One of the things I have taught myself to do over the years was to think in different time frames. This includes very long geological epochs and astronomical eons.
Maybe it was an interest in dinosaurs and astronomy as a kid, but historical time frames was a concept I was familiar with. Perhaps that was the basis of this week’s time frame discussion of Trading vs Investing. Understanding the very l o n g term is an important concept, in terms of getting what the long cycles can look like as well as crowd psychology.
These days, the crowd is suffering from a malaise. They are fearful of losing their jobs, not interested in buying homes, deeply concerned about the future. Following a Great Recession, this is to be expected. So too is the rise of the End of Worlders and the Zombie Bears. These folks are best ignored, as they are money losers who can damage your outlook.
I bring all of this up, because I spent this weekend looking at new start ups. I had lunches and dinners with young entrepreneurs and techies, and their angel funders. (Josh describes all of the start ups here). The ideas, the people, the energy, the competencies are just astounding. It is impossible to be long term negative when you see what is coming down the pipe.
If you want to understand the future of America, if you want to grasp why we are not doomed, then you MUST spend some time with entrepreneurs like these. The creativity, business acumen, technological insights are uplifting, energizing, empowering. We have a fertile crescent of ideas, not just in Silicon Valley but in pockets throughout the United States, like NY, Boston, Miami, San Diego, Denver, Atlanta. That is where economic growth will come from.
YOU CAN SEE THE FUTURE FROM HERE AND ITS NOT REMOTELY BLEAK.
The youth of America are full of ideas and energy. They don’t give a shit that their parents fucked everything up — they are going to steam roll over the old order and replace it with one of their own. They understand that future is not about the past. They know that they are a business of one, that no company or government is ever going to offer them economic security. They are their own team, brand and idea factory.
There are lots of things people are rightfully upset about — I lost my voice ranting last night about eejit economists who think the crisis was caused by “predatory borrowing” (it wasn’t). But that’s not what is going to be propelling us forward.
Don’t look to DC — the political debates there are laughable. Its like watching two different T-Rex debating who gets to eat the dead plant eater unaware of the the giant asteroid hurtling their way. Their argument gets resolved when the asteroid turns their summer into nuclear winter.
The old order, the political hacks and hangers on, the whiners and recession porn stars and permabears — the dinosaurs — all have no idea WTF is coming their way. They are going to be mowed down like so many extinct species before them. They cannot see the asteroid hurtling their way from the deep black depths of space.
The Future of America is coming. It is not being driven by Goldman Sachs or the GOP or Obama. That’s old school, the old order, yesterday. It’s coming, and coming sooner than most people imagine.
When you get run over, don’t say you weren’t warned . . .
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Sources: Tales from Lindzonpalooza (TRB, April 14, 2012)
After a recession, the least rational rise (temporarily) to prominence. Ignore them. (Washington Post, June 4, 2011 )
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
There are people who have been relentlessly negative over time, always seeing the bottom half of the cycle and never the upswing. I dislike that attitude.
Regular readers know I am not a cheerleader, and spend most of my time poking holes in the sanctimonious bullshit I hear spewed all the time.
This post was a change of pace.
Absolutely! For those that want to take that optimism and run with it I highly recommend reading “Abundance” by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, and/or (they cover some of the same territory) “The Physics of the Future” by Michio Kaku.
My counter is the following: Palantir.
http://palantir.com/
Observe its real core behavior.
“The Future of America is coming. It is not being driven by Goldman Sachs or the GOP or Obama. That's old school, the old order, yesterday.”
Rousing, to be sure. The Ancien Regime will be cast asunder. But your vision of some sort of Neo-yeoman techno-arcadia built by MIT wunderkinds and earnest DIYers with thick-framed glasses is too sunny by half. We’re Doomed! Dooooomed!
(or at least uncomfortably phooked)
Isn’t it true that no democracy has ever lasted longer than 300 years? I don’t think I’ll live to see the end of ours, but I do believe the future of this country will be much different than it currently is.
~~~ BR: We have too small of a sample set.
Nah, politicians have the country by the throat, and ignorance. which is rampant, is only growing.
Unless some of the geniuses you saw/met innovate sanity that can be poured into people, then the best days of the United States are past.
Refreshing !
Re Riodogg….
H L Mencken noted your observations long ago…
“A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.”
“All government, of course, is against liberty.”
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. ”
“Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That’s the way the mind of man operates. ”
“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable. “
And they will all get to meet their respective state senator for dinner.
