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"Crisis or Opportunity - The 6 Myths and Realities of Economic Opportunity," by Paul Zane Pilzer, Your Business Magazine, October 2006.

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A vast amount of wealth is being created over the next ten years. Here's why--and how you can be a part of it.

The reason I titled this article "Crisis or Opportunity" is because there are the two prevalent and opposing views
that exist today.

by Paul Zane Pilzer

Which perspective people subscribe to will drive their choices, their actions and, to a great extent, their destinies. My purpose is to give you enough information in the following pages to see for yourself that the true situation in which we find ourselves is the latter and not the former.
    

Of course, there are also crises. There is no such thing as a trouble-free world. And I don’t want to minimize or ignore the very real suffering and difficulties experienced by the unemployed, the dispossessed and all those who experience loss as they struggle through the dizzyingly rapid and often confusing shifts in the patterns of modern life. But the plain truth is that we live in a time of astonishingly rich opportunity.
     The purpose of this article is simply to introduce the ideas behind these two positions: the myths of crisis and the realities of opportunity.

Myth No. 1:
With dwindling oil supplies, the economy’s days are numbered.
The entire economy of the modern world is teetering on the brink of slow extinction because our biggest strength is our biggest weakness, i.e., our complete dependence on oil. It’s clear that the planet’s supplies of oil are running out, and when they do, the party’s over.

REALITY: We will never run out of resources because we always invent new ones. Since the beginning of human time, when huntergatherers roamed from place to place when food supplies were exhausted, we have always been “running out” of resources. Yet every time we reach the limits on one resource, we use our human ingenuity to invent a new and better one.

Myth No. 2:
Unemployment is up; the economy’s in bad shape.
Ever since the dot-com bust, and especially since 9/11, things have been going downhill in a handbasket. Unemployment’s up, growth and opportunity are down. Between the looming threat of international terrorism and the way all our jobs are being siphoned off by cheaper labor in Asian markets, the mood of American business is gloomy, and bound to get only gloomier.

REALITY: Our economy is in the middle of its greatest growth spurt in history. Except for the brief slowing in the last quarter of 2001, our gross domestic product has increased every single quarter-year since the start of the century. We have picked up where we left off, from the historic decade-long economic expansion of 1991–2001, and are in the first years of another period of extreme economic growth. Unemployment, while it is painful for the workers who are temporarily displaced, is a necessary and positive sign that the economy is growing. In essence, we are disengaging the work force from less productive businesses to be retrained for work in newer and more productive ones, just as in the 20th century millions of workers left the farms for the factories, and later left the factories for newer, retail industries. At the same time, this will be a period of highly selective prosperity; that is, only certain people, industries and economies will prosper. This is because the rate of change has become so fast, only those who are quickest to adapt to new technologies and the new markets they represent will be in a position to take advantage of this growth.
 

REALITY: America is leading the way in new and emerging industries. Every time United States companies move jobs overseas, they do so for one and only one reason: to increase profits. And these added profits don’t go overseas—they stay here in the United States, where they create more buying power and growth. The greatest increase in the economic growth spurt we’re now entering will come in new and emerging industries, including Internet services, the burgeoning wellness industry, intellectual distribution and direct selling. Again, though, there will be an increased disparity during this period of extreme growth. It will not be between America and Asia, or certain population groups and others, so much as between those who involve themselves in the new and emerging growth industries and those who do not.

Myth No. 4:
The Internet is yesterday’s news.
The Internet boom has come and gone—if there ever really was one. Or was it all smoke and mirrors? Wasn’t that the story with all those dot-com initial public offerings in the late ’90s: big expectations, but no real earnings? Looks like maybe the Internet was not all it cracked up to be.

REALITY: The Internet represents one of the greatest economic revolutions in history—and it’s just getting started. Just as the automobile grew to change the face of modern society, over the coming decade the Internet will spread well beyond its current definitions and applications, and begin to permeate every aspect of our lives. The impact of the Internet, which is even now only in its infancy, can only be compared to the invention of writing, which created the birth of civilization, and the printing press, which created industrialization.

Myth No. 5:
Going into business for yourself is risky.
Who can afford to lose out on health insurance and retirement benefits? As everyone’s belt gets tighter, it’s harder and harder for the home-based entrepreneur to compete. The safest, most secure position is to work for a corporation.

REALITY: Maybe two or three decades ago. But in today’s world, working for yourself is actually the safer route, and working for a corporation has become the riskier proposition.

Due in part to recent changes in tax law, the principle advantages of being an employee have now become equally available to the selfemployed entrepreneur. And with a sweeping trend toward decentralizing large firms and shifting toward smaller businesses, “virtual corporations” and independent contractors, the individual entrepreneur today is often far more competitive than the big corporation. Entrepreneurs will be the biggest beneficiaries of this economic boom.

Myth No. 6:
It’s harder than ever for the individual entrepreneur to get ahead.
Individual opportunity is shrinking. Small businesses are being gobbled up by large firms, large firms are being absorbed into multinationals, and the Internet is fast making person-to-person businesses, such as direct selling, obsolete.

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