90% of the agricultural lands in the Bahamas is owned by the government. These lands that have always been marginal for growing things, over the next twenty years, will become prime real estate for development. As incomes explode, people acquire a 'live anywhere' capability and retired baby boomers also find they can live anywhere, every nook and cranny will get developed.
However, the Bahamas represents some of the best opportunities anywhere. The Acklins archipelago is about 200 square miles and has a grand total of about 800 people living there. The archipelago has over two hundred miles of shoreline and when developed will likely hold a population of over 1.7 million. Samana Cay is about 17 square miles and is uninhabited. It will likely be developed into something like the Hamptons and be home to about 100,000. Mayaguana is 105 square miles and will likely accommodate nearly 1,000,000 population.
The key issue is that the Bahamian government, who currently owns all this land and claims sovereignty over it until very recently seemed to be cooperating with the the inevitable process. They had created a joint venture with Boston's I-Group to develop a significant portion of Mayaguana. This, in combination with the Honduran free state initiative, was suggesting that at least some of the nations that would be attractive to boutique village developers were behaving in an enlightened and cooperative manner.
It was with sadness, then, that I learned today that the I-Group Mayaguana project has fallen through. This has disturbed at least some Bahamians as well. It is inevitable that The Bahamas will fill up with Knowledge Class Professionals from around the world. The land that it will require has a current market value of over 50 billion 2012USD and most of it is owned by the government. That is a huge sum of money for a government that currently has a 1.7 billion annual budget. It is only a matter of time before pure economics will move the discussion and prevailing attitudes toward development.
When developed, the real estate will have a value of nearly 25 trillion dollars. This is a staggering sum that will motivate people to extraordinary acts. It is possible that the Bahamas may be the first nation to fall to the Information Age, perhaps violently. It may be the first nation to be conquered by an NGO. Or it could be that interested parties will corrupt the government with piles of money just to big to ignore. Again, an enlightened government should learn from history, bow to the inevitable and create a strategy that maximizes their outcome.
Equitopia Productions is exciting. Mycroft's Business Lounge will be fun. However, for flat out size and affluence generation, nothing will compare with the Boutique Villages. As Thomas A. Stewart says, we are at the beginning of the biggest real estate boom in all of history. Furthermore, he underestimates its size by at least a factor of four. Over the next thirty years, Western civilization, alone, will build over a quadrillion dollars of real estate. That is enough money to create a million billionaires.
Of course, my interest is not primarily monetary. I want to build Polymathican villages, specifically designed to facilitate and enhance a Finely Crafted Life for people of refinement and erudition. The schools will be polymathic, the products in the retail shops will be refined, the neighbors will be refined and erudite. Yes, a few visionaries who design and build these villages will become very wealthy. However, thousands, even millions of people will have a home and that is of greater importance.
The first village will be somewhere in the Caribbean. The Bahamas are the most convenient, but if the government will not cooperate, we can build elsewhere. If Honduras can tolerate Libertarians, they should definitely welcome us. Over time, however, the Polymathican global culture will likely reach a population of over 15 million and will require the construction of 500 villages. That is enough so that we can build them in the tropics, in the temperate zones, near the ocean, in the mountains and on the plains. We can make them urban, suburban and exurban.
As with all of the projects that I am initiating, if you are interested in participating in the planning, design and/or construction boutique villages for Polymathicans, drop me your e-mail address and I will put you on my private lists and venues. I cannot and do not want to be everywhere at once, so leadership opportunities abound.
Showing posts with label Community Development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Community Development. Show all posts
Monday, May 14, 2012
Monday, December 26, 2011
Saving the World by Saving Ourselves
The political system is broken and is likely to be of little or no help in solving the problems of the next decade. In reality, it doesn't matter who is nominated or who is elected. It doesn't matter what political party or coalition controls the legislative bodies. The most that these outcomes will manage is to change the scenery on our road to Industrial Age perdition, i.e. the train wreck. Simply put, Information Age problems will not yield to Industrial Age solutions. In fact, as is the case with Technological Unemployment, the attempt to do so will actually exacerbate the problem.
Even if enlightened leadership attempted to implement Information Age solutions to the four horsemen of our particular apocalypse, the train wreck, their efforts would be successfully demagogued to a poorly educated and generally inattentive electorate. The enlightened leadership would be promptly voted out of office. Of course, this hypothetical situation has no relevance to the current, actual one. There is no potential enlightened political leadership anywhere in sight. I have tried to inform the political establishment about The Future 101, but to date, there has been no response. I expect none in the future.
In the U.S., in 2008, the Tea Party placed into Congress a significant number of Representatives and a few Senators who stand on principle and are not prepared to compromise with opponents that they believe to be entirely incorrect in their policies. While the nation has not moved particularly closer to the Tea Party - there is no Tea Party consensus anywhere in sight - the Republican nominating process and the critical swing districts, especially in the Senate, are still vulnerable. The Right may become even more intransigent.
