I'm doing 90% of my business on line now. 10% on site visits.. less as more people come on line with streaming video capabilities and tele conferencing... then of course increasing perrcentage of this work is being done in China or India. and Russia. even surgury by remote robotic control.
This work is being done by people already living what I call low mass, zero overhead lifestyles..that can bill out at 20 dollars a day and be happy.. Our engineers in order to pay overhead and staff 80 to
120k a year (so they can afford the direct and hidden tax hit that raises all costs in the US) can't compete.. especially as much of what we are discussiing has moved its manufacture off shore as well.You want a fast computer.. you are no longer talking to an american about an IBM computer.. but to a chinese guy about one 5 times as fast, and a tenth of the price.
There will not be enough income to replace or afford to maintain a typical US home, one selling in california in many cases well over a million dollars.... that hand writing is already on the wall.
After everyone is locked iinto a low interest rate mortgage that they feel they won't want to walk away from because interest rates will soon be back to the 10 to 15% range..... house prices will drop another 50 to 80% ..
closer to what we are seeing in parts of Detroit today. $10,000 to $15,000 and if you buy a dozen at a time from the bank in Palm Springs calif.. $25,000 or so per house, selling just 5 years ago for half a million dollars. (entire tracks in Southern california have been torn out, never occupied because the developer couldnt sell them nor afford the property taxes).
To see those vids, search 'george, Inflation USA, real estate' on YouTube.
these buyers today will be locked in at 200 or 300 percent more than the house is worth, with property taxes each year half their annual income...or all of their iincome if they are living on social security. ..and will not be able to either sell, or move with the interest rates gone back up... they will never in effect own that home, nor sell it for even a tiny fraction of what they have invested. including ppty tax and upkeep etc.. and... while living in the home, their job opportunities are limited to a fairly short radius of their home.
That entire paradigm is fading at warp speed.
Accordlingly the high mass, non portable life style is a thing of the past, My advice ... arrange another approach for yourself.
Buggy whips will not be coming back, just like Edsels never came back, and manufcturing in the US wont be coming back... nor two ply skinny tires... all gone.. and fast too.. these things go in a year or less when their time comes. The drivers are age, baby bust, and bad education demographics..not to mention we have trained and equipped our competetion to eat our lunch... ..thats not comming back..
... and there is no 'service economy' without goods and hard value production and export of valuables to pay for the services....
amazing some supposedly smart people missed that.
There are individual solutions, Ive posted on those extensively I wont reiterate here.
Phil scott