ECONOMICS
Advertising
This is an area of interest that I would probably rate somewhere beneath the topic of war or pestilence. One thing I learned in targeting this subject area is that when it comes to advertising, at one time or another, we have all been victims.
One of the most insidious forms of advertising is the "buy XXXX because XXXX provides something more than our competitor brand YYYY does." Then of course YYYY advertises that they do something else better than the XXXX product does because of their secret ingredient.
You as a consumer become involved in taking sides, whether you want to or not. You find yourself standing in the store trying to determine, not only which is better, but if you need more of that extra ingredient in XXXX or more of that secret ingredient in YYYY.
What you don't know, and would be utterly surprised by, is that these two apparently hard-core competitors, XXXX and YYYY, are actually owned by the same consortium of individuals in the first place, that XXXX and YYYY are essentially the same, and the whole idea was to make you feel like you needed one or the other, whether you did or you didn't. There are at least six companies I know of that are presently doing this. I won't name them here, because I can't afford the lawsuit.
Numerous companies are and have been using subliminals for advertising purposes. One of the difficulties in addressing this as a problem is a lack of understanding of what "subliminal influence" means. One of the myths is that it operates something like a quick frame inserted within the ad that says something like "You have to go out and buy XXXX now!" This could not be farther from the truth. Attempts to utilize such crude methods would be doomed to failure. This is not how subliminal influence operates.
Let's say that I have a new kind of snack food that I want people to buy. It basically consists of dough in the form of a cakelike circle, covered with a very general tomato sauce, and some kind of meat like ground beef, all tacked together with cheese—pretty simple and very cheap to manufacture, certainly nothing special.
The first thing I do is a survey to find out what the latest teenage buzzword is for snack food. Let's assume it's “munchies ." So I call this new product "Munch'ets—The power snack." I then hire some people to find out what kind of music teenagers like to listen to when they are snacking. I bring this into my advertising background. I might study a couple of hundred kids so that I can understand what keys off hunger. Maybe hunger is predominantly keyed off by the color red. I now have my wrapper. I also notice kids are clock watchers, the closer they get to six o'clock, the more they listen for the dinner bell. So on goes a picture of a clock face that reads ten minutes to six.
By the time this snack food hits the streets, I've got a firm handle on at least seven or eight major buttons that motivate teenagers to eat something. It is no surprise that they now begin to pester their parents to pick this new snack food up the next time they go to the store.
Even better, I might use some subtle technique that influences the parents to buy it as a means for "making their kids happy and more appreciative of their parents." Talk about subtle.
But that isn't all. Having embedded very subliminal messages within the wrapping, color, music, and pictures, I now add the coup de grace—fear. If your kids don't eat this, they are not getting some essential vitamin that makes them smarter, faster, or more energetic than any of the others. Fear alone will nearly double sales of most products.
How many times have you heard phrases like "more doctors choose," or "highly recommended by family physicians"?
Don't think about the product, but simply stop for a moment and think about what these phrases actually mean to you, what effect they might be having on you emotionally. Then consider how many times a day you hear them, or phrases like them.
I'm not implying that advertisers are doing anything wrong by using such techniques to get us to buy something.
What I am saying is that we are bombarded by these things on an hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute basis, through the media, visually and auditorially. We live our day in proximity to newspapers, magazines,, radio, television, and billboards.
Attempts to shut all those influences out will meet with some success, but then you will be subjected to them secondhand. Recommendations from neighbors, pressure from your peers, and what you see others doing spreads the news equally as well.
Since our world, particularly in capitalistic societies, is completely driven and dependent on sales, national production, and successful profiteering, none of this is going away.
At the beginning of the new millennium, a number of large advertising agencies will begin to purchase their own cable television stations. The reason for this will be apparent by 2005; advertising will become an integral part of the shows that are produced for viewing on these channels.
Seeing our favorite actors/actresses using a specific product within the context of the program will encourage us, ever so subtly, to purchase the product.
As a result, by 2010, there will be a major increase in legal battles between companies over "trademarks." So, now would be a good time to begin registering them, with particular attention to their "gestalt" or overall silhouette, with clarity at a distance, or significant color being important issues.
