What a day!  President Barack Obama is the 44^th President of the United States.  This will be a day that will go down in history as an inflection day.  Today is a day when the United States and the world changes course and move in a new direction.

Yes President Obama is the first African American to become President and that is a truly momentous event given the history of race in American.  There is no question that this is an event that not only moves America to the next stage of racial harmony but also signals that fact to the world.  It can not be overstated that this achievement opens a new chapter for a country whose democracy stands for equality under the law with freedom and justice for all.  The symmetry with Dr. King’s birthday cannot be overstated.

Expectations and optimism lead to new beginnings.  For those who think the world will change, it will.  Change can be profound and incremental.  Many think that the euphoria will wear off and things will return to partisanship and bureaucracy.  To some degree they will be right.  It is important to keep in mind how even small changes can move individuals and countries in totally new directions.

Motivational and self help gurus talk about how if someone just makes a 10% change in effort or direction each year, that in several years they will be in an entirely different place living an entirely different life.  Well it is quite clear that President Obama, his …

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 …

This is the second year for Evolution Shift to present you with a general forecast and somewhat more specific predictions for 2008.  The forecast for 2007 is here for those wanting to check out the accuracy of what was predicted for last year.  In addition I made some transitional 2007/2008 predictions last week, tying up the year end. 

We are now leaving the Information Age and entering the Shift Age.  The transition between these two ages began in 2006, gathered speed last year and will be even more fully felt in 2008 and 2009 when it will generally be understood that we in fact are living in a new age.  This is the underlying dynamic that is shaping most of the general trends and some of the specific trends and predictions below.

General Trends and Dynamics

1. The Flow to Global will continue to accelerate. Humanity is now entering its’ global stage of evolution.  Ultimately the only boundary will be planetary.  The global economy is the first stage of this dynamic.  This flow is the underlying force of many of the changes, disruptions and reorganizations that are going on.  It is also why many of the traditional terms, measurements and definitions used for the past few decades no longer seem quite right.  Barometers and cause and effect relationships of the recent past seem less valid year by year. We are no longer in the 20th century or the Information Age, therefore new terminology and reference points are needed..

2. The Flow to Individual …