THIS IS MY 46TH BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY TOOLS
New World Order. What? I keep hearing people speak of this.
These are changes happening in a various number of ways including employment,
social skills, and technology.
Things have changed and it has greatly affected the middle
class and earning abilities. Incomes are flat to down over the past 15 years,
except for the oil and gas industry, a few technology sectors and a few of the
financial industries.
When we discussed jobs in the financial sector some come to
mind. What are some of the names associated with this employment; stockbroker,
financial advisor and financial manager?
How has being a stockbroker changed over the past 30-40 years? Years ago a stock broker actually did
his own analysis, earned a higher percentage commission, and received a higher
percentage of that amount, let’s say 50-75%. The brokerage firm received the
balance. Today, as in many
commissioned industries it is the flip-flop, the broker may only get 20-25% of
the commissions and commissions are very low with on-line trading, discount
firms, etc. Another change has resulted from lawyers suing brokers and firms if
their clients lost money. Make money no problems, lose money for someone they
will run to a lawyer and sue.
Therefore, brokerage firms normally do not let their brokers have
individual autonomy selecting individual stocks.
This has changed the financial industry. Financial advisors
are only money raisers wearing a fancy title. Clients turn their money over to a firm, and that firm
places that money with third party money managers who do the analysis work and
actually manage the money, or place the money in stock or bond funds. We have
talked about this before. The brokerage firm gets what is known as a “trailer
fee” or “12B-1 fee” back as a very small percent of the monies under
management. The actual money managers normally charge a client on a percentage
of money under management, not a percent of profits made, definitely they are
not held for losses.
What has happened in the new world order? Employees have less worth to a company,
companies have become larger as they have bought smaller companies or merged
with one another. These companies are mainly large and controlled by
institutions or the very wealthy. More profit to the bottom line, and to their
stockholders. Advancements in technology have added to this. Fewer and larger companies make for
less efficiency, less competition and more price fixing at higher prices. A prime
example is the worldwide petroleum industry, Walmart, Target and more. Supply and demand questionable.
Years back in the “old world order” we did business in our
neighborhood, then our city, then our state, then the USA. Now, we do business
all over the world wherever the market is. This is good news, but thinking of
businesses and industries has changed. There are something like 6.5 billion
people in the world and they all have needs and wants to be fulfilled. The “new world order” thinks globally.
How can we get a little profit from many? Take your product or “value” you
create and take it to the market place. For your online teaching as a value
added example, charge a small amount of money, perhaps only $5 per month. Hopefully you can attract thousands of
people to your site to pay this amount for your knowledge. A thousand people
from various places around the world times $5 is $5,000 per month, not a bad
start.
The physical layout for in-office work has also
changed. Not too many years ago we
had individual nice offices, perhaps a couple of chairs in front of a desk,
bookshelves, and more. Then, we went to cubicle space for workers, each having
a small desk and computer on the desk.
Today, we have standup workstations so that the employee/salesperson can
work mainly from his home, real estate agents from their cars, and minimal
expense paid on office space. Wonder why all the office vacancies around the
country, excluding some of the major cities?
Technology advancements require fewer human beings in the
work place. Robotics can replace many people especially in industries that
require shipping, transportation and industrial work and storage. Robots can
now build robots in the workplace!
In my opinion this has prevented the middle class person a
normal living standard with normal hours to spend at home with family and
friends in the United States. As a
person travels the world they see how many other countries have a much higher
standard of living than us here in the United States. The world needs to figure out how to take care of all the
people in the world and the unemployed as we head into the New World Order. Be
creative to get ahead!
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