Looking ahead

As I sat this morning on my living room couch, with the sounds of Mario Kart dancing through my head, I decided to update some of my business and social networking profiles. After my linkedin facebooking and twittering were complete, I saw a link on "Top five recession proof jobs" on the sidebar. Naturally a curious person, I decide to click on it, to see maybe which basket I should put my eggs in, before they crack.
Lo and behold, right there as the second choice, was listed "pharmaceutical sales representative." The theory being that the positions are servicing the healthcare field, and people are going to continue to get sick.
Naturally, if the "reporter" of this information had done some sort of homework- say- interview someone that works in the field *cough cough* they would understand the landscape a little better. That the "industry" is downsizing on all fronts. Perhaps some biotechs are growing- and good for them btw!- but the "big pharma" industry has been bloated- and has been overfed by the government for the past 8 years.
Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of research that was provided in the article. Maybe I am just looking at the wrong companies. But I am of the feeling that there is a information overload going on right now.
What is going to be important over the coming years is prognostication- an ability to anticipate. Not just what is "good" or acceptable- but what is great. Community- in every sense of the word- I would imagine is going to come to the forefront, as people look to each other in times of need. As much as forecasters are saying that the country will respond differently than the Great Depression due to a lack of drive economically by agriculture- the patterns that I know of (deflation followed by severe inflation) seem to be following suit as per the 1930's.
That being said, I am going to read up on some of the books that document economic and social behavior of the recessions and depressions. The gravy train has come to a stop, but that doesn't mean that nothing else is leaving the station.