Now, the Occupy Wall Street group is mobilizing the other side. It is quite possible that they will place into the next Congress, members who are unwilling to compromise with the Tea Party Caucus. This may not be an organized effort as it was with the Tea Party. They are intending to hold a National Assembly in Philadelphia on July 4, 2012. However, even if they are not successful in achieving the same level of organization, it is very likely that a significant number of very Liberal politicians will use the rhetoric of OWS to gain support. Given the enthusiasm sweeping the nation, it will probably work.
Information Age problems will not yield to Industrial Age solutions. On both sides of the political divide, that is what is being proposed. Between the increasing political gridlock and the inability to disengage from the battle long enough to see the larger, Information Age picture, our short term prognosis is poor. As I discuss extensively in The Future 101 premium site, any attempts to increase economic growth, whether based upon the Conservative's preference for supply side stimulation or the Liberals preference for demand side stimulation or any combination thereof will almost surely increase the unemployment rate.
To simplify our considerations here, remember AT&T's 'forklifts that drive themselves'. If the Conservatives provide incentives to business, as often as not, rather than investing in job creation, the businesses will buy the self-driving forklifts and, thereby, increase unemployment. If the Liberals provide more purchasing power, demand will increase, new facilities will need to be built and driverless forklifts, again, will increase unemployment. Clearly, Information Age solutions are required.
Certainly, rising unemployment and increasing income disparities between the emerging Information Age Knowledge Class and the prevailing incomes of the Industrial Age 'jobs' market are becoming cornerstones of the political divides. It is not perceived as an Industrial Age vs. Information Age problem, however, In fact, the recent rise of a clarion call for the 99% to rise up against the 1% is actually framing the problem in almost feudal terms. If Information Age problems won't yield to Industrial Age solutions, they most certainly won't yield to Agricultural Age ones.
The growth in income within the 1% has been primarily in 'business income' not salaries or capital gains. In other words, the 1% is getting its increasing income from the very same productivity gains that are causing the reduction in employment opportunities and remuneration for the 'workers'. This is not a cabal or a conspiracy of a passive investment class. In fact, if you subscribe to The Future 101 premium site, you will come to understand that the passive investor class is an endangered species. This is, in reality, evidence of the emerging Knowledge Class.
The arbitrary segregation of 1% from the 99% rather than the 2% from the 98%, or the 3% from the 97% is obfuscating the actual process that is taking place. Essentially, a growing Knowledge Class, with its characteristic seven figure incomes, is pushing out the old 1%. It is not yet dominating the upper 1%, but it will soon. It will then grow to 2%, then 3%, then 4%. This growth in the Knowledge Class when viewed as such rather than in a 'class warfare' 99% vs. 1% way, is really our only opportunity to avert, in any degree, the first item of the train wreck, the very high unemployment. In the end, the Knowledge Class will comprise about 20% of the population. By 2040, 80% of households will have real income that would put them in the top 1% today. The closer we can get to those numbers prior to the train wreck, the less severe it will be.
The mechanism of 'Saving the world by saving ourselves' is actually a bit more complex than that. When a person leaves an Industrial Age 'job' to become a member of the Knowledge Class, not only has (s)he averted the train wreck personally, they also are decreasing, by one, the number of workers competing for the disappearing Industrial Age jobs and, thereby, ameliorating the problems for those still in the Industrial Age. In other words, they are improving the supply and demand forces that are causing real wages to stagnate or fall.
Many of the Enterprise Networks, including the one I intend to start, Polymathica Enterprises, are structured around the emergence of a Culture of Affluence. These issues of culture are just as significant as the Economic ones of the Knowledge Class and technological unemployment. As we saw, political solutions to our Economic problems are futile. They are also useless in addressing our differences in values. In fact, in the 'Death of the Nation State, I 'argue that
Another person argued that 'reality trumps principles.' Indeed it does. We do, at times, compromise our principles because it is forced upon us by reality. However, that will not save us from the long string of examples of principled positions that are not forced by reality, such as the death penalty, abortion rights, tax policies, marriage laws, teaching evolution and intelligent design, etc.
There have been a few people who have tried to argue that we do share common principles, citing commitments to liberal democracy, etc. I will grant that there is some merit in that argument. The Cultures of Affluence that spring from the Western heritage will share some underlying principles that may not be shared with the Eastern, Indic or Islamic heritages. While we do share some common principles, to an increasing degree, we do not share enough of them.
