Brian Gongol
Could you imagine drivers' ed in a Humvee? That's how some members of the US Armed Forces are training troops from the Republic of Georgia for their work in Iraq.
We have some big fiscal issues on the horizon here in the US (most especially the huge problems coming in Medicare), imagine having to support six times your number in aging relatives. That's what life will be like for many Chinese, due to their one-family, one-child policy.
Who knew the Ronco bankruptcy could be so complicated?
What does the future hold? Here are a few guesses from the latest version of my Future Scale, which you can compare with the predictions from the BT Technology Timeline, which also seeks to forecast the future.
The flooding that has made a mess of Iowa and much of the Midwest these past few weeks has been awful, but imagine if we had been subject to tidal forces, like they are in London. A bunch of Iowa cities are already under Federal orders to split their storm and sanitary sewers, but after a range of sewer backups due to the rain all over the state, don't be surprised if lots of other towns also try to get their taxpayers to pony up for similar civil-works projects.
Yet another lesson in unforseen consequences: The government's plans to make it easier to snoop on potential terrorists could just make the US more vulnerable to cyber-attack.
The politicians trying to pressure the Federal Reserve need to be quiet post-haste. If they get away with pushing around the central bank now, we can bet on getting hit with a massive inflation tax in a few years when we can no longer afford our social safety net.
Keywords in this show:
armed forces •
bankruptcy •
China •
cyber-warfare •
Federal Reserve •
flooding •
future •
futurism •
inflation •
Iraq •
Medicare •
London •
sewers •
terrorism •
taxes