Internet service providers are already being targeted by major advertising agencies for listing products. This will become a major investment area by 2005.
By 2030, advertising with paper (magazines, newspapers, catalogues, through the mail, etc.) will begin to fade rather rapidly. The primary form of advertising will be through the television screen.
In 2010, the average commercial length will be thirty seconds; by 2020, fifteen seconds; and an all-time low of ten seconds or less by 2050. More of the message will be delivered visually than by sound or through entertaining story lines.
Subscriptions to magazines and newspapers will begin to be handled via encrypted Internet links by 2010, a trend that will not go unnoticed by advertisers. As you sit in front of your computer in the year 2015 reading your favorite article, segmented advertising will be flashing across a strip at the upper and low portions of the screen.
Advertisements will begin to appear in the sky over large cities by night, sometime between 2017 and 2019. Complex, interlaced, multilaser holographic displays will dance off clouds in all the primary colors. At first a great novelty, by 2055 the night sky will be filled with them, much like the neon billboards of today.
Since Global Positioning System equipment will be a standard option for most automobiles by 2012, it will only take a minor modification to use it for advertising. When traveling by auto, you will be able to turn the system on and receive local (within 1000-foot radius) broadcasts from hotels, restaurants, and other facilities, hawking their offerings, prices, and amenities. Today's special is . . . and for only $22.95 . . . only place in town that . . . a hot tub in every room . . . etc. These advertisements will be visual as well as auditory.
Banking
By 2030, there will only be four major banks in America. Their primary competition in most cities will be local credit unions.
Written checks will virtually disappear by 2055. All money transactions will be made by card and electronic thumb- or fingerprint scans at machines.
In 2070, nearly all of the Fortune 2000 corporations will be dealing in home and business mortgaging. Low-income home mortgages will be primarily "government issued." These mortgages will not be person dependent but family dependent. Rather than buying the home outright, families will qualify to live in and maintain them for a percentage of their income. This will make housing affordable for those who are presently unable to buy a home. When the homeowner (s) die, by law they will be able to leave their home to any of their children. If they have no children, then they may leave it to any other blood relative who is willing to maintain it. The mortgage payment will vary, going up or down according to the amount of income received. Because the mortgage payments will be so low, the life of the mortgage will be the life of the home.
A large banking and insurance corporation will attempt to merge in 2008, but will be prevented from doing so by the federal government.
Banking laws will undergo a long string of changes between 2007 and 2025. These issues will primarily have to do with international trade and the specific controls surrounding the movement of large sums of money (between banks)—which will be tightened; the maximum and minimum rate of interest that banks can charge on credit and the method on which it is based; a limitation by law on actions banks can take to recoup losses to individuals—these will not apply to businesses. Accessibility to certain bank records (those records not pertinent to an individual citizen's account) without warrant will be expanded.
By 2040 the responsibility for maintaining an individual's correct credit history will shift to the institutions keeping these records. This will be a result of a number of class-action suits brought between 2028 and 2040.
Individual Retirement Account planning and management will become a big banking business by 2045.
Banks will begin to accept promissory notes for organ donations as collateral for loans after 2030. These will be limited as to which organs.
Financial
According to the current news, a common monetary system will finally be in place within Europe by the year 2000. I predict that it will fluctuate wildly for the first five to seven years. This will have a severe effect on trade with non-European countries. Economies hardest hit as a result will be Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Korea, and China.
We can expect to see a long slide in the stock market (Wall Street) beginning within the next three to six years (probably actually starting around September of 2001.)
There won't be a stock market crash as occurred in the late 1920s, because actions will be taken very swiftly to prevent this from occurring. However, defaults on loans made by, as well as to the United States will increase five to sixfold. Every American can be expected to feel the effects of this in a major way by the year 2003.
As this begins to occur, world productivity will be affected. America is the land of consumers. We buy an enormous amount of goods on an annual basis. As our consumption rate radically falls going into the new millennium, scores of overseas suppliers will begin to feel the cutbacks. Many of the world's economies will suffer as a result. Those who will suffer the most are those who are already feeling the economic crunch.
Inflation will rise significantly in many of the nations we do business with, as well as within our own borders. As a result, interest rates will soar, and the numbers of personal and small business bankruptcies will increase exponentially.
