While I called solar energy “mostly a speculative venture” in my previous post while making the case for investing in LNG transport, I want to make the case for why solar still has a role in my portfolio. Continue reading “The Case for Investing in Solar Energy”
Tag: technology
Sector Study Session
Let’s explore some potential investing strategies in 4 different stock sectors: technology, healthcare, energy, and real estate. We’ll start with tech, which had a huge drop today worth serious examination. Continue reading “Sector Study Session”
Book Review: Physics of the Future
This book has a misleading title, which may or may not be the author’s fault, but it is a valuable resource for considering the possible technological developments of the next several decades. Dr. Michio Kaku focuses a lot more on biology than physics, which is the one thing I found disappointing about the book. However, his coverage of nanotechnology makes a nice recovery.
Dr. Kaku’s realistic discussion of artificial intelligence presents the most important conclusion of his research in future technologies: we cannot recreate the human mind. He writes,
Since we are drowning in an ocean of information, the most precious commodity in modern society is wisdom. Without wisdom and insight, we are left to drift aimlessly and without purpose, with an empty, hollow feeling after the novelty of unlimited information wears off.
Much like Thomas L. Friedman in The World Is Flat, Dr. Kaku shows how the economy progresses from commodity capitalism to intellectual capitalism through processes like the Four Stages of Technology and Moore’s Law. Your mind is the one thing that disruptive innovation can never replace. So invest in yourself and train your brain by reading books. Physics of the Future is a good place to start!
Book Review: The World Is Flat
While it seems a little early to write a “history of the 21st century,” The World Is Flat is full of amazing insights that reshape the way we look at our world. What do the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Netscape IPO, and 9/11 all have in common? Thomas L. Friedman shows how these and other events are both causes and effects of the flattening of the world that has been on a fast track from 1989 to today.
There is no aspect of our lives that isn’t affected by the flattening trend. Most of these effects are good for us, but only if we understand them. 9/11 is an example of what happens when one group of people takes advantage of the flattening world for destructive purposes while another is unimaginative about its possibilities. The rise of eBay is an example of how a simple technology-based platform can open the business world to people who had previously been held back by geography, age, prejudice, or disability.
This book is an absolute must-read for every global citizen, whether they hold a political office, invest in emerging markets, or work on an assembly line. So many non-fiction books I read start off interesting and then become dull, as if the author had a great idea, but had trouble filling a few hundred pages with it. TWIF gets more and more interesting as you go, building up to a final chapter where Friedman offers a viable solution to create global peace, while simultaneously predicting the populist revolution that is happening today. It is clear that this book has not been read by enough people, and that needs to change!
Econ4All 