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I would also expect wages to remain depressed, perhaps increasingly so, for various service-based workers. Employees working in janitorial, lawn care, and general labor occupations will continue to suffer in particular.
Staffing agencies, fast food/quick-serve businesses, 'payday' check-cashing & loan businesses, and discount stores will continue to grow and be a pox on communities.
Public service scamming will continue to increase as a percentage so long as additional recipients are deliberately relegated to the doles.
I agree. Humans and machinery are always in competition with one another and now with the talk of raising the min. wage to $10.10, you'll see a lot more attention being given to automation. Fast food joints are already looking at replacing cooks and cashiers with robots..pretty wild stuff.
If the free market has any say, the government/public sector would see jobs evaporating. You can't have an ever expanding public sector in the face of a shrinking private sector. Who is going to pay for all these workers if there are not enough private sector workers paying taxes? Let's remember, corporations are very good at dodging taxes. Good luck paying down the national debt in this environment. At any rate, the public sector should look to the private sector when it comes to finding ways to improve efficiency.
Engineering, especially leaning towards large infrastructure-type of endeavors (as opposed to consumer products): aerospace, naval, civil, most types of mechanical. We already have a glut of engineers, and it's only going to be exacerbated by the shameless promotion of "STEM" majors as being the serious and highly-employable majors.
Speaking from experience, aerospace engineering has basically been in a recession since the end of the Apollo program. The end of the Cold War certainly didn't help either.
I so agree on Primary Care Physicians especially Internal Medicine folks. Its more shifting towards the midlevel (Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners) with Obamacare
Stock brokers, stock traders, etc. Computers use sophisticated algorithms to places trades. They are capable of analyzing the market in the comparative blink of an eye while a human would be still analyzing one stock at a time. The only issue is how to avoid quirks, like the catastrophic knight capital software error that cost them nearly a half billion dollars in 2012.
I agree with you conclusion, but I disagree with the reasoning. If people want to trade cheaply they use a discount broker. If they want advice, think high net worth clients who are idea poor and cash rich, they see a financial advisor.
Systematic trading is replacing discretionary. Computers can not "read" entire company 10-Ks (imagine one trying to read something running into the hundreds of pages). Fundamental investing is here to stay. My prediction is that the trading (gambling) investing will die out as investors seek index funds on the low fee end, and they seek fundamental fund managers on the high fee end.
Engineering, especially leaning towards large infrastructure-type of endeavors (as opposed to consumer products): aerospace, naval, civil, most types of mechanical. We already have a glut of engineers, and it's only going to be exacerbated by the shameless promotion of "STEM" majors as being the serious and highly-employable majors.
Speaking from experience, aerospace engineering has basically been in a recession since the end of the Apollo program. The end of the Cold War certainly didn't help either.
lol.. So it basically died with Werhner Von Braun!..
I agree. Humans and machinery are always in competition with one another and now with the talk of raising the min. wage to $10.10, you'll see a lot more attention being given to automation. Fast food joints are already looking at replacing cooks and cashiers with robots..pretty wild stuff.
Which, I think, will backfire. I work in retail and people are always complaining that there aren't enough workers to help them.
Which, I think, will backfire. I work in retail and people are always complaining that there aren't enough workers to help them.
Major chains and big box stores are closing stores, and as their leases expire are moving to free standing stores outside of malls and cutting the store size by half. It is predicted in 10 years that we will have half the large size stores we have today.
Reason: Major chains are finding that already as much as half their business is done over the Internet. Close 100 stores. Have one warehouse and computer setup, and drastically cut the payroll by doing away with clerks, stockers, and a lot of office help. No big need for those janitors, security guards, and about eliminate shop lifting. As when stores reach the point they are no longer profitable in an area, the stores are closing. The Internet sales have drawn enough of business in that area, to make the store no longer needed. They can actually make more money on less volume over the Internet than a store produces due to lower costs to do business. But the Internet sales in this area of 100 closed stores, will often be more than when they relied on the stores for their business.
When a store reaches the break even or under level, they are closing them. The real reason, is the Internet is drawing so many of their customers from retail, to the Internet.
Amazon has taught the retail businesses well. They are Internet only and doing fantastic. The major chains have put in their own Internet divisions, and they are growing by leaps and bounds. They are growing so fast through their Internet business, that the retail stores are becoming no longer profitable.
Advantages of going Internet. Instead of having just a few choices on something in the store, they can offer hundreds of similar items in the Internet store. Many of them are drop shipped from a manufacturer directly to the customer. It cuts out the middle man, and allows the store to sell it cheaper and can beat out the retail businesses. A computer took the order, took the payment, ordered the goods from the manufacturer, and sent you a record of your sale along with a tracking number allowing you to find when it will be delivered. Make the sale $50 or more and you get Free Shipping. There will be customer reviews on the product, and the customer can learn a lot more than they can from a clerk in the store to be able to pick the best one for their needs. No expensive store needed, no huge staff to staff a major store, No huge utility bill. Not property or inventory tax to pay. No fighting 2 or more years to get the permits to get a business license for the store as needed in California as an example plus time to build a new store. One computer system to serve the nation, a few warehouses around the country to send out the goods that are not drop shipped from manufacturers.
The big stores have a name, that will draw Internet shoppers.
Last edited by oldtrader; 03-24-2014 at 02:05 AM..
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Fundamental investing is here to stay. My prediction is that the trading (gambling) investing will die out as investors seek index funds on the low fee end, and they seek fundamental fund managers on the high fee end.