The coming war (see section on war) in the Middle East will add to the problem. Costs will be devastating. By 20102012, most Western countries will be suffering economically. Americans won't see relief until perhaps 2075-2080.
The United States will go to a new form of currency by the year 2030. It will vary in size and color, based on denomination. This new currency will predate a North American currency shift by twenty-five years.
Mexico, Canada, and the United States will go to a common currency by 2040. To stabilize the new currency, banks within all three countries will sign agreements of alliance, which will restrict interest and loan rates between countries, and establish certain loan and security agreements.
Before the end of the next century, there will be formal discussions regarding a world currency shift. The new world currency will be based on rates established by a New World Financial Commission, a program initiated by the top ten world financial powers. It will take as long as twenty years to hash out the first steps toward an agreement, and to completely scrub world politics from financial reform. The effect on world trade will be more than significant. Japan and China will play a major part in this reform.
Food Production
There are a number of things that directly affect the production of food: technology, both the kind that's being used to produce the food as well as the kind that addresses the problems that may arise during production—like pests and diseases; the weather; the availability of water; and the ratio of available and appropriate land to end product output—how much land it takes to raise a pig, a cow, or grow a soybean. At present, we are capable of feeding all the citizens within the United States. There are some countries where this is already not possible. If it were not for the more than heroic efforts of a great deal of people and companies who deal directly with these problems, most of us would already be hungry more days than not.
As an example, most people do not realize that it is only recently (within the past twenty years), that small changes in the genetic structure of rice has enabled a near sixfold increase in world rice production, without requiring ever-increasing amounts of land to be set aside. If these changes in the rice plants had not taken place, a large segment of the world's population would already be dying.
If the chances of hearing a songbird in your yard today are 1 in 10; by the year 2075, they will be reduced to 1 in 1,000, as a direct result of food production methods being utilized.
Within the classification schedule for birds there are thirty-three orders (if one counts suborders). By the end of the twenty-first century, three complete orders will have vanished, along with at least fourteen families, and ninety species of birds, all affected by fertilizers and poisons.
By 2040, two species of turtles will have gone the way of the dodo, because of overfishing.
Also as a result of overfishing, some fish will be considered an extreme rarity (if they are not extinct) by the year
2050: the paddle fish, twenty-five species of salmon, trout, char, and whitefish, at least twenty species of cod, six species of tuna, two species of marlin, and two species of sunfish.
While not yet a food source, over two hundred and fifty new species of cockroaches will be discovered in the next fifty years. One will be found to have a tolerance for extreme heat (150°F or more) and a taste for plastics. Consideration of using these insects as a food source for other animals we do eat will become of interest around 2035.
The expansion of the human species will exceed its ability to feed itself by mid-year 2039. This almost seems a ridiculous statement in light of the fact that there are already hungry and starving people in over 90 percent of the world's nations.
There will be dramatic changes in weather that will begin to take place in a significant way between 2022 and 2026. At present, it seems as though the winters are getting milder and the summers a bit hotter. That is exactly what is happening. Summers will begin to get even hotter; as a result they will become even drier, with little or no rain. Winters will become much wetter, with heavy snows. This will have a twofold effect on crops. It will result in the northern spring thaws being delayed further and further south on a year-to-year basis, and the ultra dry summers will result in unexpected erosion of top soil and accelerate the expansion of desert into current crop areas.
By 2028, the average world temperature will have risen two degrees. While this will have in effect moved the second crop-growing season approximately 200 kilometers to the north of where it now resides, further food production won't be possible because the additional heat will reduce the amount of available water by at least 30 percent.
New discoveries in the area of plant genetics between 2019 and 2021 will help boost food production by a sufficient percentage that we do not actually begin to lose ground until 2039.
Water will become a major issue for farmers beginning 2008 to 2014. Existing water sources for food production are already stretched to their limit. Accessing new sources of water will require new rules and regulations regarding water usage for other purposes.
A new strain of rice that thrives on heavier concentrations of saltwater or salt-affected brackish water will be developed by the year 2009. This will increase rice output by as much as 30 percent in the first five years. Other grains will be affected by this same technology within ten years of this date.
