The Bubble to end all Bubbles?
Hands up if you remember the dot com bubble? Or how about the Y2K bubble? Housing bubble? ‘Bubbles’ as they apply to all things economic are little more than an oversupply of positive confidence in a particular area of economic concern. In fact ‘Bubbles’ are caused by the SAME things as ‘Recessions’ just at opposite ends of the spectrum. Where booms and bubbles need an oversupply of (positive) confidence, Recessions (and depressions) also rely on an oversupply of (negative) confidence. And right now we could well be on the verge of the greatest ‘bubble’ we’ve manufactured:
The spending that occured for the Y2K bug and dot coms pales into insignificance compared to the spending being rolled out by Governments around the world in their attempts to counter the so called Global Financial Crisis. In fact, as ‘bubbles’ go, this one is monstrous and dwarfs anything we’ve seen. So a futurist question – what happens when this bubble goes ‘pop’?
What is likely to happen will by and large depend on where abouts the money was spent. Countries (and companies for that matter) that fritter away their cash on short term projects will face disaster, because once this bubble pops, there just won’t be any money left to bail anyone out. But countries (and companies) that spend on three core areas will be much better placed – infrastructure projects that reduce blockages in their supply chains; training to upskill potential employees for the NEXT level of skilled jobs; support projects that cushion the negative impacts on families and local communities as a result of employment and income challenges.
So far it appears the Government focus in Australia will be on infrastructure and on skills training. But what I’m not seeing is the spending on the support programs that will be needed to carry large portions of society through the gap between working and unemployment periods. I’m not seeing the increase in funding for Homeless people, often displaced due to an unexpected loss of income; support for families struggling to feed their children or themselves; families unable to pay car registration and insurances that compound employment challenges.
For companies, the same thing applies. What development projects can you work on that will remove or reduce blockages in your supply chains? Are you going to offload quality workers even though you KNOW that companies that did so in the last recession took far longer and were far less able to return to profitability when the upswing kicked in? Or will you be smart enough to work on inhouse training and Government funded training projects to keep them in touch and involved? What ‘people and family’ activities are you working towards to help local communities of which your staff and their families belong?
Because if you think that right now is the best time to ‘invest’ your money on a new luxury car because they are ‘cheap’ then you’ve probably got your focus on the wrong ‘bubble’. When the Government funding runs out, you’d want to be ready to pick up where the Government leaves off – playing catch-up with staff, skills and infrastructure will be too difficult to do.
Be wise and be precise
Environmental Scanning (ES) is the process of paying attention to the world in which you operate in order to identify and gain a sense of potential signals of change in how your world is developing. When discussing the idea of ‘change’ we need to be clear – a potential signal of change is likely to…
Read More >When it comes to water management, there’s something of potential value that Victoria could learn from Western Australia’s weather given discussions about new dams If you have almost 60 days straight of above 30 degree days with pretty much no rain, how do you fill the dam? Well you don’t but you’ve put all of…
Read More >The natural disasters we’ve seen recently around the world have shown us much about the communities in which they’ve occurred. The images emerging from Japan, New Zealand and Australia as they’ve faced earthquakes, tsumanis, floods and fires stands on stark contrast to the mainstream media stories that suggests people of the world are not willing…
Read More >Hi everyone – a quick note to let you know that our phones lines have been down for a while now and we are working on getting them fixed. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you. In the meantime, try using either our 1800 number where you can leave a message only…
Read More >ABC journalist Adam Stephen interviews Marcus Barber on the subject of GM foods and whether they might be more widely embraced as part of the global food requirements The interview (about 3& 1/2 mins) is available in MP3 format here and a link to the shorter web article is here. Some key points –…
Read More >South East Business Networks, the City of Greater Dandenong’s longest running business development program, is an exceptional avenue for learning about issues to do with Manufacturing. This week they provided one ‘out of the box’ with an excellent presentation by Professor Goran Roos, a worldclass expert on Manufacturing and currently South Australia’s Thinker in Residence.…
Read More >Today some friends are burying their father who died last week after his health took a sudden downturn. One of them, Penny got the urgent call to get to hospital. Penny is a conservative driver at the best of times and on this occasion was aiming to get through traffic as best as she could…
Read More >Cyclone Yasi heads towards Queenslands North East coast this morning with significant concerns for residents. There is potentially an added danger based on the way cylones work. Typically a cyclone needs two things – heat and water, which is why they can dissipate quickly once they head inland. However Yasi hits following a couple of…
Read More >As promised, the wash-up to my experience with the toll-road operator Eastlink and what I regard as a pretty poor approach to Customer Service. However as I am treating this is the International Year of Solutions, I’m not complaining without making suggestions for improvement, which I have done You can download the document here…
Read More >The floods are under way throughout the majority of Queensland and now into northern New South Wales and all we can do is hang on and wait to see the impact. Unfortunately it looks like the numbers of people who have lost their lives as a result is set to rise significantly beyond the 12…
Read More >