Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Early Retirement Extreme Forums » Money Questions

1. 

   jacob
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 3,297

   http://www.pimco.com/EN/insights/pages/the-great-escape-april-2012.aspx

   "Financial assets relative to real assets outperform in such a world as wealth is brought forward and stolen from future years if real growth cannot replicate historical total returns."

   Also see in "plain speak"... all this is consistent with the next Kondratieff cycle. It is still not entirely clear to me what the next technology innovation/driver is going to be. Internet? Nano? Bio?... or something more fundamental, like food, water, and clean air?

   Posted 1 year ago #
2. 

   Ego
   

   Master
   Joined: Nov '11
   Posts: 749

   Personalization is my guess for the next big driver.

   Today you can walk into the Harvard Bookstore and print out any one of five million books instantaneously. It won't be long before we can walk into REI and get a body-scan then a custom-made rain jacket instantaneously - or - go to a health-food store where they do a blood test and concoct a custom vitamin pill -or- go to the doctor where they inject personalized nanobots designed to reproduce then rebuild cartilage or remove plaque buildup -or- go to the

   In a sense, this is a continuation of what we are already seeing. From a marketing perspective, the beauty of personalization is that people change. When they have something custom-made they feel the need for a new suit when it no longer fits perfectly or a new vitamin when they no longer have the underlying condition that caused them to get the old one. Fewer customers with more wealth demand that companies create new ways to entice obsolescence.

   Posted 1 year ago #
3. 

   dot_com_vet
   

   Master
   Joined: Jan '11
   Posts: 376

   The big, revolutionary changes are always unpredictable.

   Posted 1 year ago #
4. 

   jacob
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 3,297

   On the other hand, revolutionary changes have been in the pipeline for some 20 or more years before they become big/commercialized. So what's cooking?

   Posted 1 year ago #
5. 

   dot_com_vet
   

   Master
   Joined: Jan '11
   Posts: 376

   Plastics? :-)

   Posted 1 year ago #
6. 

   jacob
   

   Expert
   Joined: Jul '10
   Posts: 3,297

   Interwebs?

   Posted 1 year ago #
7. 

   KevinW
   

   Master
   Joined: Aug '10
   Posts: 577

   Cyberpunk technologies are getting pretty close. "Cyberspace" is old news but synthetic organs, combat droids, battling corporate AIs, and humanoid robots are here or around the corner. Cyborgs are practically here piecemeal in the form of Bluetooth, ECV scooters, smartphones, and/or Google Goggles. If the fiction is right, these developments will coincide with a plutocratic aristocracy using untouchable mega-corporations to rule over a vast depraved underbelly.

   Posted 1 year ago #
8. 

   Obadobadope
   

   Apprentice
   Joined: Dec '11
   Posts: 47

   Internet, computing, and their applications in other fields. Even though it's already been predicted, its economic value is enormous and growing. I imagine it's like going back and being able to invest in railroads in 1875, or oil in 1940. We know it's here to stay, and the whole sector is still in its infancy. Other innovations of this magnitude have spawned industries that have remained profitable for hundreds of years. How to play it? Well to each their own on that. My strategy is to keep betting on the known winners and watch for new winners as they emerge.

   Posted 1 year ago #
9. 

   Bendoza
   

   Apprentice
   Joined: Jan '11
   Posts: 33

   I'm really hoping that the next big thing is (finally) Space. I know we've all been waiting for the Space Age since the 1960s, but between SpaceX's mission to the ISS later this month ( http://www.space.com/15361-spacex-dragon-mars-settlement.html ) and Planetary Resources announcement of a plan to mine asteroids ( http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2074/1 ), maybe it's finally time. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but man do I want it to happen!

   Posted 1 year ago #
10. 

    Ego
    

    Master
    Joined: Nov '11
    Posts: 749

    On my run this morning I remembered the hypernet....

    http://rogerandmike.com/

    Posted 1 year ago #
11. 

    dot_com_vet
    

    Master
    Joined: Jan '11
    Posts: 376

    The return of steamships?

    "Australian mogul plans Titanic II"

    Okay, II is going to be diesel powered. We live in interesting times.

    Posted 1 year ago #
12. 

    Aesops
    

    Novice
    Joined: Apr '12
    Posts: 6

    I think the next big things will be in the field of bioengineering. They are on the cusp of some revolutionary understanding from which innovation will hopefully follow.

    But the future is only brighter if humanity believes it will be so, and the Kondratieff cycle suggests that the next stage will not be so serene. Our "next big thing" today is biased by our largely stable environment and uni-polar political world. When that starts to change, we might have more than a technological revolution in the developed world.

    Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.