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
PREVIEWExecutive 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…
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
PREVIEWExecutive 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…
In my previous series on the erosion of community, I surveyed a number of conventional explanations for this decades-long trend and discussed 10 other potential factors in the decline of social capital. I concluded that economic need would likely be the driver of a resurgence of community—a need that will only become apparent when the Central State and the debt-based, consumerist-corporate system are no longer able to fulfill their implicit promises of welfare, subsidies, endless credit and secure jobs. In this next installment on community, we look at the possibility that new models are arising beneath the mainstream media’s master narratives that Everything’s fine and The Status Quo is both good and eternal.
The Rise of New Models of Community
In my previous series on the erosion of community, I surveyed a number of conventional explanations for this decades-long trend and discussed 10 other potential factors in the decline of social capital. I concluded that economic need would likely be the driver of a resurgence of community—a need that will only become apparent when the Central State and the debt-based, consumerist-corporate system are no longer able to fulfill their implicit promises of welfare, subsidies, endless credit and secure jobs. In this next installment on community, we look at the possibility that new models are arising beneath the mainstream media’s master narratives that Everything’s fine and The Status Quo is both good and eternal.
Executive Summary
- The "half farmer, half X" model
- The "no middleman" model
- The "15% commission" model
- The key features of successful new community models
If you have not yet read The Rise of New Models of Community, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we discussed the potential for new models of collaboration and community enabled by the Web and social media. I proposed a simple metric for differentiating between simulacrum community and the real deal: a community is only a “real community” if the collective actions of its members push the envelope of the material world.
In Part 2, we’ll examine some models that have arisen as people either abandon or are cut out of the Central State/Corporate Consumerism Status Quo and must create new social and economic arrangements to earn a livelihood. This requires structures that enable self-organizing, voluntary communities to endure and grow.
As Zeus noted in Part 1, The new price of entry is production, meaning that parasitic layers of middlemen have no role in these new arrangements. To participate, one must be productive. i.e. create or add value.
As I mentioned earlier, social media doesn’t change a system’s incentives/benefits and costs/disincentives; the Web is a powerful tool for community building, once the incentives for participating far outweigh the costs.
Let’s start our survey with an example from…
Promising Emerging Community Models
PREVIEWExecutive Summary
- The "half farmer, half X" model
- The "no middleman" model
- The "15% commission" model
- The key features of successful new community models
If you have not yet read The Rise of New Models of Community, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, we discussed the potential for new models of collaboration and community enabled by the Web and social media. I proposed a simple metric for differentiating between simulacrum community and the real deal: a community is only a “real community” if the collective actions of its members push the envelope of the material world.
In Part 2, we’ll examine some models that have arisen as people either abandon or are cut out of the Central State/Corporate Consumerism Status Quo and must create new social and economic arrangements to earn a livelihood. This requires structures that enable self-organizing, voluntary communities to endure and grow.
As Zeus noted in Part 1, The new price of entry is production, meaning that parasitic layers of middlemen have no role in these new arrangements. To participate, one must be productive. i.e. create or add value.
As I mentioned earlier, social media doesn’t change a system’s incentives/benefits and costs/disincentives; the Web is a powerful tool for community building, once the incentives for participating far outweigh the costs.
Let’s start our survey with an example from…
Executive Summary
- The Deep State, and its dawning realization that Wall Street is a foe vs an ally
- Why Wall Street's threat to the dollar hegemony is of such concern
- History gives us many examples to predict a 'war of elites' (e.g. Wall Street vs the Deep State) is highly likely
- Who will lose? And what implications will it have for the rest of us?
If you have not yet read Have We Reached Peak Wall Street?, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, I sketched out why the financial sector—the Fed, Wall Street and “too big to fail” banks—pose a strategic threat to the nation, as their policies threaten one key foundation of American pre-eminence, the U.S. dollar. Should money and credit creation cause the dollar to lose its reserve status, the nation would lose the fundamental advantages that go with being able to print a reserve currency.
I then suggested that the Deep State might eventually wake up to the strategic threat posed by a self-serving financial sector, and this would lead to a showdown between the financial Elites and the Deep State.
The Systems-Level view: the S-Curve works on Wall Street, too
Long-time readers know that I often refer to systems-level dynamics, one of which is the S-Curve, which traces the rise, maturation and decline/crash of systems both natural and human-designed. An astonishing array of systems has been found to follow an s-curve, from the spread of infectious diseases to financial bubbles.
Why would Wall Street be uniquely immune to these systemic forces? I submit that Wall Street’s power has topped out and is about to decline precipitously, just like any other system which has over-reached by sucking its habitat dry.
I think we can chart Wall Street’s S-Curve thusly…
The Implications of a ‘War of Elites’
PREVIEWExecutive Summary
- The Deep State, and its dawning realization that Wall Street is a foe vs an ally
- Why Wall Street's threat to the dollar hegemony is of such concern
- History gives us many examples to predict a 'war of elites' (e.g. Wall Street vs the Deep State) is highly likely
- Who will lose? And what implications will it have for the rest of us?
If you have not yet read Have We Reached Peak Wall Street?, available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.
In Part 1, I sketched out why the financial sector—the Fed, Wall Street and “too big to fail” banks—pose a strategic threat to the nation, as their policies threaten one key foundation of American pre-eminence, the U.S. dollar. Should money and credit creation cause the dollar to lose its reserve status, the nation would lose the fundamental advantages that go with being able to print a reserve currency.
I then suggested that the Deep State might eventually wake up to the strategic threat posed by a self-serving financial sector, and this would lead to a showdown between the financial Elites and the Deep State.
The Systems-Level view: the S-Curve works on Wall Street, too
Long-time readers know that I often refer to systems-level dynamics, one of which is the S-Curve, which traces the rise, maturation and decline/crash of systems both natural and human-designed. An astonishing array of systems has been found to follow an s-curve, from the spread of infectious diseases to financial bubbles.
Why would Wall Street be uniquely immune to these systemic forces? I submit that Wall Street’s power has topped out and is about to decline precipitously, just like any other system which has over-reached by sucking its habitat dry.
I think we can chart Wall Street’s S-Curve thusly…
Total 177 items
by blaggers