I am back after taking the longest hiatus in the 16 month life of this blog.  I would like to think this futurist was missed, but this is August and I would imagine most readers would be either be languidly lying about on vacation or keeping a nervous eye on the stock markets, both activities with a decidedly short term focus.  The happy reason for my absence is that I was married to and then took a mini-honeymoon with my lovely new wife Victoria.  Married in a Rose Garden, we metaphorically promised that to each other for the rest of our lives and of course will always stop to smell the sweet fragrance along the way.

There is much to write about in the weeks ahead as there have been many recent developments that are early snapshots of what lies ahead for us all. Later this week I want to comment on the turbulence of the financial markets that has been triggered by the crisis in mortgage backed securities and the subsequent tightening of credit.  As a preface to that I am republishing one of the very first columns that ever appeared here.  Published in March of 2006 it suggests that Fed Chairman Bernanke would be the first person in his position to face truly global financial issues.   I always try to suggest to you what might be around the corner or down the road.  In this case I was somewhat successful in that effort. 
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The New York Stock Exchange was founded in 1817.  This was some 50 years after the beginning of the Industrial Age.  The need for the NYSE was, in part, a result of the transition of the U.S. economy from one that was completely agricultural to one that was rapidly becoming industrial.  During the course of the 1800s the NYSE became increasingly important to the economy as a financial market that could provide both financial liquidity to listed companies and as a way to establish valuation and worth of all companies traded. 

In the 20th century the NYSE was joined by many other exchanges such as the AMEX and the NASDAQ.  All these exchanges served to create liquidity, valuation and a way that investors could own and trade in shares of companies.  These markets therefore became central to the miracle that was the U.S. economy of the past 100 years.

Some 30 years ago however, the Industrial Age started to give way to the Information Age and something interesting began to happen.  The value of the hard assets as a percentage of total corporate value started to decline.  As I have written here, in 1975 16.8% of the market capitalization of the S&P 500 was from intangible assets.  By 1995, that number had grown to 68.4%, and in 2005 it was up to 79.7%, where I imagine it will level off in the years ahead.  Another way of stating this is that intellectual property, or intellectual capital has become the dominant value …