Let’s forget about COVID-19 for a minute, okay?
Let’s also forget whether or not there’s going to be a recession, whether or not Trump will be reelected President or whether interest rates in 2021 will be higher or lower.
Let’s look beyond today’s headlines into the future.
Despite recent events and the stock market’s huge volatility over the past few weeks, humanity – and civilization – are going to survive.
No matter how far we’ve come since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, we are still in the early stages of an incredible revolution in science that’s going to make humanity wealthy beyond our current dreams.
Yes, it’s the future – but not the far, far future of Star Trek and Star Wars.
Technological changes are coming rapidly. Hang on for a few more years, and you’ll live to see them – and to profit from them.
There are going to be MANY “opportunities of your lifetime,” the “next biggest thing” and “the next Facebook, Amazon or Apple.”
If you talk yourself out of the stock market now, you won’t be able to take advantage of owning shares in the many great new companies that will be tomorrow’s giants.
Here’s a partial list of what’s coming in the near to mid-term future:
* Artificial Intelligence
* 5G
* Robotics
* Space travel
* Quantum computing
* Augmented reality
* Virtual reality
* Genetic engineering
* Big Data
* The Internet of Things
* Machine learning
* Sensors
* 5G
* 3-D printing
* Blockchain
* Nanotechnology
* Biotechnology
* Networking
* Cloud computing
You’ve probably heard about all of these – but not many people talk about this important concept:
Convergence.
That’s the way the technologies combine and interact to speed up the rate of advances.
A network of internal nanotechnology sensors will continuously monitor your health and use 5G to broadcast information to an advanced device such as Alexa – which will also monitor your activity and vital signs. They will store a huge amount of your data in the cloud. If an AI program decides you need medical attention, it will contact your doctor. Or call 911 if you need immediate help.
All that’s while you sleep – or, perhaps, while you live through an entertaining story in virtual reality. You’ll pay for it through automatic deductions from your checking account, validated by a blockchain application.
And all the electricity used by you will be generated by solar or wind power – or a combination of the two.
No, that’s not a reality yet – but it’s all coming.
We Think in Straight Lines – but Progress is Exponential
The graph for progress looks like a hockey stick.
It starts out with a slow, gradual upward slope, then trends almost straight up, very fast.
We went through 200,000 years of hunting and gathering. Then 10,000 years of agriculture. The Industrial Age began just around 200 years ago.
In just 74 years, the Information Age has gone from Eniac to everyone carrying around smartphones.
You probably feel overwhelmed sometimes because the world seems to keep changing more and more rapidly.
That’s an accurate feeling. The world IS changing more and more quickly because every advance makes additional advances possible.
The Economy has Ups and Downs but Keeps Trending Up in the Long Run
it’s not simply technological advances that are going to make many new millionaires and billionaires, but changes in our lives.
The legalization of cannabis and sports betting are just two.
But What About ______ ?
Fill in the blank with your favorite problem to worry about:
* Pandemics – right now, everybody’s favorite worry, with plenty of justification
* Climate change
* Overpopulation
* Environmental challenges
* Terrorism
* War
* Dictatorships
* The Deep State
* Inflation
* Deflation
* Too much debt
Those are all challenges, but humanity will solve them.
Not without casualties, but humanity – and civilization – will survive.
We survived being naked apes preyed on by lions and other predators (we’re very slow and weak compared to animals). We survived droughts and famines. We’ve survived wars. We survived the Black Death, smallpox and the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 1-5% of the world’s population.
What If I’m Wrong and Civilization As We Know It Doesn’t Survive?
Then you won’t care about the stock market.
You’ll be too busy scrounging for food and shooting zombies or surviving whatever disaster you believe is powerful enough to destroy humanity.
I can’t say you’re wrong.
I am saying, if humanity and civilization survive – the stock market will go up.
Maybe not next year, but eventually.
Just as it has since it was founded over two hundred years ago.
It will allow ordinary people to help finance economic and technological progress – and to share in the enormous abundance it’s going to create in partnership with advances in science and technology.
Despite many problems, it’s done that well.
It still offers your best chance to get rich in the long run – unless you’re in Silicon Valley and start your own company to take advantage of all the progress technology is going to make in the next few years.
If so, I wish you well.
But if you allow all the current fear of doom and gloom to convince you to sell your storks because the world’s going to end . . .
You’ll have to pay capital gains taxes to the government and invest what they leave you into bonds.
When it comes to your invested money, please ignore the current headlines.
Isolate yourself so you avoid the virus, and stay calm.
