...I explained last week in The Good News Economy how the current recovery should continue for a couple more years. Beyond that lies the Great Reset, featuring the “major economic pain” part. But beyond that is something much better… a time unprecedented in human history, when life will improve in ways we can barely imagine right now.
...No one on Earth had a smartphone until 2007. That first iPhone, revolutionary at the time, was primitive compared to even today’s low-end models.
...In the next decade, we’ll see multiple inventions bring similar and, I believe, even greater changes. The details won’t be immediately obvious, but the changes will come. By 2030, they will be as ho-hum to us as smartphones are today.
.... Intangible software and information can spread at lightspeed, while 3-D printing will let manufacturing capacity grow faster and more widely than we’ve ever seen before.
In sum, the kind of change, magnitude of change, and rate of change will all likely speed up considerably in the coming years. It will be a roller-coaster ride. Now let’s look at some of the twists and turns it will bring us.
...The Mathematical Reason for Accelerated Change
Back in the late 1700s, maybe a dozen people understood the steam engine,... a steam engine that could do the work of four horses pumping water out of a coal mine.
... Google and Facebook are in a race to make wireless internet available to every part of the earth. ...By the middle of the next decade, Wi-Fi will be essentially free or at negligible cost.
...Turning Back the Clock
Demographic challenges lie behind many of our economic problems, and the #1 demographic challenge is aging. ...This is going to change for the better. I don’t mean simply longer lifespans, ... Much better to have a long, healthy life, and then decline quickly when it naturally ends.
That is exactly where biotechnology is taking us. ... treatments that can not only slow the aging process to a crawl, but in some quite profound ways, actually reverse it. We already see it in animal studies. Elderly mice exposed to these new treatments regrow their hair, gain muscle mass, see and hear better, and even regain their sexual vigor.
...Then there is the astonishing progress being made against our most challenging medical foes: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and assorted other killers. Big data and AI systems are quickly decoding the genetics behind some of them, leading to better detection and treatment. I truly believe we will have eliminated most cancers by 2030, or at least turned them into minor, easily treated conditions.
...I’m invested in a company that is in phase 2 of a “silver bullet” cancer cure. If we are successful, and it is still if, the treatment will not require hospitalization and seems to have minimal side effects. I now think the biggest risk to my investment is not that our drug does not work, but that other drugs will be cheaper, better, and faster.)
... New Space Race
At the end of last week’s letter, I mentioned the billionaires’ space race. Paul Allen, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk all want to send satellites and/or people into orbit and eventually beyond. Unlike the 1960’s US-Soviet space race, this one has unashamedly commercial motives.
These men are so wealthy, in part because they can recognize opportunities and what it takes to seize them. Reaching space at a reasonable cost is the first step, so that’s the first order of business. … and competition between them will probably work better and faster than waiting for the government to do it.
...The first goal is to put more satellites in orbit. We forget that our smartphone location features depend on the satellite-based Global Positioning System. And of course, satellites take the pictures you see on your phone’s mapping app. All that works well, but more satellites will make it even better.
Financial Revolution
Finally—and you wouldn’t know this from all the tariff talk—capital is flowing around the world like never before. Investors who once thought they should stick “close to home” have branched out internationally. They do this in part because technology makes it possible to monitor assets you own, even on the other side of the world. This is good because it means capital will flow more easily to the entrepreneurs with the best ideas, wherever they may be geographically. Ultimately, that’s good for everyone.
From a human perspective, it really doesn’t make any difference where an invention comes from, as long as it improves our lives. 35% of artificial intelligence research funding will come from China in the next three years. PricewaterhouseCoopers recently projected AI’s deployment will add $15.7 trillion to global GDP by 2030, with China taking home $7 trillion of that total, dwarfing North America’s $3.7 trillion share.
You think engineers and scientists in India are going to sit back? Or Thailand? No. Ricardo was right, different countries will specialize in their strengths. Yes, we would all like our home team to be the one that benefits the most, but the reality is the world is going to benefit, and we are all part of the world.
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