I make the prediction that a first principle of the global Information Age civilization is that no person should be required to live under a body of laws, programs and policies that they consider to be fundamentally unjust. This seems an impossible goal for many, perhaps most, people. We have become inured to what we consider unjust laws. However, the emergence of The Cultures of Affluence and the cultural cocoons that will be created by culturally defined communities, both real and virtual, will undermine this willingness to accept what we consider to be systemic miscarriages of justice.
While this requires a substantial rewrite of the institutions of civilization, I believe the benefit is worth the effort. We are, perhaps, seeing the beginning of the process with the potential agreement between Future Cities Development, Inc. and the government of Honduras. Whether this is ultimately successful, the basic notion will prevail. It all begins with the construction of Enterprise Networks.
By creating these culturally defined Enterprise Networks and thereby creating a more positive vision of the future, we are relieving at least some of the pressure of the impending 'divorce' of America. People will slowly move from the fights, arguments and angry rhetoric of groups with essentially irreconcilable differences to discussions about the ways and means of living together but separately. While no system will ever be perfect, we will craft an acceptable one.
We are also building, through Enterprise Networks, the replacement to the Industrial Age corporation in advance of its actual demise. By doing so, we are creating an enabling environment for entrance into the Knowledge Class. We are also allowing our economy to make a soft landing in the post corporate world. It is worth pointing out again, that the 1% is gaining its income from Business Income, not from dividends or capital gains. This is evidence that the post corporate world is already emerging.
I would be the first to agree that creating an Internet business providing content, products and services to a highly nichified market is difficult. However, it will get easier as the traffic aggregators become more Information Age defined. When it is successful, a Knowledge Class member has been created. The live anywhere option is achieved and income will typically jump to Knowledge Class levels. As I discuss elsewhere here and explore deeply in the premium service, the '1,000 True Fans' logic is the logic of the Information Age. However, the numbers will be more like 100,000 virtual CD's sold at $15 each with the artist retaining 70% to 85% of the proceeds. Or, as in my case, 50,000 subscribers at $54.95 per year. These are not going to be exceptions. By the train wreck, these success stories could comprise 5% or more of the workforce.
Sadly, the last of the four components of the train wreck, the death of the Industrial Age cities has no good solution. By 2040 the median home price will be nearing 2.5 million 2012USD and 7,000 ft.². With the home price for a family at the poverty level being characteristically around 600K to 700K 2012USD, there will simply not be any market for 75% of the homes today. Not only are they too small, their density is too great and they are not of sufficiently high quality. They will be what the real estate industry now calls 'a tear down.' It is worth the value of the lot less the cost to remove the house.
In higher end areas this process is already well advanced. In my vicinity, 3,000 ft.² houses are being torn down and replaced by 8,000 ft.² houses. The smaller houses are almost never bought for occupancy. This is the beginning of a trend that will sweep the developed world over the next thirty years. Personally, your only defense is to join the Knowledge Class and get out before it happens to you. Macro-economically, this is both good and bad. Clearly an enormous amount of Net Worth will disappear. However, the rebuilding of the developed world and the creation of affluent communities in currently underdeveloped regions will create, primarily from 2020 onward, an unprecedented global Real Estate boom.
In all of these actions, we will be reducing the severity of the Transformation. For many of us, by the time the train hits the wall, we will be safely ensconced in a Culture of Affluence in a Knowledge Class career and, perhaps, even in a Boutique Village in an Information Age scaled house. For us, personally, the train wreck will be averted. It is unlikely that we can avert it for everyone. Most people will cling to the familiar to the very end. The Information Age solutions will be politically unfeasible to implement on a large scale. However, fewer victims of the train wreck, coupled with the much higher GDP of the Information Age, will make it, comparatively, much more bearable.
I do not know if, in my effort to get your subscription to The Future 101 and provide you with the practical tools of a community of action, I should emphasize that you are saving yourself or that you are saving the world. I do not see it as an either/or. I consider it to be most auspicious that we can do both - that, for once, self-interest and altruism are more or less congruent. Your decision is an ethical win-win.
Either way, if you are to be involved, your first step will be to subscribe to The Future 101 premium site. From there, perhaps you will choose to move on to Enterprise Networks and/or the True Fans strategy. In this way you are taking concrete and positive steps toward 'Saving the world by saving yourself.' You will be undertaking what is both a personally and societally laudable course of action. Once again, I look forward to seeing you inside.
With Warm Regards,
Michael Ferguson
Even if enlightened leadership attempted to implement Information Age solutions to the four horsemen of our particular apocalypse, the train wreck, their efforts would be successfully demagogued to a poorly educated and generally inattentive electorate. The enlightened leadership would be promptly voted out of office. Of course, this hypothetical situation has no relevance to the current, actual one. There is no potential enlightened political leadership anywhere in sight. I have tried to inform the political establishment about The Future 101, but to date, there has been no response. I expect none in the future.
