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Your e-mails: The future of business and finance

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Reader predictions include electronic money, ID chip implants and a borderless world.

SPECIAL REPORT

(CNN) -- As part of our Welcome to the Future special report, we recently asked for your thoughts on the future of business and finance.

Here is a sampling of your e-mailed predictions, some of which have been edited. (Read more about CNN's special report exploring the realities of the future)

Within the next three years corporate America will have drained and taken everything from the middle class (it has already been done to the lower class). The rich will look down upon us and, if we are lucky, throw us a sixpence. Those of us who will be fortunate to still have vehicles to drive will race to the gas station to fill up when the oil-flutin' bigwigs drop the price per gallon to $6.20 after being at $6.50 the day before, and we will think "Phew! Thank God it's cheaper!"
Jennifer, Highland, Illinois

We will have an ID implant. We will be able to walk up to a computer anywhere, be recognized, and access our unique information. No cash or credit card needed.
Sammi Shepherd, Methuen, Massachusetts

I am looking forward to being able to perform many of my daily tasks from the comfort of my own living room. From shopping to meeting with my accountant, to attending class or a work conference, I would like to have the option to decide if taking the time to make the commute and being there in person brings any additional value to the experience. As voice recognition, wall-size displays, increased broadband speed and intelligent interfaces become available, "teleliving" will change our lives in ways we can only imagine.
Bryan Trogdon, Omaha, Nebraska

Big business will continue using its record-breaking profits to take control of the U.S. government and other governments around the world. Consumers and workers will pay the price not only in staggeringly lower wages but also in damages caused by products and services offered by businesses. People seem to just be letting it happen with apathy and indifference. Time will tell how hungry, homeless, and desperate people need to be to stand up and fight for themselves.
Legge, Livonia, Michigan

There will be a lot of automated businesses and decision-making, with some products, such as software, generated automatically. This will compound world wealth by several magnitudes. Also, financial-management services will be automated and ubiquitous, creating a massive pool of wealth. Intense competition and high product turn-outs will result in price drops. A further organization and structuring of the consumer market will also result in drastic drops in prices of products.
Bolaji Ogeyingbo, Lagos, Nigeria

In the future, businesses will be run by honest people who provide quality products at a fair price. To ensure honesty, people will wear special glasses that can read a person's electrical field and when a person is lying, their field will read red, and when they are telling the truth, their field will read blue. This will allow for more fair competition and not just for those who lie the most effectively. Businesses won't be able to get away with shoddy products because their electrical field will show that their sales pitches are not honest. Businesses will also help society by supporting their schools and elder care on a local level, and providing food for the hungry, and clean water and air on a global level. OK, maybe this isn't how it will be, but it sure is how I wish it could be.
M.G. Howard, Manassas, Virginia

There will no longer be currency in paper. We will carry one card for all financial transactions. This one card will hold all personal data, and it will even convert into different currency. This card will replace a driver's license, etc. We will even have a personal line of credit at our fingertips. Business will be conducted via this card, as well -- it will be like a portable video cam, cell phone, computer and bank card all rolled into one.
Mary Allen, Sackville, Canada

The future is the globalization of money and the elimination of domestic currency. The Euro is the start of this process, which in itself will have different phases to reduce the complexity of the money market. Right now we're in the "regional phase," where different regions of the world will tie their currencies together. This of course will make trade and currency stronger. Once regional currency markets are established, a global organization such as the WTO needs to figure out a way to combine all these currencies into one.
Phil Fetzko, Palmerton, Pennsylvania

I hope in the next 10 years the commerce borders between the developed world and the undeveloped world disappear. This, I'm sure, will happen. I'm not so sure if it will in such a short time. But eventually people will start to realize that borders are just silly subjective limits that should be left in the past.
Ricardo Diaz, Guatemala


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