We’ve begun a new chapter in the world financial order. The parameters for how wealth will be created, have changed forever.
Two hundred years ago, a man worked with the sweat of his brow to generate a living. The extent of his physical capacity determined how much he would eat. He committed his efforts to the land—tilling and harvesting with the strength of his arms and legs.
A hundred years ago, things changed. The industrial revolution was the time period in which the efforts of several men created a total effort greater than the sum of the individual efforts. We manufactured and mass produced, enabling the standard of living to rise for much of the world’s population, in a very short period of time.
Humanity then entered the next phase of economic development where the products man created would grow in value over time. Real estate, “a bricks and mortar” expression, of man’s creativity and knowledge, would exist and appreciate in value decades after it was originally constructed. These results of man’s labor would dramatically outlive the men who built them.
The era of technology followed. With unparalleled tools, man’s efficiencies were multiplied, and the gathering and streamlining of man’s knowledge provided resources for the success of others—those completely unrelated to the originators.
Then came the last quarter of 2008, when the modern world experienced a financial collapse unrivaled since the Great Depression; the bedrocks of personal wealth and security were permanently undermined. This financial meltdown was, and remains, dramatically more complex than those that preceded it as a result of the multi-layered integration of a global economy. Read the rest of this entry »