In the U.S., in 2008, the Tea Party placed into Congress a significant number of Representatives and a few Senators who stand on principle and are not prepared to compromise with opponents that they believe to be entirely incorrect in their policies. While the nation has not moved particularly closer to the Tea Party - there is no Tea Party consensus anywhere in sight - the Republican nominating process and the critical swing districts, especially in the Senate, are still vulnerable. The Right may become even more intransigent.
Now, the Occupy Wall Street group is mobilizing the other side. It is quite possible that they will place into the next Congress, members who are unwilling to compromise with the Tea Party Caucus. This may not be an organized effort as it was with the Tea Party. They are intending to hold a National Assembly in Philadelphia on July 4, 2012. However, even if they are not successful in achieving the same level of organization, it is very likely that a significant number of very Liberal politicians will use the rhetoric of OWS to gain support. Given the enthusiasm sweeping the nation, it will probably work.
Information Age problems will not yield to Industrial Age solutions. On both sides of the political divide, that is what is being proposed. Between the increasing political gridlock and the inability to disengage from the battle long enough to see the larger, Information Age picture, our short term prognosis is poor. As I discuss extensively in The Future 101 premium site, any attempts to increase economic growth, whether based upon the Conservative's preference for supply side stimulation or the Liberals preference for demand side stimulation or any combination thereof will almost surely increase the unemployment rate.
To simplify our considerations here, remember AT&T's 'forklifts that drive themselves'. If the Conservatives provide incentives to business, as often as not, rather than investing in job creation, the businesses will buy the self-driving forklifts and, thereby, increase unemployment. If the Liberals provide more purchasing power, demand will increase, new facilities will need to be built and driverless forklifts, again, will increase unemployment. Clearly, Information Age solutions are required.
Certainly, rising unemployment and increasing income disparities between the emerging Information Age Knowledge Class and the prevailing incomes of the Industrial Age 'jobs' market are becoming cornerstones of the political divides. It is not perceived as an Industrial Age vs. Information Age problem, however, In fact, the recent rise of a clarion call for the 99% to rise up against the 1% is actually framing the problem in almost feudal terms. If Information Age problems won't yield to Industrial Age solutions, they most certainly won't yield to Agricultural Age ones.
The growth in income within the 1% has been primarily in 'business income' not salaries or capital gains. In other words, the 1% is getting its increasing income from the very same productivity gains that are causing the reduction in employment opportunities and remuneration for the 'workers'. This is not a cabal or a conspiracy of a passive investment class. In fact, if you subscribe to The Future 101 premium site, you will come to understand that the passive investor class is an endangered species. This is, in reality, evidence of the emerging Knowledge Class.
The arbitrary segregation of 1% from the 99% rather than the 2% from the 98%, or the 3% from the 97% is obfuscating the actual process that is taking place. Essentially, a growing Knowledge Class, with its characteristic seven figure incomes, is pushing out the old 1%. It is not yet dominating the upper 1%, but it will soon. It will then grow to 2%, then 3%, then 4%. This growth in the Knowledge Class when viewed as such rather than in a 'class warfare' 99% vs. 1% way, is really our only opportunity to avert, in any degree, the first item of the train wreck, the very high unemployment. In the end, the Knowledge Class will comprise about 20% of the population. By 2040, 80% of households will have real income that would put them in the top 1% today. The closer we can get to those numbers prior to the train wreck, the less severe it will be.
The mechanism of 'Saving the world by saving ourselves' is actually a bit more complex than that. When a person leaves an Industrial Age 'job' to become a member of the Knowledge Class, not only has (s)he averted the train wreck personally, they also are decreasing, by one, the number of workers competing for the disappearing Industrial Age jobs and, thereby, ameliorating the problems for those still in the Industrial Age. In other words, they are improving the supply and demand forces that are causing real wages to stagnate or fall.
Many of the Enterprise Networks, including the one I intend to start, Polymathica Enterprises, are structured around the emergence of a Culture of Affluence. These issues of culture are just as significant as the Economic ones of the Knowledge Class and technological unemployment. As we saw, political solutions to our Economic problems are futile. They are also useless in addressing our differences in values. In fact, in the 'Death of the Nation State, I 'argue that
- Politics is the art of compromise
- It is wrong to compromise one's principles
- We no longer share common principles
- Therefore politics is wrong
Another person argued that 'reality trumps principles.' Indeed it does. We do, at times, compromise our principles because it is forced upon us by reality. However, that will not save us from the long string of examples of principled positions that are not forced by reality, such as the death penalty, abortion rights, tax policies, marriage laws, teaching evolution and intelligent design, etc.