Yes, despite ~50 years of Mussolini, Hitler, Hirohito, Stalin, & Mao, & others, much progress was made later/elsewhere in the 20th Century. For those whose entire lives were defined by those rulers, what matter ? In the most advanced scientific and intellectual culture in the early-thirties, I’m sure that were many very impressive Germans and Austrians who might have made a difference, or may have, post-war, e.g. plastics & rocketry (the later in part via learnings in the V2 program). The signs now are that we’re much closer to 1932 than to 1955. What exactly are these entrepreneurs going to do that will turn back what seem to be the tides of history ? In what way will they render harmless the Data Center and centrally-controlled drones, among other things ? It may have been a simple matter of good luck that MAD did not occur, but there are many more potential events of similar impact, and probability suggests that at least one of them will transpire, due to disagreements among rulers and concentrations of power. What are these entrepreneurs going to do to change who has power and influence ? Could happen Barry, but there’s nothing in this entry to suggest it.
BR, you may onto something here..new ideas and technology force changes on the old guard, whether they like it or want it, or not – they have no choice and usually don’t know or even see the “asteroid” coming with their heads buried in the sand counting their dollars…Just look what the internet has done to commerce – retail behemoths like Sears & Best Buy are on their way to being put out to pasture by the likes of Amazon; even CompUsa was basically forced out of business by sites like Egghead- very few saw that coming 15-20 years ago. Keep the good stuff coming BR, this is still one of my first stops in daily reading. Thanks!
As far as our future is concerned, the biggest threat comes from our education system. Half our PHD students are from abroad, we need to make our students more competitive. Ironically there are those who think the solution is limiting the H1B visa program which would only make matters worse.
I am sorry Barry but this seems like a pep talk with all hope and optimism. The future of america is same as every other country unless the people take control from the Money/capital owners. What people are you talking about? 30-40% of the population is crazy bat shit fairly tale believers….they want to do another civil war and want to go on another crusade. Innovation itself is not going to provide bread to the general populations. Take example of apple, they have grown ten folds in last 10 years, but where are most of the jobs, most of them went outside this country. The capital owners want to bring the labor from the south for all low paying jobs and they want to send all the other jobs to third world countries so that they can make more profit, so what happens to the middle class? Thanks to the government expansion since the last 10 years or so we are still limping along, I do not think thats going to change in the near future thanks to euro problems USA can still get all the money it needs to borrow for low interest rate. I wonder what kind of jobs the recent batch of young people are getting and what is the future if all they earn is just enough to pay the bills??
It will come down to the armed forces and police.
We saw the beginning with the Occupy movement, essentially a repeat of the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement of the Vietnam War era. The police began acting like pigs with their Mace and beatings. However, in those “revolutions” that order gave way and a new structure came into being. Kent State when the National Guard shot and killed four young, unarmed people was a major turning point.
We are seeing a repeat. Over time as new pension and other rules come into play, the police will understand that their bosses are not on their side. They actually have the same issues as the people they are supposed to beat and Mace. Over time, a new generation of police will be less inclined to exhibit the sadism towards the protestors we have seen over the past year.
The US has always been able to keep the military at bay from major interference in civilian politics. The military-industrial complex may be eroding this. I suspect that the Iraq-Afghan wars have undermined the respect that grunts have for senior leadership, so I think the US military will remain on the sidelines as they would generally not follow orders from higher-ups to occupy their own cities to maintain fat cats in power.
So the wave is building slowly, but it is coming. The actual final change will probably happen abruptly when a couple of generations of political leaders lose their posts. The Tea Party was just a warm-up. However, it will probably take another decade with municipal defaults, a market crash, austerity for the state governments, large cuts in public pensions etc. to bring about the final change. I think the final triggers are going to be the massive state and local government finance issues that are starting to break above the surface of the water.
Every business survives by servicing its customers. The new generation of customers are realizing that some of the behavior of companies in the past is totally unacceptable and they will be shunned. Economics is not a morality play, the ignorant will say, but it is of course one of the most important morality plays of all.
If you live in the SF Bay Area and are a technology person, it is easy to forget how bearish the rest of the country has gotten. The youth culture, the money, the mystery (of technology), the innovation. It creates a very positive energy. Especially when mixed with the right cocktail or microbrew. In 100 years it will probably be considered a golden age, similar to how we now view Paris of the 20′s.
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