelry, a luxury car, a fancy house, or five-star vacations. With that realization,
you’ll be able to consider a far wider and perhaps more rewarding range of careers than you otherwise may have.
Agree/Disagree with the author's thoughts? Overall I agree
=======================================================================
Also contributing to America’s decline is its descending social norms: For example, integrity among its residents appears to be declining.
Examples: corporate leaders’ financial fraud, athletes cheating by taking performance enhancing drugs, escalating student cheating on exams and adult cheating on taxes, increased “creative writing” on resumes, and clerics’ having sex with children parishioners. Also straining the social fabric are society’s mindmolders — the schools, colleges, and media — who are encouraging people to identify more with people of their race or ethnic group than with people in general, which is straining life in and outside the workplace. That model has led to devastating violence in many societies around the world,
past and present (Sunnis and Shiites, Serbs and Croats, Hutus and Tutsis, Israelis and Palestinians, Irish Catholics and Protestants) and portends to do the same in the U.S. America needs less pluribus and more unum.
Some career implications:
* The retraining business will boom. As Boomers retire and as technology demands increase, employers will be forced to provide or subsidize community-college-based retraining. Employees will see it as the only way to earn more than subsistence wages.
* This is China’s and India’s century. Americans may most easily capitalize by working for U.S. companies with current or intended interests in those countries. Entrepreneurs beware, however. It isn’t easy to do business in those countries without deep in-country connections. Eastern
156 Part I: Finding Your Cool Career, Right Here Europe, only now fully embracing capitalism, may offer better entrepreneurial opportunities. For example, a client of mine set up a medical
journal publishing company in Poland. Another conducts corporate training in Hungary. Both of those fields are fairly saturated in the United States but less so in Eastern Europe. Both clients are now millionaires.
* Pressures to offshore jobs will increase, and in turn, the need for U.S. employees expert at finding quality employees overseas and in training them to work well with American co-workers and customers will also increase.
* Hiring and salaries will decline in most sectors, but mostly in the private sector. The last bastion of reasonable job security will be in government employment. Exception: Public sentiment and decreased tax revenues will usher in a new era of U.S. isolationism, so employment in the military-industrial complex will decline.
* A small number of interesting jobs may exist in corporate foundations — the entities that companies create to give away money to nonprofit causes.
* Public schools will, in ever-more locales, become unacceptable to middle-class families. This will increase demand for private schools and home-schooling consultants. In just the last 20 years, the number of homeschooled children has grown from 300,000 to two million!
* People will cocoon more. Traffic and crime will likely increase. So, as home-based entertainment gets more impressive, people will choose to spend more discretionary time at home. Careers involved in making home environments more pleasant (for example, home remodeling) should benefit.
* The middle class will shrink and the lower class will expand. This will give rise to government policies to redistribute wealth downward and/or increased social unrest, such as youth riots like those seen in France in 2006. Thus, government careers assisting (or resisting) the poor should increase.
* Increasing numbers of middle-class and wealthy Americans will relocate to Asia, and to less volatile English-speaking countries, such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Specialists in helping people to relocate will be needed.
* More people will need to learn to find happiness without materialism. They will need to come to realize that the life well led comes far more from good work and good relationships than from expensive jewelry, a luxury car, a fancy house, or five-star vacations. With that realization,
you’ll be able to consider a far wider and perhaps more rewarding range of careers than you otherwise may have.