There have been a few people who have tried to argue that we do share common principles, citing commitments to liberal democracy, etc. I will grant that there is some merit in that argument. The Cultures of Affluence that spring from the Western heritage will share some underlying principles that may not be shared with the Eastern, Indic or Islamic heritages. While we do share some common principles, to an increasing degree, we do not share enough of them.
I make the prediction that a first principle of the global Information Age civilization is that no person should be required to live under a body of laws, programs and policies that they consider to be fundamentally unjust. This seems an impossible goal for many, perhaps most, people. We have become inured to what we consider unjust laws. However, the emergence of The Cultures of Affluence and the cultural cocoons that will be created by culturally defined communities, both real and virtual, will undermine this willingness to accept what we consider to be systemic miscarriages of justice.
While this requires a substantial rewrite of the institutions of civilization, I believe the benefit is worth the effort. We are, perhaps, seeing the beginning of the process with the potential agreement between Future Cities Development, Inc. and the government of Honduras. Whether this is ultimately successful, the basic notion will prevail. It all begins with the construction of Enterprise Networks.
By creating these culturally defined Enterprise Networks and thereby creating a more positive vision of the future, we are relieving at least some of the pressure of the impending 'divorce' of America. People will slowly move from the fights, arguments and angry rhetoric of groups with essentially irreconcilable differences to discussions about the ways and means of living together but separately. While no system will ever be perfect, we will craft an acceptable one.
We are also building, through Enterprise Networks, the replacement to the Industrial Age corporation in advance of its actual demise. By doing so, we are creating an enabling environment for entrance into the Knowledge Class. We are also allowing our economy to make a soft landing in the post corporate world. It is worth pointing out again, that the 1% is gaining its income from Business Income, not from dividends or capital gains. This is evidence that the post corporate world is already emerging.
I would be the first to agree that creating an Internet business providing content, products and services to a highly nichified market is difficult. However, it will get easier as the traffic aggregators become more Information Age defined. When it is successful, a Knowledge Class member has been created. The live anywhere option is achieved and income will typically jump to Knowledge Class levels. As I discuss elsewhere here and explore deeply in the premium service, the '1,000 True Fans' logic is the logic of the Information Age. However, the numbers will be more like 100,000 virtual CD's sold at $15 each with the artist retaining 70% to 85% of the proceeds. Or, as in my case, 50,000 subscribers at $54.95 per year. These are not going to be exceptions. By the train wreck, these success stories could comprise 5% or more of the workforce.
Sadly, the last of the four components of the train wreck, the death of the Industrial Age cities has no good solution. By 2040 the median home price will be nearing 2.5 million 2012USD and 7,000 ft.². With the home price for a family at the poverty level being characteristically around 600K to 700K 2012USD, there will simply not be any market for 75% of the homes today. Not only are they too small, their density is too great and they are not of sufficiently high quality. They will be what the real estate industry now calls 'a tear down.' It is worth the value of the lot less the cost to remove the house.
In higher end areas this process is already well advanced. In my vicinity, 3,000 ft.² houses are being torn down and replaced by 8,000 ft.² houses. The smaller houses are almost never bought for occupancy. This is the beginning of a trend that will sweep the developed world over the next thirty years. Personally, your only defense is to join the Knowledge Class and get out before it happens to you. Macro-economically, this is both good and bad. Clearly an enormous amount of Net Worth will disappear. However, the rebuilding of the developed world and the creation of affluent communities in currently underdeveloped regions will create, primarily from 2020 onward, an unprecedented global Real Estate boom.
In all of these actions, we will be reducing the severity of the Transformation. For many of us, by the time the train hits the wall, we will be safely ensconced in a Culture of Affluence in a Knowledge Class career and, perhaps, even in a Boutique Village in an Information Age scaled house. For us, personally, the train wreck will be averted. It is unlikely that we can avert it for everyone. Most people will cling to the familiar to the very end. The Information Age solutions will be politically unfeasible to implement on a large scale. However, fewer victims of the train wreck, coupled with the much higher GDP of the Information Age, will make it, comparatively, much more bearable.
I do not know if, in my effort to get your subscription to The Future 101 and provide you with the practical tools of a community of action, I should emphasize that you are saving yourself or that you are saving the world. I do not see it as an either/or. I consider it to be most auspicious that we can do both - that, for once, self-interest and altruism are more or less congruent. Your decision is an ethical win-win.
Either way, if you are to be involved, your first step will be to subscribe to The Future 101 premium site. From there, perhaps you will choose to move on to Enterprise Networks and/or the True Fans strategy. In this way you are taking concrete and positive steps toward 'Saving the world by saving yourself.' You will be undertaking what is both a personally and societally laudable course of action. Once again, I look forward to seeing you inside.
