The year 2008 will obviously go down as one of the most eventful years in recent history.  It was the year that Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.  It was the year that the Internet replaced print and TV as the driving force in a presidential election. It was the beginning of the end of 15 years of divisive cultural politics in America.

2008 was the year of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.  This collapse was the first one since the beginning of the new global economy and thus showed how humanity and all of its nation states are financially interconnected in a historically unprecedented way.  This global financial collapse is historically significant for several reasons.  First it did show that money and finance knows no national boundaries, and that nation states can no longer individually deal with major financial crises.  Second it is the start of the process to cleanse the global and particularly U.S economy from over leveraged, debt oriented mindless growth and consumption that has been a result of the mindless support of unlimited growth without thought of personal, national and global consequences.  Third it represents a clear albeit disruptive and painful part of the transition that humanity is now making from one age, the Information Age, to the new age, the Shift Age.

2008 was the year when people around the world, and most strikingly Americans, make a sudden and profound switch from consumption, debt and spending to, thrift, saving and shedding …

We are coming to an end of the greatest financial age of sports in history.  The twelve years between 1996 and 2008 were years when the money around sports exploded beyond any precedent era.  This also means that, going forward, the economics around sports in general will decline, at least for the next 5-8 years if not longer.

The bookends for these 12 years of explosive financial growth are the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and the Beijing Olympics of 2008.  The Atlanta Olympics were the first post-cold war Olympics and, being held in the U.S. created a huge marketing platform.  The Beijing Olympics was the coming out party for the most populous country in the world and gave  recognition to China as a major player on the world’s geopolitical and financial stages.

In 1996 cable television had become a dominant media force in the U.S.  ESPN, and all of its networks, was beginning to take its’ place as the behemoth of sports television.  Regional sports networks, TBS and TNT soon joined the party and it seemed that sports were everywhere on TV.  The broadcast networks and all of these cable entities competed for the rights of all major sports.  The fees paid to the NFL, MLB, the NBA, and the college football conferences exploded.  This led to dramatically increased player salaries, advertising rates and, for the consumer, rapidly increasing cable bills.  Of course it also led to much lower ratings as nothing was special any more.  Even though Monday Night Football on …

As a futurist, I view the financial crisis that exploded last week from a high level, long term perspective.  The macro forces that are reshaping our world must be considered when such a crisis occurs.  In addition this particular crisis will force us to reevaluate long held economic ideals that may no longer have validity in their purest forms.

It is important to state that there are many traceable causes to this crisis. It is these particulars that politicians and those that need to blame something or someone will focus on as a way to justify a point of view or to seek retribution.  There will be much argument about who is to blame and what needs to be done to protect the U.S. and global financial system from further meltdown.  This is an important discussion to have, as long as there is perspective and an honest desire to right the ship rather than to just be right.

There have been financial crises in the past that can be looked at for guidance and for reassurance.  Guidance in how to handle what now confronts us, and reassurance that we can and will weather this crisis.  The Great Depression has been mentioned a lot this past week, as it was the specter of such a calamity that provoked the actions made by the Fed and the Treasury Department .  This was due in part to the fact that Ben Bernanke is regarded as an authority on this historical economic event.  Perhaps a more …

Recently, people have been asking me a lot of questions about the fluctuating price of oil

“What is the price of oil going to be?”  “Was the recent price spike of $147 a barrel an all-time high that we won’t see again?”  And “Will the global economic slowdown drive the price of oil back down below $100?”

These are just some of the questions I have been asked in recent weeks.  The reason of course, as long time regular readers of this blog know, is that I have been consistently accurate in my predictions about the price of oil.   In 2006 I predicted $125 barrel oil in 2008 and $137 in 2009.  In the past year I predicted that oil would have a near term trading range of $95 – 135 per barrel but that while there would be little downward pressure below $95, there are many scenarios that would provide upward pressure above $135.  All of this price predictions flow from my view that we have entered the time …

Amidst all the chatter and news stories about who said what in the Presidential race and how SUVs have become undesirable, there was a story last week that will be one that 2008 will be remembered for, at least in the scientific community.  NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander found ice on Mars!!

As long as humanity has known about the solar system there has been conjecture as to whether there was life anywhere else.  Mars has always been the prime suspect and has led to many books, movies and one famous radio event about Martians.  Most of the time such life forms have been presented as strange angry creatures that attack earth as we humans have trouble thinking other wise.  Those of us who believe in the statistical inevitability of life elsewhere have waited for concrete evidence.

The discovery of water on Mars does not suggest that there has or is life on Mars.  We do currently believe however that water is essential for the existence of life.  We now know, conclusively for the first time that water exists on another planet.  That is an incredible discovery.  It is a first.  Water is not unique to earth.

In an earlier column here I discussed the fact that scientists found another sun and planetary system that is similar to ours.  I also suggested in another column that perhaps the definition of life should be expanded as we search for it in space.  The fact that ‘life’ should be narrowly defined by earthly …