By 2021, many large communities will begin to construct wastewater delivery systems to pump the treated city wastewater back onto local farms. The high levels of nitrogen will be good for the crops, but bad for the streams adjacent. Many of the insect, bird, and fish species supported by these natural waterways will be irreparably damaged as a result.
In the year 2050, new methods of sewage processing will be unveiled that not only work more efficiently and better, but from which the by-products become a near 90 percent reusable source of food production materials—providing water, fertilizer, and even power to the cities running these systems.
Six new hybrid fruits will have been discovered by 2015. Seven hybrid root crops will be genetically manufactured by the year 2020.
Grain production in North America, including Canada, will increase 28 percent by 2045, even with the large reductions in tillable land and the shortage of water resulting from the major weather changes. This will be accomplished by genetically encouraging a stronger grain stalk. With the stronger stalk, it will be able to bear a substantial increase in fruit or seed, perhaps as much as 40 percent.
Because of the demand for larger growing areas, there will be a conscious change by American farmers in their choice of food production. Fewer animals will be grazed on land that can be used for high-yield crops. In 2025, the price of beef will have doubled from its present value per pound. By 2075, beef on any table will be an extreme rarity reserved only for the wealthy.
Fish farms will become a planned-in portion of any farm's operation by the year 2050.
Genetically altered, fast-growing fish from the carp family will be introduced to the family table in 2035. These fish will grow an amazing twelve to sixteen inches, and four to seven pounds per year in relatively small and crowded tanks. They will essentially eat by-products from food-type plant processing—grass clippings and animal manure. Wastewater from these fish-production units will be used on crops as part of an end-of-the-cycle water management program that will begin in the same year.
Those who own a pair of ostriches should hang on to them. This will be the bird of choice for food by 2025. It produces huge amounts of low-cholesterol meat and can be fed those roaches I talked about earlier, along with mush concocted from grain (like soybeans), grasshoppers (raised on weeds), and earthworms (raised on sewage mixed with plant byproducts). Ostrich feathers can be used for numerous things, and their skin is as tough as any leather.
The single greatest leap in food production will have to do with Euascomycetae and Homobasidiomycetae—morels, truffles, and mushrooms. By 2020, large sections of old mines, government-owned forest floor, and land adjacent to sewage plants will be leased to mushroom growers. In 2035, mushrooms will be advertised as a highly nutritious meat replacement in some meals. Mushrooms are a product that can be cultured and grown on much of the current waste product coming from the production of other foods.
Insurance
By 2050, only one company in America will carry flood insurance—the federal government.
The cost of the average automobile insurance policy will double by the year 2050. One of the ways of reducing automobile insurance will be to sign a waiver refusing insurance against theft. People with "nonvalued" transportation will then get the break.
An insurance company will actually sue one of its own customers between 2010 and 2012 to recoup funds paid out for a drunken-driving fatality.
Term life policies above $25,000 will be twice as hard to qualify for in 2025, three times as difficult by 2050. After 2075, most companies will no longer sell life insurance. It will have been taken over by other investment practices that pay out higher returns.
Manufacturing
All privately owned aircraft within North America will either be experimental or self-constructed by 2075.
Seventy-five percent of all the materials utilized in the manufacture of a house will have to come from recycling by 2050.
A new form of concrete will appear between 2018 and 2020, for use as a roofing material and as an ingredient for walkways. Light to dark gray, it will contain recycled plastics and a significant amount of shredded tires. Nearly indestructible, it will weigh about half as much as current roofing tiles, but last five times longer.
Food irradiation will become the second most popular method for preserving food across the world, by 2050. Many of the foods now requiring freezing or refrigeration (meat, some dairy products, and vegetables), will be sealed in shrink-wrap, irradiated, and be able to withstand temperatures of -30°F to +120°F for periods exceeding one month. This will aid in the distribution of food to Third World countries.
The first automobile constructed entirely from high-impact plastic (except, of course, for the engine and transmission) and for use by the public will be manufactured in 2021.
In 2055 tax breaks will be offered to manufacturing companies based on a rise in their production.
By the middle of the next century, most manufacturing will be accomplished in Africa, South America, and China—least to most, respectively. North America, Europe, and the Far East will be primarily consumers.