With Warm Regards,
Michael Ferguson
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
A Portal to Communities of Action
Within the Enterprise Networks, investors, even small ones, will find that 70%+ annual returns are not only possible, they are likely. Entrepreneurs, creatives, technologists and intellectuals, will find immediate, enabling tools that will allow them to keep up to 80% of their equity, even if they have little or no capital to contribute.
The Future 101 is a graduate level education on the emerging, global Information Age civilization. However, it is also a portal to communities of action that can provide you with early entrance into the profoundly affluent Knowledge Class. Knowledge Class incomes begin at $250K per year but typically, over time, will be in the seven figures.
And it all begins with a simple commitment of just 15¢ per day.
The combination of The Death of Capitalism and the emergence of crowdfunded Enterprise Networks presents risk tolerant, long term investors with a staggering opportunity What is important to success is not a large portfolio, but rather the knowledge, vision and courage to properly deploy a portfolio, even if it is of very modest size. Armed with the knowledge of The Transformation, acquired through the premium service, The Future 101, subscribers can utilize The Future 101 as a portal to Enterprise Networks and the opportunity to participate in annual returns of 70% or more. For perspective, $10,000 at an annual return of 70% is worth over $2,000,000 within ten years.
Simultaneously, entrepreneurs, creatives, technologists and intellectuals will have their Information Age careers enabled through Enterprise Networks. Because returns on financial capital are so high in Information Age enterprises, they will be able to retain most of their equity, rather than, as was the case in the Industrial Age, ceding most of it to large scale, passive investors - Investment Angels and Venture Capitalists. Through crowdfunding exemptions, currently moving through the U.S. Congress, access to capital, beginning with the R&D and start up phases will be feasible, even if the entrepreneurs, creatives, technologists and intellectuals have little or not capital to contribute themselves.
Through collaboration in Enterprise Networks, the critical access to customers and markets, defined in Information Age terms, will become cost effective. This is a topic that we discuss extensively in The Future 101. Essentially, much of the current inefficiencies in the market place are the result of an inability of Industrial Age advertising vehicles to deliver Information Age markets. The emergence of Boutique Homepages and the Cultures of Affluence will rectify this situation to the benefit of Enterprise Network participants.
Any successful investment strategy or start-up begins with a superior knowledge of futurity. Right now, that means a knowledge of The Transformation. If you are not already familiar with it, you should begin by reading, at a minimum, the following tabs: The Future 101, The Income Explosion, The Age of Boutique Everything and The Death of Capitalism. Of course, reading it all is preferable and will generally require about one hour of your time.
The Information Age has arrived and with it a fundamental change has taken place in the financial structure of businesses and the investment markets. Properly understood and executed, it will allow aspiring entrepreneurs and visionary investors to achieve far superior results than anything that was possible in the Industrial Age. In fact, with proper environments they will likely, over the next couple of decades, take over the global economy.
Simultaneously, Enterprise Networks will replace large, hierarchical corporations as the dominant enterprise structure. Simply put, they will out compete corporations in the market place. They also, because the structure is more consistent with Information Age cultural sensibilities, will attract the very best talent. Here I will reproduce, for convenience, the organizational chart that I present in the article about Enterprise Networks.
We see that the Enterprise Network retains the economies of scale and cost effective access to administrative expertise. However, because each enterprise is under autonomous management, the management teams, themselves, are incentivized in a manner more similar to a stand alone business. Each can respond rapidly and effectively to changing market, technological and demographic conditions.
The Enterprise Network also has the unintended result of avoiding the $1.0 million or $2.0 million limitation placed on the crowdfunding exemptions. You will note that the stylized Enterprise Network depicted here has fourteen separate enterprises, and, consequently, in aggregate, can raise up to $28 million per year of new equity. This is not just a contrived avoidance of the intentions of the legislation. In the Industrial Age, these could very well be separate enterprises. It is simply a matter of Industrial Age legislation not properly anticipating Information Age economic structures.
Subscribing to The Future 101
The Future 101 is a premium informational site that presents an objectively supportable world view and a superior knowledge of futurity. Its cost is $54.95 per year. It is comprised of approximately 3,000 to 5,000 words of graduate level text and between two and three hours of audiocasts per week. In this sense, it is approximately equivalent to two three semester credit courses which works out to a ridiculously low $9.16 per semester credit. Its cost works out to about one USD per week.
As a basic cultural literacy for the emerging, global, Information Age civilization, it is, by itself, a real bargain. However, on a regular basis, I will also be providing subscribers with the opportunity to sign up for mailing lists related to various Enterprise Networks. This will be at no extra cost, although should an Enterprise Network contact you, they will undoubtedly have their own set of requirements for membership.
