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Podcast

by charleshughsmith

The Skills Most Likely To Be In Demand

by Charles Hugh Smith, contributing editor
Monday, November 28, 2011

Executive Summary

  • The New Paradigm For Job Security
  • Unlocking Value By Removing Systemic ‘Friction’
  • Examples of Promising Business Models
  • The Skills That Will Be In High Demand
  • Why Changing Your Behavior Will Be as Important as Re-Skilling

Part I: The Future Of Jobs

If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Part II: The Skills Most Likely To Be In Demand

The New Paradigm for Job Security

The coming decade will turn many long-standing ideas about work and employment on their heads.

For example, in the current Status Quo, inflexibility and resistance to change are the hallmarks of secure employment. Institutional employment is “guaranteed” by contracts, and institutional resistance to change is viewed as a guarantee of secure employment.

In the near future, these brittle forms of security will prove chimerical, as the very rigidity and resistance to change that characterizes institutions renders them increasingly prone to disruption and collapse. The very traits which are currently viewed as protectors of security will be revealed as the causes of insecurity. Flexibility and adaptability—what are now viewed as hallmarks of insecurity—will slowly be recognized as the sources of real security. These include flex-time, free-lance labor, small, local enterprises and self-organizing networks.

The Skills Most Likely To Be In Demand
PREVIEW by charleshughsmith

The Skills Most Likely To Be In Demand

by Charles Hugh Smith, contributing editor
Monday, November 28, 2011

Executive Summary

  • The New Paradigm For Job Security
  • Unlocking Value By Removing Systemic ‘Friction’
  • Examples of Promising Business Models
  • The Skills That Will Be In High Demand
  • Why Changing Your Behavior Will Be as Important as Re-Skilling

Part I: The Future Of Jobs

If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Part II: The Skills Most Likely To Be In Demand

The New Paradigm for Job Security

The coming decade will turn many long-standing ideas about work and employment on their heads.

For example, in the current Status Quo, inflexibility and resistance to change are the hallmarks of secure employment. Institutional employment is “guaranteed” by contracts, and institutional resistance to change is viewed as a guarantee of secure employment.

In the near future, these brittle forms of security will prove chimerical, as the very rigidity and resistance to change that characterizes institutions renders them increasingly prone to disruption and collapse. The very traits which are currently viewed as protectors of security will be revealed as the causes of insecurity. Flexibility and adaptability—what are now viewed as hallmarks of insecurity—will slowly be recognized as the sources of real security. These include flex-time, free-lance labor, small, local enterprises and self-organizing networks.

by Gregor Macdonald

Understanding Where Gold and Silver Go from Here

by Gregor Macdonald, contributing editor
Monday, November 21, 2011

Executive Summary

  • The outlook for precious metals will be heavily influenced by the steps the European Central Bank (ECB) takes in the near future.
  • Understanding the likely price trajectories of the precious metals whether or not central banks resume quantitative easing (QE, a.k.a. money printing)
  • The specific price targets for both gold and silver under the most likely scenarios
  • Underscoring the gravity of our current situation

Part I – The New Price Era of Oil and Gold

If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Part II – Understanding Where Gold and Silver Go from Here

As readers now understand, I am not currently a supporter of higher gold prices as a function of inflation risk. Instead, my view is that we must first move through the various iterations of crisis, collapse, debt default, instability, and policy panic before gold attaches itself to inflation. Yes, I agree with the Paul Brodsky thesis (and the FOFOA thesis) that the foundations of future inflation have already been laid. But it’s also my view that for a severe inflation to unfold, there has to be a collapse in currency demand itself. It would also be necessary for global industrial production to have collapsed down to much lower levels to provide sufficient scarcity of goods. Mind you, I see both of these conditions — rejection of currencies and industrial collapse — as high risk. The two maps I offer here include them.

Mapping the Price Future of Gold and Silver

The first price path I want to share with you is called The Grand QE Cycle. It begins with the resolution to the most pressing question facing markets right here, right now, today: Will the ECB federalize all Eurozone debt?

Based on my own analysis and in consultation with contacts, I concluded for myself weeks ago that the crisis in the EU was becoming increasingly binary. Indeed, it is now fully binary. Either the ECB guides to a new charter or mandate, allowing it to buy unlimited quantities of EU debt, or it follows through on its hard-money threats — and the sovereign debt, which forms the core asset of pension funds, banks, institutions across the EU, will become distressed debt, forcing a cataclysmic purge.

Because this urgent question has not been definitively answered as yet, gold is making its way in volatile fashion towards a price of…

Understanding Where Gold and Silver Go from Here
PREVIEW by Gregor Macdonald

Understanding Where Gold and Silver Go from Here

by Gregor Macdonald, contributing editor
Monday, November 21, 2011

Executive Summary

  • The outlook for precious metals will be heavily influenced by the steps the European Central Bank (ECB) takes in the near future.
  • Understanding the likely price trajectories of the precious metals whether or not central banks resume quantitative easing (QE, a.k.a. money printing)
  • The specific price targets for both gold and silver under the most likely scenarios
  • Underscoring the gravity of our current situation

Part I – The New Price Era of Oil and Gold

If you have not yet read Part I, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Part II – Understanding Where Gold and Silver Go from Here

As readers now understand, I am not currently a supporter of higher gold prices as a function of inflation risk. Instead, my view is that we must first move through the various iterations of crisis, collapse, debt default, instability, and policy panic before gold attaches itself to inflation. Yes, I agree with the Paul Brodsky thesis (and the FOFOA thesis) that the foundations of future inflation have already been laid. But it’s also my view that for a severe inflation to unfold, there has to be a collapse in currency demand itself. It would also be necessary for global industrial production to have collapsed down to much lower levels to provide sufficient scarcity of goods. Mind you, I see both of these conditions — rejection of currencies and industrial collapse — as high risk. The two maps I offer here include them.

Mapping the Price Future of Gold and Silver

The first price path I want to share with you is called The Grand QE Cycle. It begins with the resolution to the most pressing question facing markets right here, right now, today: Will the ECB federalize all Eurozone debt?

Based on my own analysis and in consultation with contacts, I concluded for myself weeks ago that the crisis in the EU was becoming increasingly binary. Indeed, it is now fully binary. Either the ECB guides to a new charter or mandate, allowing it to buy unlimited quantities of EU debt, or it follows through on its hard-money threats — and the sovereign debt, which forms the core asset of pension funds, banks, institutions across the EU, will become distressed debt, forcing a cataclysmic purge.

Because this urgent question has not been definitively answered as yet, gold is making its way in volatile fashion towards a price of…

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