In this eleven minute presentation he pulls together material he has read and conversations he has had with people who keep track of societal and economic change. What they're telling him will likely get the attention of anyone who thinks of the future past what they're having for lunch.

You know the divide we see in society between the wealthy and the poor? Are you familiar with how the "middle class" continually gets squeezed? Unfortunately the outlook for the future isn't looking a whole lot brighter for the middle and lower income classes. But now we have a rough time frame on when the middle class will be nearly extinct. How long do you think we have?

According to Mark Yarnell's sources, we have about fifteen years.

We have fifteen years to either save up $10 million to put in the bank and earn $25,000 per month interest, or to develop another asset that will put us into the "wealthy" class instead of the "poor" class. A lot of my readers will already be on the towards building something for themselves that will put them comfortably in the "wealthy" class within fifteen years. Part of my own plan is based on this MLM training course. Many of the successful people I know follow that plan or one similar.

But my concern with this theory of increasing disparity is not so much with the entrepreneurial minded. I'm actually more concerned about those who just don't have it in them to strike out on their own and create their own future. As it is, for a couple to stay in the economic middle class it takes both people working at least one job, and one of them being a higher average income like a physician, lawyer, engineer, etc.

If a family does not have one of these professional positions, and they are not going to develop their own business of some sort, then what kind of recourse will they have?

This is not to argue that everyone should be super wealthy. Not everyone even wants that. We're just talking here about maintaining your own home, having healthy food to eat, having decent health care provisions, and a living wage retirement plan. It turns out that these days unless you are considered wealthy you don't have access to all of that. In about fifteen years, what we consider "poor" now, might just be the middle class.

So what can we do about it?

For a start, we need to elect poliical leaders that are more interested in developing a prosperous nation than creating international disasters. Our national focus shouldn't be on trying to break other people down, but to build everyone up.

Think about the issue. Head over to Mark's 15 Years Podcast and take a listen. Then come back here and leave some comments. I would really like to hear your perspective.

Up until the past year when I've been more involved with raising our son and working on the internet businesses I would go to a fair number of cycling events as a participant. This was usually a fund raising event, a "recreational" ride like the Seattle-to-Portland (STP), or bike race – mountain or road. I'd always appreciated the service of the volunteers who really make the events go smoothly and sometimes found it hard to believe they were so friendly even though they weren't getting paid for it.

I found out the secret to why they're so friendly: it's a lot of fun!

There's a lot of logistics to running a bike race smoothly, and now I appreciate that more than ever. One of my very good friends was running the organization of the car caravans for each race group. A group was something like Category 1,2,3 Women [note: Category 1,2 and 3 are really good], Category 4,5 Women, Category 1,2 Men, etc. There were about 5 race caravans with four cars in each caravan. My buddy's job was to make sure there were enough volunteer cars and drivers, as well as make sure everyone had the right equipment (signs, lights, radios) and get started in the right position and on time. He also picked up one or two other responsibilities on the day of the event.

No, he didn't get paid for that either. But he did a great job!

By contrast, all I had to do was drive a wheel support car for the Masters category, which consisted of about 50 guys 30+ years old of all categories. Coincidentally, that would have been my group had I been racing.

Wheel support involves collecting extra wheels from those who brought them, and then making sure that every one gets their extra wheels back at the end of the race. During the race, if one of them gets a flat they will pull over and raise up their arm. I pull over and, quickly as I can, pull out a front or rear wheel from the car and give it them. I'll help them swap out wheels as quickly as possible so they can have a chance to catch up with the race group, 'cause the race group is not waiting!

So that's the nuts and bolts of what the wheel car driver has to do, but that leaves out how much of a blast this really is! Having done a fair number of group rides and races, I know what it's like to suffer with a group while trying not to run into anyone else and paying attention to your own exertion level, trying to be smart in your group postioning, etc. It takes a lot more mental energy than you would think. But the reward is that you get to fly along the road with a tight knit group and get the rush of racing.

This time following along in a car I got to see how the race group moved along the road and through the curves. With all of the colorful jerseys and bikes, I almost felt like I was at the Tour de France! In some ways, this was even better because I was actually participating by helping to support the racers. I really wanted to make sure I got a new wheel as quickly as possible to those who needed it and get them back on the road again.

By the end, there were only a total of three flats that I needed to help with.

And what I found out is that there are a lot of people like me out there. That is, the actual participants in the events really are appreciative of the volunteers. Even the guys who did not need a wheel in the race gave me a big smile and a "Thanks!" just for following along with their wheels. I was happy to do it and had a great time in the process.

So the thing I learned from this, and that I would like to pass along, is to find a way to volunteer in something that you really enjoy. Yes, we are all busy. You're not special in saying "I have too much to do – I don't have time to volunteer". What makes you special is finding a way to volunteer in spite of being so busy.

