I guess that I just don't understand economics as well as the former Selfridges shelf-stacker and data entry guru George Osborne.
In my simple world, if something goes catastrophically wrong (say, like the world banking system), then I would be looking to try to make some changes to that system to stop it doing it again in the future. How wrong I must
be… Obviously what is needed is to make sweeping cuts to the public services, whilst raising indirect taxation, to make sure that those who (some may argue) got us in to the mess in the first place (the 'collateralised debt is a triple-A investment' ratings agencies) take kindly on the economy.
Or, if you'd like an alternative interpretation of what's going on, take a look at Naomi Klein's 'The Shock Doctrine'.
Rant over.
Meanwhile, it has got me thinking about the dangers of macro-economic forecasting. There is a darker side to the whole cloud revolution that I haven't really spoken about on these pages, but has important consequences for those who think that it is only private-sector enterprise that can save the economy.
In the UK, there are an awfully large number of people who work in technical IT jobs. If they aren't supplier side (and even for many of them that are), there are some substantial career issues on the horizon. Namely, that Cloud will probably make many of those roles redundant.
Now there are extremely valuable jobs that will need to be done in the new world of helping organisations adapt to the new technologies. However, the skills profile of most IT people really don't match to what will be required in the years ahead.
Simply put, the five-year fixed-term that the government is now so slavishly working to seems to take little account of the fact the five years is a very long time in the modern world, and that job markets and industries can be subjected to colossal change in such a period. Five years ago, Apple didn't do mobile phones…
Focus on the public sector alone seems to be making huge assumptions about the underlying industries that make up the private sector. Putting aside the knock-on effect that average 25% cuts are going to have on private sector suppliers, in five years time we could have witnessed dramatic contraction in many industries (not least IT) because of evolution in markets.
But hey. As long as Standard and Poor are happy…
mmitII 