There will be manned manufacturing companies established and operating on the surface of the Moon in 2055. Automated manufacturing will be taking place on the surface of Mars and on at least two moons circling another planet by 2075.
A large man-made island will be constructed off the coast of Japan, where manufacturing and industry will be operating above and beneath the sea.
Retailing
In 2070, there will be 75 percent fewer retailers. Direct sales from manufacturers to customers by electronic means will eliminate the need for the retail sales store.
By 2035-2040, most retailers will operate one on one with their customers, consulting directly and personally for sales. Services, as well as things like the selection of clothing, home furnishings, and even food menus, will be handled by retailers who bring them to the customer in a personalized way.
Streamlined manufacturing processes, a severe reduction in resources, and the need to eliminate waste will reduce retail inventories by 90 percent by the year 2040. By 2070, the average customer who needs a pair of shoes will make an appointment with a shoe consultant who will then come to their home and measure their feet. Information regarding the customer's size, desire for design, color preference, and material for the shoes will be forwarded instantly to the manufacturer, who will then produce the shoes and deliver them back to the customer. The entire process will take less than twenty-four hours, and in some cases much less. Payment to the consultant (retailer), the manufacturer, the delivery system, and taxes will all occur automatically and at the same time, at time of purchase.
In 2050, there will be limits on retail sales for some products. A customer's ability to purchase another, or like, item at some future date will be dependent on his or her history of recycling. The retailers who sell the specific item being controlled will maintain a recycling history on customers.
Initially, controlled items will be things like cars, boats, appliances, etc., and there will be a differentiation between those items used for home or office. Eventually, these histories will be expanded to include not only items returned for recycling, but lists of items (materials) consumed. The result? By the year 2075, people will be making conscious decisions on where they would like to spend their "wood allowance"—on a new desk or a new bed. By the dawn of the new century, 2100, people will take pride in their ability to live under Spartan conditions—a small area, minimal furniture, and a single closet for their belongings.
Stock Markets
This is probably the one area for which I have received the most requests for information over the past four or five years. Of course the single biggest questions are "Is it going to crash? When is it going to crash?"
Unlike many who make stock market predictions, I will not equivocate about how I feel about it as a subject. In my opinion, I think it is just one more form of gambling. The market depends on the rise in gross national product as well as the amount of investments being made by people. So there are two truths about the market that will never change:
1) There will always be winners, and there will always be losers.
2) The losers will always outnumber the winners.
In addition, there is a third truth, which everyone should know going in. Stockbrokers will always make money. If the market goes up or down, they make money selling, and they make money buying. Whether you win or lose, they make money. Of course, the amount of money they make is certainly dependent on the numbers of customers they can or can't keep. But, on their worst day, they will make money and a lot of it. They are like the "house" in Vegas.
Having said all that, what happens in the stock market is a direct reflection of the health of the nation. Other countries look at our stock market on a day-to-day basis and make judgments on investing or not investing based on what it is doing. They have their own markets as well. So, there is a certain amount of interaction between markets. When another market suffers a significant fall or enjoys a sudden rise, it eventually affects all the other markets to which it is connected.
Aside from this, there is one more major point you need to know. The markets of the world are not just large amebic and mindless entities that sort of follow the vagaries of economic climate. They are also affected in a great way by some very powerful individuals who can, at almost any time, shake them to their core. They can do this by simply raising or lowering the interest rate half a point.
So, if you are looking for guarantees, and you want your savings to be absolutely safe, my recommendation is do not invest in the stock market.
There will be three major historical drops in the American market over the next hundred years. One will begin to occur late in the year 2006. The primary reason for this fall will be a war in the Middle East. This will have a disastrous effect on the European market, which in turn will affect ours.
A second will begin to occur in 2029, following record climatic changes that will affect resources and food production, both having a major negative impact on manufacturing and unemployment. Failures in the Far East market will signal the beginning of this fall.
The third will begin in the year 2056, but I have not been able to ascertain the reasons. I get a sense that there will actually be significant changes in the way the market operates, resulting in this fall to a new point of balance. It could be that the United States market will in some way merge with or be combined with another large market at that time. There will be other downturns in the market, which are not as significant. These will occur in mid-2000, 2017, 2039, and 2070.
