Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Investing in Digital Currencies

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought .... John F. Kennedy



 
A new decentralized global financial system is possible with cryptocurrencies by removing layers of intermediation.
Every major financial institution in the world is doing blockchain research at the moment and 15% of banks are expected to be using blockchain in 2017.

Blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records, called “blocks.”
The first major blockchain innovation was bitcoin, a digital currency experiment in 2007 .
The market cap of bitcoin now hovers between $10–$20 billion dollars, and is used by millions of people for payments.
Blockchain has remained resilient to attack and it supports a robust payment system.

Cosider just 10 years of work by an elite group of computer scientists, cryptographers and mathematicians:

  • A higher degree of reliability than the current system
  • International currency transfers will go from days to a few minutes
  • Auctions can now be universal and global
  • A scaled blockchain is expected to be fast enough to power the internet of things
  • Go head-to-head with the major payment middlemen (VISA and SWIFT) of the banking world.

With these suddden changes to existing business models and e-commerce, blockchain will disrupt the financial system much
like what the internet did to media and adevertising. Such a fundamental restructuring of a core part of the economy is a big challenge to all.
Preparing for these changes means investing and experimentation.
Those who do so will be well placed to thrive in the new, emerging financial system.

While Investing in Digital Currencies, Reflect on these three Propositons:
 1. Globalization is a major driver of growth and prosperity
 2. Technological progress enriches our lives
 3. Shareholder returns reflect businesses contributions to society

Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them.... Francis Bacon

See You at the Top








Sunday, March 05, 2017

Tax the Robots

"There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better."-------Elon Musk


23% of routine jobs have largely been replaced by robotics and automation,
robotic production lines like Tesla’s will continue to eat away at manufacturing jobs.

This is just the beginning of the disruption;

There are now more robots on the internet searching for news an updates than humans

Robots are now taking over a range of jobs from security to checkout clerks.

At one restaurant in China, you can order a bowl of noodles made entirely by robots.

Japanese life insurer Fukoku Mutual replaced 34 insurance claim workers with IBM Watson Explorer software

Self-driving cars and drones will be able to pay for services (charging pods) with block chain 

There are just a lot of things that machines can do better than human beings;Jobs like teacher, doctor,
financial advisor, stockbroker, marketer, and business consultant.

Doctors and Consultants will never be able to keep up with every new publication in their areas of expertise.  Instead, they must rely on a small number of personal experiences rather than the complete knowledge in their field.

Humans can’t just plug in more servers when we reach our limits of processing new information

Many skilled jobs follow the same general workflow that robots perform better:
Gather data
Analyze the data
Interpret the results
Determine a recommended course of action
Implement the course of action

There is a social cost:
The avarage human with an income of $45,000.00 will pay income tax, pay social security tax, pay for services at the grocery store, restaurants, school, clinics, banks and run a family.

With the jobs gone, the entire social fabric is at risk.

Casting the blame of job losses on migration and globalisation is for small minds. These families are barely making enough to survive.

Plugin and Tax the Robots.

A powerful idea communicates some of its power to the man who contradicts it........... Marcel Prous

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