by
Adam Taggart
Premium Archives
by
charleshughsmith
Executive Summary
- The Matrix of Work & the 5 Forms of Value Creation
- The essential elements of the future's ideal work environment
- How mobility creates career security
- How to start switching from "work" to "work that matters"
If you have not yet read Part I: Escaping the Rat-Race available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we reviewed the forces of structural change in the economy and the nature of work. In Part 2, we’ll cover the matrix of work (how to create value in the age of automation) and discuss specific strategies for building a resilient career you control.
The Matrix of Work
In the traditional capital/labor model, labor is paid by the hour to perform routine work. In the emerging economy, routine work is increasingly performed by machines or outsourced. In this environment, the premium for human labor arises from creating value and solving problems.
The tool I use to understand this premium is the matrix of work, which is the overlay of the five forms of value creation: non-process-based work, high touch, non-tradable work, sensitivity of the output to mastery and flexibility.
Let’s start with commodification: when goods or services can be traded interchangeably across the globe, these become commodities, as opposed to one-of-a-kind goods and services unique to one small-scale producer. A Fuji apple from Washington State is the same as a Fuji apple from overseas in terms of its tradability and retail value.
Labor can also be commoditized: if human labor is being sold as time performing basic skills, then the time and basic skills can be bought and sold interchangeably around the world.
Work that is process-based is easily automated or commoditized, meaning that it can be performed anywhere by interchangeable laborers. Process-based work can be broken down into tasks that take a specifiable input and yield a specifiable output.
One way to avoid being commoditized out of a job is…
How The Nature of Work Is Changing
PREVIEW by charleshughsmithExecutive Summary
- The Matrix of Work & the 5 Forms of Value Creation
- The essential elements of the future's ideal work environment
- How mobility creates career security
- How to start switching from "work" to "work that matters"
If you have not yet read Part I: Escaping the Rat-Race available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we reviewed the forces of structural change in the economy and the nature of work. In Part 2, we’ll cover the matrix of work (how to create value in the age of automation) and discuss specific strategies for building a resilient career you control.
The Matrix of Work
In the traditional capital/labor model, labor is paid by the hour to perform routine work. In the emerging economy, routine work is increasingly performed by machines or outsourced. In this environment, the premium for human labor arises from creating value and solving problems.
The tool I use to understand this premium is the matrix of work, which is the overlay of the five forms of value creation: non-process-based work, high touch, non-tradable work, sensitivity of the output to mastery and flexibility.
Let’s start with commodification: when goods or services can be traded interchangeably across the globe, these become commodities, as opposed to one-of-a-kind goods and services unique to one small-scale producer. A Fuji apple from Washington State is the same as a Fuji apple from overseas in terms of its tradability and retail value.
Labor can also be commoditized: if human labor is being sold as time performing basic skills, then the time and basic skills can be bought and sold interchangeably around the world.
Work that is process-based is easily automated or commoditized, meaning that it can be performed anywhere by interchangeable laborers. Process-based work can be broken down into tasks that take a specifiable input and yield a specifiable output.
One way to avoid being commoditized out of a job is…
by
JHK
Executive Summary
- Understanding the broken narratives we are telling ourselves about:
- Energy
- The Economy
- Our Education system
- Financial markets
- Western exceptionalism
- And why we will continue to hurdle farther off course until we decide to look at our situation truthfully
If you have not yet read Part 1: Reality-Optional Economics available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
It is in the interest of healthy adults to remain sane, even when the powerful matrix of society is going crazy around them. I don’t think you can overstate the capacity of societies to go crazy. We still marvel at the murderous cruelty of Germany and Russia in the mid-20th century, the sickening slide into industrial barbarism, and the technical proficiency they achieved in pursuit of their lunatic ends. And what provoked those terrible journeys into collective madness? Isn’t it part of the horror that no explanation seems to suffice. They were both losers in the First World War. Boo hoo. Many societies sober up when they lose a war. Both opted for organized mass murder instead. Joseph Stalin summed up Russia’s collective psyche in that period when he said, “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” The regime that promoted that particular view of the human condition lasted seventy years and then dissipated like a mere bad dream, an extremely fortunate outcome for Russia, and not so easy to account for, either.