The Future 101, in addition to being an educational site, also becomes a portal to a growing community of action. These are the people who will be 'Saving the world by saving themselves.' These are the people who will be the first to enter the profoundly affluent, Information Age Knowledge Class. These are the people who will be providing you, as a crowdfunding investor, with opportunities to earn 70%+ return on your investment. These are the people who will be providing you, as an entrepreneur, creative, technologist or intellectual, with the enabling financial, knowledge and human capital you need to succeed. These are the people who will be creating the Enterprise Networks that will give you ready and cost effective access to your market.
I strongly encourage you to read all of the articles here at The Future 101 Abstracts. However, I am giving you these articles at no cost with the purpose of enticing some of you, the most visionary of you, to subscribe to The Future 101 and, over time, to join an Enterprise Network in a capacity that is proper for you.
As one final point, I want to clarify that Enterprise Networks are 'bounded opportunity rich and success prone productive environments.' They are not a restructured corporation. Some people will likely enter with the intent to engage in 'Not-for-profit' activities. My anticipated Enterprise Network, Polymathica Enterprises, will undoubtedly include non-profit educational organizations.
So, while I want to make it clear that the Information Age will experience an income explosion and the Knowledge Class will be characterized by incomes in the seven figures 2011USD, the Cultures of Affluence actually mean that less emphasis will be placed on income numbers and more on the quality of life and self-actualization enabled by the lifestyle choices. This is so counter-intuitive for Industrial Age cultures, but the best way to reduce the emphasis on materialism is to have everyone satisfied with their material needs.
As one final point, I want to clarify that Enterprise Networks are 'bounded opportunity rich and success prone productive environments.' They are not a restructured corporation. Some people will likely enter with the intent to engage in 'Not-for-profit' activities. My anticipated Enterprise Network, Polymathica Enterprises, will undoubtedly include non-profit educational organizations.
So, while I want to make it clear that the Information Age will experience an income explosion and the Knowledge Class will be characterized by incomes in the seven figures 2011USD, the Cultures of Affluence actually mean that less emphasis will be placed on income numbers and more on the quality of life and self-actualization enabled by the lifestyle choices. This is so counter-intuitive for Industrial Age cultures, but the best way to reduce the emphasis on materialism is to have everyone satisfied with their material needs.
I end with this because, while I understand most people place significant emphasis on providing affluence for their family, the Information Age will climb Maslow's Hierarchy and the emphasis will evolve toward the concept of 'A Finely Crafted Life.' So, these communities of action, these Enterprise Networks and Cultures of Affluence, will not only 'Save the world by saving ourselves' in an economic sense. The hope is that it will also revitalize the soul of Western civilization.
I really hope to see you on the inside. You simply click on the subscribe button and then e-mail me with your preferred e-mail address.
With Warm Regards,
Michael Ferguson
Friday, December 16, 2011
The Live Anywhere Option: Boutique Villages
In the late 1990's I became fascinated with the Cultural Calculus that I had developed and the resultant expectation of the emergence of numerous intertwined global cultures. At the time I imagined, quite correctly, that a kind of 'cultural quantum' would be necessary. Christopher Alexander, et al. in 'A Pattern Language' argued that the quantum would be 'The Village of 7,000'.
This was based almost entirely upon considerations of political and civic interaction. When I began to consider other aspects, economically viable catch basins, community infrastructure, etc. I concluded that the quantum, if it was to be a true manifestation of a global culture, would likely need to be at least 20,000 and often as high as 60,000 in population.
This also happens to be the general community size preference for most Americans. They want their smaller community to be within easy reach of a large metropolitan area. However, these same expectations can be met through an aggregation of 'boutique villages.' In other words, a properly constructed web of boutique villages with a total population of a million or more and with proper traffic flows can function like a large metropolitan area while preserving the small town feel for all of its residents.
I have expected that two separate tracks will lead to boutique villages and the global intertwined cultures. The first has been moving slowly, but steadily. This is the growing tendency within developed nations for communities that are more culturally homogenous than the nation as a whole to establish local laws that fly in the face of the national laws. Examples are 'sanctuary cities' that refuse to enforce national immigration laws and cities that 'de facto' disallow abortions. On the other side we have localities that enforce immigration laws when the Federal government demands that they do not.
This is a kind of 'slow and steady' march toward the separation of cultural and geographic sovereignty. It is cultivating the soil for the more overt, intentional community that provides an enabling environment for a particular cultural perspective. I was rather hoping that we would build the first of these for Polymathicans. However, it appears Future Cities Development, Inc. may build the first such city in Honduras. The people behind FCD are the same people who have been trying to build a sea based Libertarian city. So, while cultural identity is not overtly expressed on their website, there does appear to be an underlying current of one.