Just as things go down, there are times when things will go up. The two greatest rises in market will be just prior to two of the most significant falls: 2020 and 2050. I've always been a little suspect of these dates for two reasons: they are even dates, and I can't seem to isolate a specific reason for either.
There will be smaller and more long-term rises in the market as well. We are currently in one now, at the expense of our friends in the Far East, and others will occur in 2022, 2031, 2059, and 2088.
Futures on commodities will expand in a big way (more commodities added) between 2005 and 2035. The most significant commodities will be those having to do with materials required in support of alloys necessary to transportation and electronics. Commodities that go into the production of plastics will remain fairly constant through the next fifty years.
The most volatile commodities will be food. Changes in climate will affect this area heavily from now through the year 2070.
The most expansive long-term investment areas will take place in the exploitation of space and space-based resources, like mining and the manufacture of new alloys based on resources mined.
The most expansive Earth-bound investment area will have to do with sea-born construction (the creation of cities, manufacturing facilities, and farms on the water along the coasts.)
Transportation
By the year 2035, the first high-temperature, electromagnetic monorail system will be operating between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Because of its success, new high-speed monorail systems (trains traveling in excess of 350 miles per hour), will be constructed between Boston and Washington, D.C.; Miami and Atlanta; and St. Louis and Chicago.
By 2075, high-speed monorail systems will also be constructed between Montreal and Toronto; Moscow and Kiev; Moscow and St. Petersburg; Moscow and Rostov; Lisbon and Madrid; Berlin and Munchen, via Frankfurt; and Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
High-speed trains (not monorails) that travel at speeds exceeding 125 miles per hour will be built in many of the other countries around the world, e.g., connecting the cities of Madras, Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta, in India; Hanoi to Thanh-Pho Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Bangkok, Thailand, and Viangehan, Laos, etc.
By 2035, nearly all intercontinental flights will be at supersonic speeds. However, these planes will not produce shock waves. New technology will permit flight at speeds in excess of mach three, with very little air disturbance.
In 2075, NASA will have an operational ground-to-space plane, which will operate from runways, travel into space, and return. This will allow for space flight access to civilians.
These planes will service satellites in low orbit, as well as supply and maintain the new Multinational Space Platform.
Please note that I believe this plane already exists, but is currently classified. In its current configuration (see drawing below), there are problems with shock-wave interactions on reentry, as well as with the current experimental engine design.
The engine currently has a "morphing" capability, by which it changes its appearance and operation radically while in flight. These issues will be ironed out by 2020, and the plane will be declassified by 2025. The reason for its eventual declassification will be a radical new concept in propulsion that will not be shared with civilians until the early 2050s.
By the year 2050, travel between cities will employ a new form of fan-jet, which will halve the current fuel consumption and produce less than one-fourth the pollution of a standard intercity jet or turboprop of today.
Takeoff and landing requirements will be reduced by over half, resulting from a type of "morphing" (deforming and reforming) wing design while in flight. Inherent in these designs will be the elimination of icing as an in-flight problem during winter operation.
These radical new designs will also reduce the rough ride characteristics associated with air anomalies—in particular wind shear.
By 2010, two manufacturers will unveil a new type of helicopter that will operate as a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle that will operate as a fixed-wing aircraft. Unlike the current models that operate by rotating the lifting props from a horizontal to a vertical position, this particular aircraft will shift its lifting drive to a horizontal drive mechanism, freezing the lifting props into a fixed or lifting wing configuration (see drawings next page).
Sometime around the year 2026, auto manufacturers will unveil two new types of engines. Both will operate based on a kinetic energy storage system using a type of flywheel, married to a hybrid engine. One will be powered by hydrogen, which it will actually separate from an on-board water supply, and one will be electrically powered and based on a new form of long-term electrical storage system, having to do with an exotic metallic/chemical alloy or mix.
With the completion of its new dam, China will begin investing huge sums in the development of intercity transportation by electric passenger car sometime after 2025.
By 2025, there will be at least four cities in America that forbid the use of vehicles other than bicycles inside their city limits (with the exception of vehicles used for delivery of materials and supplies, of course). By 2060, this will have spread to over a third of the cities in America with populations exceeding 4 million.