And so what of us in this new century, faced with the gravely serious problems of resource scarcity, ecocide, climate uncertainty, demographic stress, cultural breakdown, and financial bedlam? How do we…
On The Fast Track to Crisis
PREVIEW by JHKExecutive Summary
- Understanding the broken narratives we are telling ourselves about:
- Energy
- The Economy
- Our Education system
- Financial markets
- Western exceptionalism
- And why we will continue to hurdle farther off course until we decide to look at our situation truthfully
If you have not yet read Part 1: Reality-Optional Economics available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
It is in the interest of healthy adults to remain sane, even when the powerful matrix of society is going crazy around them. I don’t think you can overstate the capacity of societies to go crazy. We still marvel at the murderous cruelty of Germany and Russia in the mid-20th century, the sickening slide into industrial barbarism, and the technical proficiency they achieved in pursuit of their lunatic ends. And what provoked those terrible journeys into collective madness? Isn’t it part of the horror that no explanation seems to suffice. They were both losers in the First World War. Boo hoo. Many societies sober up when they lose a war. Both opted for organized mass murder instead. Joseph Stalin summed up Russia’s collective psyche in that period when he said, “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” The regime that promoted that particular view of the human condition lasted seventy years and then dissipated like a mere bad dream, an extremely fortunate outcome for Russia, and not so easy to account for, either.
And so what of us in this new century, faced with the gravely serious problems of resource scarcity, ecocide, climate uncertainty, demographic stress, cultural breakdown, and financial bedlam? How do we…
by
charleshughsmith
Executive Summary
- Understanding the importance of the 'Smith Market Uncertainty Principle'
- Technical analysis techniques for identifying the arrival of a market reversal
- Bollinger bands
- volatility
- moving averages
- Using the above indicators to know when to sell
If you have not yet read The Approaching Inevitable Market Reversal, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we reviewed the case for the Fed-enforced New Normal of “no more downturns” and the case for a trend reversal in the stock market.
In this Part 2, we consider signs that a trend reversal has taken hold.
The Mechanics of Manipulation
Let’s briefly review the mechanics of stock market manipulation. It’s easiest to manipulate a low-volatility, low-volume market, as low volatility (i.e. complacency) lowers the risk premium in index options, and a low-volume market is influenced by the purchase of relatively modest blocks of index options. As a result, the Fed or its proxies can prop up the markets with large purchases of index options that cost very little in comparison to the overall size of the market. (Recall each option leverages 100 shares of the index or stock.)
The other way to manipulate the market is to intervene at the critical technical levels that money managers and trading computers are watching. Every well-known technical system has been programmed into the trading bots, the majority of which appear to be trend-followers: if the market reverses at key technical levels (due to massive blocks of index options buying, for example), then the bots start buying the uptrend.
Since the vast majority of trading is now done by machines, this greatly simplifies the process of manipulation: the manipulator need only defend key technical levels with mass purchases of leveraged index options and the trading bots will jump in and buy the uptick.
Experienced traders have seen this sort of activity countless times in the past five years. It has become predictable that…
The Signals That Will Tell Us A Stock Market Reversal Is Imminent
PREVIEW by charleshughsmithExecutive Summary
- Understanding the importance of the 'Smith Market Uncertainty Principle'
- Technical analysis techniques for identifying the arrival of a market reversal
- Bollinger bands
- volatility
- moving averages
- Using the above indicators to know when to sell
If you have not yet read The Approaching Inevitable Market Reversal, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we reviewed the case for the Fed-enforced New Normal of “no more downturns” and the case for a trend reversal in the stock market.
In this Part 2, we consider signs that a trend reversal has taken hold.
The Mechanics of Manipulation
Let’s briefly review the mechanics of stock market manipulation. It’s easiest to manipulate a low-volatility, low-volume market, as low volatility (i.e. complacency) lowers the risk premium in index options, and a low-volume market is influenced by the purchase of relatively modest blocks of index options. As a result, the Fed or its proxies can prop up the markets with large purchases of index options that cost very little in comparison to the overall size of the market. (Recall each option leverages 100 shares of the index or stock.)
The other way to manipulate the market is to intervene at the critical technical levels that money managers and trading computers are watching. Every well-known technical system has been programmed into the trading bots, the majority of which appear to be trend-followers: if the market reverses at key technical levels (due to massive blocks of index options buying, for example), then the bots start buying the uptrend.
Since the vast majority of trading is now done by machines, this greatly simplifies the process of manipulation: the manipulator need only defend key technical levels with mass purchases of leveraged index options and the trading bots will jump in and buy the uptick.
Experienced traders have seen this sort of activity countless times in the past five years. It has become predictable that…
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