Could The Wrap be wrapped up or outsourced to India or China? A Princeton professor feels it is a distinct possibility.
I am writing this column in the knowledge that it could be one of my last for The Wrap.
This follows the news from the United States that journalists are facing a fast-approaching use-by date. Our days are numbered. We are going the way of the dodo, Tony Blair, the Imperial typewriter and the paper airline ticket.
Our usefulness and life expectancy is probably about the same as that of the fax machine.
So long, it’s been good to know you.
Professor Alan Binder, who teaches economics and conducts research at Princeton University, has been telling the Daily Telegraph in the UK that along with journalists, plenty of other occupations are on his hit list. Hundreds of them, in fact.
Prof Binder is former deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve, once touted as a potential successor to Alan Greenspan, so his opinions carry considerable weight.
If Prof Binder is right, now might be a good time to sell my laptop on ebay, send my Oxford dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus to the local op shop and cancel my subscription to Writers’ News.
Prof Binder says that from the best accountants and lawyers to the smartest derivatives traders to teachers and lecturers, many of today's most prestigious jobs could, thanks to globalisation and improved communications technology, just as easily be done more cheaply in places such as India and China.
The result, he predicts, is that between 30 million and 40 million US jobs could go within the next generation
He says there is not an obviously great future in America for computer programmers, accountants and for some types of lawyers – “just to take three highly-educated people”.
"Lawyers that write contracts, and lots of accountants, maybe that kind of education is not such a fabulous idea.
“Educating people to go into what I call the personal services is a good idea - some of which don't require all that much education - so electricians, carpenters, plumbers, roofers - skilled trades.
“Those starting their careers today could find themselves obsolete well before the end of their career.”
Prof Binder says some occupations are safe. Investment bankers, who have to take out their clients and sweet-talk them, are more likely to survive than derivatives traders, who could as easily be elsewhere.
Economists are looking very vulnerable, Prof Blinder says.
As for journalists - "You're on the margins, like college professors," he told the Telegraph’s Edmund Conway.
On the margins? Now that sounds like a good title for a weekly column.
Maybe I will be around for a while yet.
