What kind of economy will my generation be looking at?
My dad has been really pushing me with school because he is trying to prepare me for the future. He says the next Great Depression is coming. Our government has spent so much money that it can't pay it's debt and the only way to pay it off is to raise taxes and prices of everything, but even that won't pay it off. Yet the government continues to print money so it can pay for all this stuff dropping the dollar value constantly. Businesses won't be able to pay their employees and people will lose their jobs. He says we are past the turning point and the only way to fix our economy is to fall. After we, the U.S. and major consumer fall, the industrial companies like China will fall with us, because we wont be buying their goods. He said he expects us, America, to go the war with China which might lead into another world war. I didn't really understand why he said China would want to go to war with us but he said something about their 2 trillion dollar reserve and us bringing the value of that down after we fall. I'm 15 and I'm a volunteer firefighter. I'm also going to be taking paramedic training classes when I'm 16 or 17. All my life I've wanted to be a serviceman and my plans for college are studying physical therapy and probably other stuff in health and hopefully I'll be able to get a PHD, would that be a safe career choice? I also plan on taking ROTC. After college I plan on enlisting into the Army. Would that also be a good idea, considering our future? But we might all get drafted if there is a war anyway. Then after the Army I plan on starting my career in physical therapy or whatever I get the PHD in if I get it. My fallback plan is to get a job in a hospital somewhere if i can because my mom is a nurse and I've learned stuff from her, I'm getting experience from firefighting, I'm in junior ROTC with my high school, and I plan on taking those paramedic classes. I don't know if I will be able to enlist and follow my dream anymore though. I might just have to work my butt off the rest of my life. My dad says we need to get a farm, drill a well, and learn to rely on our selves. What do you people think? Will i be able to follow my dream or is my dad right about this stuff? @Anjaree My dad is no democrat. He wants me to have a job that pays. Something in science, not necessarily in the health field. The health field seems safe to me because people will always need doctors.
Economics - 3 Answers
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1 :
your dad is a bit of a pessimist, but he's right about education. All brainless jobs are being outsourced to China or done by machines. Medical field is a very sensible career. Doctors earn a ton, and nurses, technicians and other support personnel are also making a decent living. The industry will not go away as population is ageing, and mechanization will not be a threat to jobs for at least a generation.
2 :
Your father is obviously a democrat. He supports the health care reform. Personel in the health sector will get a decent job and be rich. Our health care reform will be completed in 6 years. You can't wait.
3 :
I'm not sure things will turn out exactly the way your father predicts, but from where I stand, he is at least a realist. I tend to look at the more fundamental issues: the world is living beyond the carrying capacity of the Earth: http://dieoff.org/page110.htm http://dieoff.org/page13.htm That is not sustainable, which means things are almost certainly going to get a lot worse fairly soon. For example: 1. The U.S. economy and all modern economies are built on cheap energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_intensity When energy prices rise too high, the U.S. economy goes into recession http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2009/09/16/oil-prices-mean-perpetual-recession.aspx So whether oil prices rise because of greater demand or just because the remaining oil is harder and harder to get to, the lack of cheap oil is going to hurt. 2. Global warming is going to hurt http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/science/earth/09climate.html etc. http://www.energybulletin.net/node/3834 So he is right about economic times getting harder. I can easily see wars over access to resources as a result, http://globalpolicy.org/the-dark-side-of-natural-resources/water-in-conflict.html but it is harder to see a complete breakdown of law and order in the U.S. And if there were a complete breakdown, no small group could survive for any length of time on their own. Even the American colonists relied on continuing support from England; the frontiersman on the supplies from town; etc. And, of course, modern society is far more complex than ever before. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/07/insufficient-data.html So what's the answer? I can't tell you. But: 1. Education is never wasted as long as it is not too specialized. Very narrow niches can be very rewarding, but they are also very risky. 2. Technical skills are important, but so are people skills. And the ability to learn and adapt is going to be critical - very few people are going to be in one career their entire life. 3. Don't make security a high priority - it will ruin your life. 4. Stay healthy - take care of yourself, eat right, exercise, etc. Whether the world will run into major problems, as your father and I think, or not, things are going to be VERY different. (Compare your life as a teenager, your father's, and your grandfather's. Change has been coming thick and fast. So there will be big changes even if things work out very well.) Trying to anticipate and selecting the "right" path is the high risk approach. Being ready to adapt is the only way to survive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalist_and_specialist_species All that said, getting into health care is not a bad idea; though I'd aim higher than physical therapy. The military does offer good training for better qualified enlistees (but maybe the Navy or Air Force rather than the Army?) and helps pay for schooling after, so that is not unreasonable either. And, no matter what, however good or bad things go, you will have to work your butt off the rest of your life. And people with high-paying jobs tend to work even more: http://www.bls.gov/k12/help06.htm So, try to find work you find worth doing, that will make you feel good about you've accomplished at the end of the day, not work that just pays well, but leaves you feeling like a heel.
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