In the end this will be a fascinating 'proof of concept' on boutique villages and, most likely, far from its ultimate expression. Within Polymathica and The InfoAge Enterprise Networks, our Polymathican Villages still have the best chance to be the first to express the concept fully. Polymathica is at odds with the ambient cultures. It celebrates erudition over specialization. It is dedicated to the expression of refinement in a crass and vulgar world. It is intellectual in an almost anti-intellectual contemporary milieu. While a product of the Western civilization, it is clearly distinct from any other current manifestation.
It is also, despite the difficulty I have experienced corralling Polymathicans, a population that will likely enter the Information Age Knowledge Class well ahead of the rest of society. They will express the paradigm of a Culture of Affluence and will, by virtue of Knowledge Class membership, be among the first to enjoy the 'Live Anywhere Option.' We are prime candidates to supplant Future Cities Development, Inc. as the leading force of Information Age community development.
If you are interested in pursuing this as an investor or as a participant, you should first subscribe to The Future 101. It is not possible to understand boutique villages without understanding the The Transformation in its entirety. Next, you should join the InfoAge Enterprise Networks. Once a member, you should join Polymathica Enterprises and from there you will join Polymathica Village Development. Parenthetically, I am also searching for founders of the InfoAge Enterprise Networks, which could provide you with your 'live anywhere Knowledge Class career.'
This is a very large undertaking that eventually will create hundreds of thousands of Knowledge Class career opportunities. While it will create many wealthy people, of far greater importance to most of us, we will also have created a sense of place and a cultural identity for Polymaths. This weekend I will discuss this in much greater detail within The Future 101. I hope to see you there.
Regards,
Michael Ferguson
This was based almost entirely upon considerations of political and civic interaction. When I began to consider other aspects, economically viable catch basins, community infrastructure, etc. I concluded that the quantum, if it was to be a true manifestation of a global culture, would likely need to be at least 20,000 and often as high as 60,000 in population.
This also happens to be the general community size preference for most Americans. They want their smaller community to be within easy reach of a large metropolitan area. However, these same expectations can be met through an aggregation of 'boutique villages.' In other words, a properly constructed web of boutique villages with a total population of a million or more and with proper traffic flows can function like a large metropolitan area while preserving the small town feel for all of its residents.
I have expected that two separate tracks will lead to boutique villages and the global intertwined cultures. The first has been moving slowly, but steadily. This is the growing tendency within developed nations for communities that are more culturally homogenous than the nation as a whole to establish local laws that fly in the face of the national laws. Examples are 'sanctuary cities' that refuse to enforce national immigration laws and cities that 'de facto' disallow abortions. On the other side we have localities that enforce immigration laws when the Federal government demands that they do not.
This is a kind of 'slow and steady' march toward the separation of cultural and geographic sovereignty. It is cultivating the soil for the more overt, intentional community that provides an enabling environment for a particular cultural perspective. I was rather hoping that we would build the first of these for Polymathicans. However, it appears Future Cities Development, Inc. may build the first such city in Honduras. The people behind FCD are the same people who have been trying to build a sea based Libertarian city. So, while cultural identity is not overtly expressed on their website, there does appear to be an underlying current of one.
In the end this will be a fascinating 'proof of concept' on boutique villages and, most likely, far from its ultimate expression. Within Polymathica and The InfoAge Enterprise Networks, our Polymathican Villages still have the best chance to be the first to express the concept fully. Polymathica is at odds with the ambient cultures. It celebrates erudition over specialization. It is dedicated to the expression of refinement in a crass and vulgar world. It is intellectual in an almost anti-intellectual contemporary milieu. While a product of the Western civilization, it is clearly distinct from any other current manifestation.
It is also, despite the difficulty I have experienced corralling Polymathicans, a population that will likely enter the Information Age Knowledge Class well ahead of the rest of society. They will express the paradigm of a Culture of Affluence and will, by virtue of Knowledge Class membership, be among the first to enjoy the 'Live Anywhere Option.' We are prime candidates to supplant Future Cities Development, Inc. as the leading force of Information Age community development.
If you are interested in pursuing this as an investor or as a participant, you should first subscribe to The Future 101. It is not possible to understand boutique villages without understanding the The Transformation in its entirety. Next, you should join the InfoAge Enterprise Networks. Once a member, you should join Polymathica Enterprises and from there you will join Polymathica Village Development. Parenthetically, I am also searching for founders of the InfoAge Enterprise Networks, which could provide you with your 'live anywhere Knowledge Class career.'
This is a very large undertaking that eventually will create hundreds of thousands of Knowledge Class career opportunities. While it will create many wealthy people, of far greater importance to most of us, we will also have created a sense of place and a cultural identity for Polymaths. This weekend I will discuss this in much greater detail within The Future 101. I hope to see you there.
Regards,
Michael Ferguson
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