This is a little off topic, but there are some interesting predictions for 2011 from the New York Times, 80 years ago.
The most relevant quote came from the founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford:
We shall go over our economic machine and redesign it, not for the purpose of making something different than what we have, but to make the present machine do what we have said it could do. After all, the only profit of life is life itself, and I believe that the coming eighty years will see us more successful in passing around the real profit of life. The newest thing in the world is the human being. And the greatest changes are to be looked for in him.
Remember, this was 1931, two years after the Wall Street Crash.
What Ford appears to be predicting is that by now, our financial systems should be setup to focus on improving life and not on financial profits. After the events of the last couple of years, I think Henry would have been disappointed.
How do you think things will have changed in another 80 years? Will we have the balance right, or will we continue to make the same mistakes over the next 80 years?
Via Subtraction
