Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Matt Everett: Building Future Scenarios

This was a very interesting article and it talked about many great points. One quote that stood out to me was, “How do we decide what kind of career path to pursue when it’s not clear what industries will exist in 20 or 15 years?” An example that came to mind when I read this was the real estate industry. Once the feds lowered the rates it gave many mortgage companies a huge edge on business because everyone wanted to refinance. People were reading about it, watching about it on television and the news, and hearing about the mortgage industry through word of mouth and how lucrative it is. People thought that real estate was the answer so many dropped their current jobs to study real estate and take the real estate exam.
Because everything in life goes in cycles, (Example: stock market) the feds slowly increased the interest rates making it very difficult to lower their existing mortgage and many families also had to go through a foreclosure because their low adjustable rates turned into a very expensive mortgage payment. This means there were many loan officers/real estate agents that could not make a living anymore because the industry was only good for a short period of time.
In anything, there is always risk involved and sometimes things are out of our control like tragedies like 911. My family was greatly impacted because my father’s business was training people how to fly airplanes. Most of his students were from China or other countries and for all the students that worked years and years to become a commercial airline pilot realized that because of 911 they might not be able to get the job they desired. It was a risk and that industry was looked at in a completely different view. I can not imagine the type of stress many corporations go through when they try to build future scenarios.

No comments: