Brian Gongol
This week in trends, tips, and technology
Show notes for the "WHO Radio Wise Guys"
Today's negative real interest rates are something to behold
If you loan money to the Federal government for 5, 7, 10, or even 20 years, you will actually get paid less in interest than you will lose in buying power over that same time. In other words, it's a negative "real" rate of interest. That's exceptional...people around the world remain so fearful of the future that they're willing to pay the Federal government of the United States for the "privilege" of letting the government borrow their money. This behavior is clinically insane.
We live in dualistic economic times
The progress of technology, the growth in regulation, the hazard of steep tax increases to come, the natural-gas boom, the global marketplace, and the very deep cuts to interest rates all mean that we're in an economic phase that is very bad for people without skills or capital, even though lots of companies are doing quite well. It's all easy to lay out, but seeing where the future lies may be something else altogether.
Costas does Ludacris name-checking Costas
(Video)
Wearable computing that could make a real difference
A "smart bracelet" is being developed that would track aid workers in faraway lands, giving them the option to trigger a signal that could be relayed both to GPS tracking and to social media if they find themselves in dangerous situations. You can have your Pebble watches and Nike Fuel bands...but this is wearable computing that could make a real difference.
Anti-capital?
The President's budget proposal that's expected to come out next week may include some new limitations on how much people are allowed to put into their retirement accounts on a tax-advantaged basis. Here's the thing about such a proposal: We can't really evaluate it until it's on paper, nor is it necessarily unreasonable to place limits on the amount to which incentives are given in order to get people to put away more money for retirement. But a government whose first instinct always is to discourage capital investment is one that implicitly discourages all of the things that are necessary to putting people to work and making their lives better.