I've been just a guilty as anybody else in using this excuse, but now that I've had such a great time I'm going to make it a point to do something like this several times a year. You really can't buy this kind of experience and it will help clear your mind from the day to day routine.

What I've learned over the years is that I actually have knowledge and experiences that can help other people. What you also find is that these online forums can be a source of meeting people of a similar mindset and can even set the foundation for both business and personal relationships. Since there is a certain amount of anonymity available with internet communication you need to be a bit more careful with developing these relationship than you might with someone in person.

As it happens, you can find online forums for any interest you might have. Different forums will have different characteristics, personalities and flavors so it's a matter of spending some time "lurking" (which is just reading posts without posting responses). This will give you an idea of where the forum lies on a particular spectrum from "family friendly" to "explicit", "liberal" to "conservative", "beginner" to "expert" or whatever scale is important for you. Being a lurker on a particular forum can help you get the gist of a conversation before making your own contributions.

Since they are a very interactive medium, it's possible to get answers to questions that may not yet have been posed. This can promote further discussion and give people insight that might not have come about without your simple question. This was when I realized that just because something hadn't been asked or posted yet, didn't mean the answer was obvious to everyone except me. You will often get responses like, "hey, I was wondering that too, glad you asked".

This has been especially valuable in my [tag-tec]marketing training[/tag-tec]. I have had access to an exclusive [tag-tec]training program for marketing on the internet[/tag-tec] which has included a closed forum open to a limited number of marketers. This closed system has developed a sense of community which has been fostered by the program's faculty and moderators. This has developed to the point where there have been quite a bit of correspondence outside of the forum.

Like minded people can get together for a project or to form a Joint Venture (JV) partnership. This can be one of the most effective was to give a boost to your business and the great part about it is that both (or all) partners get something from it. This lays the foundation for future partnerships and business growth. Finding the right kind of person through these partnerships can lead to forming a "mastermind" group which is another way to get new ideas and develop existing ones through frank discussion and advice.

I've heard more than once that "the only people who hang out in forums are the ones who are not making any money". While most of the business and marketing forums have a high percentage of "newbies" and people getting started, a healthy forum will have a core group that has "been there, done that" and can help advise the newer members.

This core group also learns from each other, so I see participation on forums an important piece of not only developing a "presence" on the internet for your business, but as tool for helping others and finding partners in collaboration.

Of course, that's not really the case. I believe that most people do want peace and prosperity, but the overwhelming violence caused by individuals can shake that perception sometimes.

The recent violence and death on the campus of Virginia Tech by what appears to be a lone shooter is a senseless act that many people are trying to make sense of. Something like this is so far outside the realm of what is acceptable human behavior that no sense can be made of it. Different segments of society will try to blame guns, blame social stress, blame who-knows-what.

In trying to make sense out of the senselessness the natural reaction is to try and find out what caused a person to snap like that and take steps to make sure that doesn't happen again. I'm not a social scientist, so when I look at society and the individuals in it as a system I come at it from a logical point of view. The problem with that is that people tend to be hugely illogical. That's actually a good thing, otherwise we all just be like machines, which would be predictable (mostly), but boring.

One individual acting out like this is what's called an "outlier" in statistical terms. That means if you were to draw a graph of normal actions or behaviors, this data point would be so far off of the line drawn through all of the other data points that it is compeletely unpredictable. When dealing with systems you would generally just ignore that data point and develop the system around the predictable parts.

That approach does not work so well when you deal with the possibilities of catastrophic failure, such as when there is the result of people dying. When looking at this individuals motives (and not the methods) for commiting the violence, the lessons learned should be put towards fixing the system so that there are fewer outliers to begin with, rather than just trying to reduce the number of methods for violence.

When dealing with people, the "system" is society and community. As an engineer, my normal statement would be to say, "fix the system if you want better results". A more general way to say that is "adjust the system if you want results different from what you are currently getting". This is where it gets complicated and you start running into the "big idea" stuff like shaping societies and community.

I predict that much of what we learn about the individual who brought grief into the lives of so many this week will match the pattern we have seen before: a loner, not many friends, not involved with the community, etc. Now a person who fits that description is not destined to commit violent acts, but on the other side of that coin it's not often that you hear of a person who was involved with their community, helped other people out, had lots of friends, a strong family life, etc go completely off the deep end and go on a shooting spree.

If people are truly looking for an end to violence in society, I propose that the answer is in the society.

The natural reaction for most people when dealing with someone who wants to be left alone is to just leave them alone. This might not be the healthiest path for that person, but it's easier for everyone else. Most of the time nothing bad comes from it, other than "the loner" becoming more isolated.

However, this process also creates the "outliers" that have the potential to really cause havoc and rend the peaceful lives of healthy families in an instant.

I wish I had answers here, but the best idea I can come up with is for all of us who want a healthier, peaceful society is to try and stay involved with people who tell us they want to be left alone, but really need us in their lives.