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Originally Posted by Bucco
I share your fond memories of the past for sure.
HOWEVER, someday we must recognize that the world is always changing, and always "shrinking". Technological advances are spearheading the changes and despite many attempts to change it, it "aint" going to happen.
Those who cannot see the changes and are inflexible will be those left behind. Sears was the "everything" store but that was before the Home Depot, Lowe's and Costco's were in existence.
This is a section of an interview with Thomas Friedman that pretty much touches on all that is happening.
"But my friend David Rothkopf, former under-secretary of commerce , says that most jobs are not being outsourced to India or China, they are being outsourced to the past. There's someone who was working as a counter employee for Southwest Airlines who probably doesn't have their job now, because I can go on my own computer and download my own boarding pass on to Southwest. So many more jobs are destroyed by Schumpeter [referring to economist Joseph Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction of companies brought by the march of capitalism] than are destroyed by India. They're destroyed by creative destruction and technological change. Thirty percent of Americans worked in agriculture in 1900. Where is that now? Somehow the economy has absorbed that, as long as you have an economy full of innovation. The other strategy has been tried; it's been tried in places like Germany. And look at all the problems they have, the chronic unemployment that they have, and the place is full of cushions, full of social welfare programs. But meanwhile, they have this chronic unemployment.
Globalization 3.0 Has Shrunk the World to Size Tiny | YaleGlobal Online
This interview took place about 15 years ago, but he nailed it. |
Thank you for Tom Freidman ......... the earth is flat. Great writer and thinker.
I know, of course, that you are right. Have to move with the times, but the urban blight we leave behind is horrendous. In the late 80s we were sent to work in the UK and my otherhalf had to travel the length of the UK every week, I often went with him and saw the huge factories that had closed and were left to just crumble away. Hate to think that our high streets might come to that.